Feminism and Literature, Essay Example

Throughout the early 20th century, women were working hard towards achieving social equality for themselves. Despite the fact that women already had many right throughout this time, they were still given the stereotype that there were inferior to men. Because of this, many contemporary thinkers came about who believed in the women’s suffrage movement. This combination of both desire and contemporary thinking led to women attaining more equality than they could have ever asked for years after.

 It is without a doubt that the message that Susan Glaspell was attempting to portray through her most famous work The Outside was the fact that women should not be perceived by the common stereotype of the time. In her famous work, Glaspell is able to prove the fact that women are not as bad as everyone thinks. In addition, it is shown how the reason as to why everyone believes in the common stereotypes that surrounds women is because of the fact that it has become common trend to do so. By portraying characters such as Captain and Bradford, I believe that Glaspell was trying to show represent the general public as a whole. These two characters start off the play with thinking of women as less of them and, of course, following the common misconception about women. However, as the play prolongs and the audience is introduced to the women, they are given very different ideas of what the women would be like. Clearly, the women are not what Captain and Bradford has described. In fact, they are portrayed as quite the opposite. Strategies like these were very common at the time of feminist contemporary thinkers who believed that women deserved a fair place in society just like men had one. Therefore, this brings forth the conclusion that feminist literature was able to prevail in the time of contemporary thinking is because of the fact that is was so effective in its time and because of the manner in which its literature spoke volumes to the audience.