Literature
The eternal conflict that modern and classic literature have been pondering for years and still continue is a misunderstanding and false conception of the men’s and women’s nature. Many authors have tried to discuss the problem of mutual trust and equality between sexes, but for the most part those texts reflected anger and ever-growing dissatisfaction with the situation that representatives of both sexes were facing. The stories by Anton Chekhov, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin are discussing positions in which women are being captured by the society or their own husbands.
"The Lady with the Dog" by Chekhov is a controversial work that not only talks about woman’s feelings but also man’s despair about the situation they have found themselves in. Clearly the story is about a woman who is escaping her current life in sunny Yalta. In the moments of anguish after being with another man, Anna Sergeyevna cries "I despise myself and don’t attempt to justify myself. It’s not my husband but myself I have deceived", not to him though but as to make herself believe it and understand it. She is unhappy in her married life. Anna is not blaming anyone however as she knows that it is her own fault that she was lying to herself, because it was alright for the rest of the society of that time to be married to a person without love and mutual respect. He happiness she comprehended did not depend on her husband, she was trying to find it herself and when she found it in Dimitri, she faced cement walls of societal tradition. It was hard if not impossible to break it, besides Dimitri had children and job, responsibilities that required him to stay where he was even if it meant to be miserable. The story is simple and complicated; there is no happiness for Anna Sergeyevna because she didn’t listen to her heart once but there would be no chance for it in the future because society rules are not considering heart desires of women. Both of them were depressed but none of them were strong enough to change anything especially Anna, a dependable young woman.
WHEREAS no provisions have, as yet, been made by the World’s Columbian Exposition Commission for securing exhibits from the colored women of this country, or the giving of representation to them in such Fair, and WHEREAS under the present arrangement and classification of exhibits, it would be impossible for visitors to the Exposition to know and distinguish the exhibits and handiwork of the colored women from those of the Anglo- Saxons, and because of this the honor, fame and credit for all meritorious exhibits, though made by our race, would not duly be given us ... RESOLVED that for the purpose of demonstrating the progress of the colored women since emancipation and of showing to those who are yet doubters, and there are many, that the colored women ... are making rapid strides in art, science and manufacturing, and of furnishing to all information as to ... what the race has done, is doing and might do, in every department of life, that we, the colored women of Chicago request the Columbian Commission to establish an office for a colored woman whose duty it shall be to collect exhibits from the colored women of America ... [ellipses in source]
—Colored Women Of Chicago, As quoted in The Fair Women. Ch. 6, by Jeanne Madeline Weimann (1981)
"The Yellow Wall-Paper" story is another tragic example of a woman with no sense to existence. A young and very weak physically woman is kept in a big suburban house. Ironically her husband is a physician but he is helpless in making her feel better, from the very beginning it becomes clear that the woman’s problem is far from mere physical but rather psychological. As the story unfolds one sees that there are no visible reasons for her to be unhappy, it’s because those reasons are hidden deeply in her heart and under the pattern of the yellow wall-paper in her bedroom. "I've got out at last," said I, "in spite of you and Jane! And I've pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put me back!", those are the final words of the story that reveal the secret behind a mysterious woman crawling on the wall-paper. This poor soul is the woman herself who was trying to get her inner self out under the pressure of her husband’s soft and loving dictatorship. She was suffering from her inability to express herself so much that she has gone mad, although it does not seem that odd for a contemporary reader now. The brutal truth of the world was what she wanted to know and her desire to live a real and not refined life was what she hoped for when she pulled the wall-paper of the walls.
Kate Chopin was another woman who was concerned with the rights and possibilities of her fellow ladies. In her story "The Story of an Hour" we see a grieving woman who is not able to understand the unknown feeling inside of her, as it was not despair for the deceased husband. Later she understands what it was and "She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" not believing her strength and courage to even think those thoughts and say them out loud even to herself. The contrast of death and gloom is opposed to the happiness by possibility of a new life for her stresses how incredibly unhappy the heroine’s existence was with her husband. Sarcastic writer does not allow young lady to actually enjoy her freedom because her "departed" husband has come home as alive as could be. Nothing else could speak loudly than this episode of the situation women are in according to the writer, because women in society remain always controlled by men.
The three episodes from the lives of three young women from different counties with different fates are remarkably alike, as they are united by common pain. All of them are unhappy in their marriages and when trying to get out and find something better in life, they only get more heartache and see no way out. Their sorrow comes from the very depth of their hearts desire to know themselves better and live according to their own will only. Their desire does not coincide with that of the society however and provides no solution to their problem, thus causing one of them to die, one go insane and another to silently suffer forever.
Women over fifty already form one of the largest groups in the population structure of the western world. As long as they like themselves, they will not be an oppressed minority. In order to like themselves they must reject trivialization by others of who and what they are. A grown woman should not have to masquerade as a girl in order to remain in the land of the living.
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
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