Women's Rights
Inaara Maredia
How women's rights changed over time
In Antigone, The Yellow Wallpaper, The Story of an Hour, and A Left-Handed Commencement Address; Sophocles, Charlotte Gilman, Kate Chopin and Ursula K. Le Guin, all talk about women's rights.
The Story of an Hour
"Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death."
The Story of an Hour
"But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely."
The Story of an Hour
"There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination."
The Story of an Hour Commentary
In the first quote, it is talking about how her friends and family would tell Mrs. Mallard the news of her husband's death. They tell Mrs. Mallard the news very carefully because she has heart troubles and is a woman. in the second quote, Mrs. Mallard is thinking about how her husbancd's death would freedom for her and how life would finally belong to her. in the third quote, Mrs. Mallard is thinking about how her will to do whatever she wanted will no longer be bounded by the will of her husband.
Antigone
"Our own death would be if we should go against Creon and do what he has forbidden! We are only women, we cannot fight with men!"
Antigone
"This boy, it seems, has sold out to woman. If you are a woman: my concern is only for you." "Fool, adolescent fool! Taken in by a woman! You’ll never see me taken in by anything vile."
Antigone
"Not to lose your head over this woman. Your pleasure with her would soon, grow cold, Haimon, And then you’d have a hellcat in bed and elsewhere. And no woman shall seduce us. If we must lose, Let’s lose to a man, at least! Is a woman stronger than we?"
Antigone commentary
In the first Antigone quote Ismene is talking to Antigone and trying to get her to not go against Creon because they are only women and they cannot go against the king. In the second quote Creon and Hameon are arguing if Antigone should be killed for her actions and Creon is telling Hameon that he has be taken in by a women which is an insult. In the third quote Creon is telling Hameon that he does not need to defend Antigone because she is only good in bed and that he will grow tired of her.
The Left-Handed Commence. Addres
"Commencements are usually operated under the unspoken agreement that everybody graduating is either male or ought to be."
The Left-Handed Commenece. Addres
"Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language." "This is a man’s world, so it talks a man’s language. The words are all words of power."
The Yellow Wallpaper
"There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with LNG grape covered arbors with seats under them. There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now."
The Left-Handed Commencement Address & The Yellow Wallpaper
In the first quote Ursula is saying that people think that it should be men that graduate from colleges instead of women. In the second quote Ursula is saying that the public language is the language of men. Meaning that whatever the public thinks is usually what the men think because women do not have an input in the situations. In the last quote from The Yellow Wallpaper I think it symbolizes how she is beautiful and composed on the inside but on the inside she too is broken.
Bibliographies
Chopin, Kate. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Kate Chopin: Complete Novels and Stories. Edited by
Sandra Gilbert. New York: Library of America, 2002.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. " The Yellow Wallpaper " Project Gutenberg, 5 Nov. 2012.
Web. 2 Feb. 2015
Guinn, Ursula K. Le. " A Left-Handed Commencement Address." Mills College, Oakland, CA.
1983. Commencement Address
Sophocles. Antigone. F. Storr. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1912.
Web.