Preview

Summary Of A Married State By Katherine Phillips

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
258 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Summary Of A Married State By Katherine Phillips
In A Married State, Katherine Phillips speaks to the clash between a woman fulfilling her spiritual, emotional needs and fulfilling her physical social responsibilities. Phillips begins with the light diction of “content” and “innocent” to highlight the two different spaces that were expected of women: virginity and happiness in their lowly station in life. The former reflects their physical history, while the latter reflects their spiritual state. These were often at odds due to women being unable to marry for love and oppressed by society. Phillips then goes on to illustrate these physical and worldly oppressions as “blustering husbands to create your fears, pangs of childbirth to extort your fears, children cries for to offend your ears”.
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Assignment 1: The Republican Mother
    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Assignment 1: The Republican Mother

    Almost a century removed from the actions that spawned these changes, came a new idea and view of women called “The Republican Mother”. Society’s needs for women had begun to transform, which brought about changes such as citizenship for women. “The model republican woman was competent…..she was rational, independent, literate, and self-reliant”(pg.147). These new views of women challenged the foundations of the Colonial establishment of the Doctrine of Coverture, the law that forced a married woman to become a dependant and fall under her husband’s protection.…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    English 03
    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages

    English 03

    3. How does the McGee’s relationship support the idea that literature reflected some women’s feelings of being trapped and oppressed by their husbands?…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Thematic parallel of marriage and family in "A Secret Sorrow" by Karen van der Zee and "A Sorrowful Woman" Gail Godwin
    • 1568 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Thematic parallel of marriage and family in "A Secret Sorrow" by Karen van der Zee and "A Sorrowful Woman" Gail Godwin

    In both the excerpts from Karen van der Zee 's novel "A Secret Sorrow" and in Gail Godwin 's short story "A Sorrowful Woman," the plots center on ideas of marriage and family. Conversely, marriage and family are presented in very different lights in the two stories. Karen van der Zee presents marriage with children as perfect and completely fulfilling; it is what Faye, the protagonist of "A Secret Sorrow", wants and what is necessary to her happiness. For Godwin 's unnamed protagonist, marriage and family are almost the antithesis of happiness; her home life seems to suffocate hear and eventually leads her to death. "A Secret Sorrow" directly endorses and encourages marriage, whereas "A Sorrowful Woman" indirectly questions and discourages it.…

    • 1568 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood
    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Analysis Of The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    Author Margaret Atwood’s writing has been shaped by one particular movement- the push for women’s rights in the 1960s and 1970s. When Atwood was a college student, “a woman was expected to follow one path: to marry in her early 20s, start a family quickly, and devote her life to homemaking” (“The 1960s-70s”). Employers assumed that the females who did work would soon become pregnant, so ladies were unlikely to advance in their careers. What money they did earn was controlled by their husbands, or their male wardens, as females are legally subject to them. With the development of the birth control pill a few years later, women could now chase professional careers and “the double standard that allowed premarital sex for men but prohibited…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Social Pressures In Anne Sexton's Poem, Her Kind
    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Social Pressures In Anne Sexton's Poem, Her Kind

    Anne Sexton’s poem, “Her Kind” presents a stark look at the roles that women place themselves in and are forced into by societal pressures. Throughout history, women have been expected to take on the role of obedient wife, and failure to do so can result in a barrage of retaliations on a woman and her lifestyle. Though Sexton’s troubled past of depression and eventual suicide has cast negative light on the meanings of her works--particularly speculation that her work is a confession-- “Her Kind” is not so much a personal story as it is the story of the three roles women continue to fall into, even to this day: a witch, an old-school midwife, and a whore.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen.
    • 1562 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen.

    Through the connections made between PP and LA, responders gain a deeper understanding of the purpose of a marital relationship within society, especially its importance in the lives of women. In the patriarchal society of Austen’s context women have no individual rights of their own and since inheritance was passed through the male linage marriage was the economic bases of life and the only option for women with limited fortune and beauty. The subsequent importance of marriage has been supported by the critic Ginger Graph, “the world of this novel; marriage is the market, and the young woman are the merchandise.” Austen has reflected the purpose of marriage as a tool for economic survival through her pragmatic characterisation of Charlotte Lucas who agrees to marry Mr Collins despite his, “conceded, pompous, narrow-minded nature,” she admits to Elizabeth that she “asks only for a comfortable…

    • 1562 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Role of Women in Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice

    • 1643 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Role of Women in Pride and Prejudice and Letters to Alice

    The fundamental importance and value assigned to marriage in the context of Jane Austen and ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is reinforced through Weldon’s discussion of the options for women outside marriage and its purpose of providing financial security for women. In ‘Pride and Prejudice’, Austen presents the historical context of her novel in the mock axiom of “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” The parody of this statement is presented through Austen’s satirical tone, as the novel focuses heavily on women, rather than men, seeking to marry. Austen conveys this by directly informing the audience of Charlotte Lucas’ pragmatism, as she lives “without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young…

    • 1643 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Changing Ideals of American Womanhood between the American Revolution and the Civil War
    • 470 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Changing Ideals of American Womanhood between the American Revolution and the Civil War

    Contains a well-developed thesis that examines the changing ideals of American womanhood between the American Revolution (1770’s) and the Civil War and assesses the extent to which these ideals influenced the lives of women.…

    • 470 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Hollitz Chapter 11
    • 2145 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Hollitz Chapter 11

    1. The first essay clearly shows the impact that an ideology of domesticity on women in New England in the 1830’s. The writer at first calls this time period a “paradox in the “progress” of women’s history in the United States”. During this time apparently two contradictory views on women’s relations to society clashed, unusually, those two being domesticity, which essentially limited women, giving them a “sex-specific” role that they must abide to, this mostly being present at the home with their husbands and whatever kids they may or may not have had at that time, and feminism, which essentially tried to remove this domesticity, trying to remove sex-specific limits on women’s opportunities and capacities, trying to get them an increased role in society, not be defined to the home, and not have any limits on what they could do, and most of all be equal to men. This is because in New England, women were victims who were subjects of the painful subordination that came as an add-on with marriage during this period, as well as in society. They also experienced a huge disadvantage in education and in the economy, as well as the denial of their access to official power in their own churches, and impotence in politics. Essentially, the wife at this time, was defined by her husband, and she in no way, shape, or form could have a role that was more significant than her husband, let alone even as much as her husband in the societies that were present, and that they were a part of during this time period, best demonstrated by New England in 1835. She couldn’t sue, contract, or execute a will on her own, and divorce may have been possible, but quite rare. In fact, the public life of women was just about minimal, and none of them voted. Looking back, it was actually worse then than in 1770, as thanks to universal white male suffrage that was present during this period, their roles in society became heavily conspicuous, and in the…

    • 2145 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Book Review
    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Book Review

    The novel Good Wives is a study of the many roles women play in Northern New England from 1650-1750. The book is split into three sections; all named after biblical females who portrayed idealized feminine traits within New England society. The first part is named Bathsheba, which shows and explains the responsibilities and possibilities women had as a housewife focusing on economic life. The second part is dedicated to Eve. It includes not only the role of being a mother, but also the complexities of sexual life and childbirth in New England. In the third section, Jael, Ulrich explains the connection between female aggression and religion through many stories of violence. The novel shows in great detail the church requirements of what it means to be a “good wife” for a women living Colonial New England throughout their daily lives. In doing so, and then contrasting it to what actually happened in their lives, it shows that these women were far from just submissive beings to their husbands; but rather very important to colonial society, unlike how they may have been thought of in the past.…

    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In The Awakening
    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Symbolism In The Awakening

    Within the Isles, each married women has come to terms with this through generations of viewing it as a social norm but this practice is foreign to the Presbyterian and American Edna, leading to the main issue of the story and her rebellious acts in an attempt for self realization.…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Mommie Dearest?
    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Mommie Dearest?

    Godwin opens her short story with an opening sentence that confuses the mood of the parable and confounds the reader. “Once upon a time there was a wife and mother one too many times” (39). Those first four words, the quint-essential opening of every story book fantasy that invokes beautiful imagery of princesses and green forests with colorful gardens and carefree animals and always has a way of overcoming great obstacles to endorse a long and happy life, opens the reader’s mind to a cheerful theme. The next six words present an “ah” moment, eliciting the feeling of comfort and caring that a wife and mother provides. She has extracted emotions of love and adoration that many of us endear with our mothers to passion and intimacy towards our wives. Ms. Godwin has, in the first ten words of her first sentence, devoted the reader to the main character without even mentioning anything about her. We do not know who she is, we do not know where she is, we do not know how she is, but we want to know.…

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Feminist's View
    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A Feminist's View

    The main female character in “A Sorrowful Woman” had a family. She had a husband and a child who loved her, yet she wanted no part of it. She was depressed and angry. “The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to see them ever again” (Meyer 39). A feminist critic might say that a woman needs to be more than just a wife and mother. Women want to be educated and work outside of the home. A mother/wife needs to do more than just housework and child care, they need other duties. They want/need to feel more important. Not all women feel this way though, some women’s life goals are to marry and have children like Faye in A Secret Sorrow. Faye so badly wants to have children but is unable. Faye is a stereotype of how women are perceived. In Faye eyes and others’ women are born to marry and have children. Faye feels that the fact that she can’t have children makes her less of a woman. “You wouldn’t want me any more.” “I’m afraid… afraid to marry you” (Meyer 32-33). Faye believes that because she can’t have children, then she shouldn’t marry either because she would be letting her future husband down. Once Faye realizes that you can have children and a family other ways she is once again content with…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    I Want a Wife
    • 1065 Words
    • 5 Pages

    I Want a Wife

    The second wave of the feminist movement in the United States began during early 1960's and lasted throughout late 1970's. The purpose of the feminist movement was to have a right to vote and have the same equal rights as male citizens. Judy Brady's essay "I Want A Wife" first appeared in the Ms. Magazine's inaugural issue in 1971. I believe that genre of the article is a classic piece of feminist humor and is depicted as satirical prose. In this essay Brady aims to convince her readers to look objectively at a man's viewpoints and expectations of what he thinks a wife is and what she should be. Brady skillfully uses clear arguments, repetition of key words, stylish language to make her essay strong and convincing.…

    • 1065 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Carol Ann Duffy presents the relationship between men and women
    • 1083 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Carol Ann Duffy presents the relationship between men and women

    The World’s Wife originates from the idiom ‘The World and His Wife’ which is commonly used to express a large amount of people, however after understanding the feminist concept of Carol Ann Duffy’s work this idiom can be interpreted in a different light. The phrase may actually present men in a powerful position; it personifies the world and by doing so assumes that this great miracle must be a man, implying that men are the ones in control. ‘And his Wife’ suggests a woman, more specifically a wife, must stand behind her husband and support him - again suggesting male importance. The analysis for this title is the basis behind Duffy’s idea that relationships between men and women are flawed, in the poems Mrs. Lazarus and Mrs. Icarus, with the exception of the successful relationship in Anne Hathaway, Duffy mocks the common idea that men are more able while women are the weaker species and yet women are often the ones who suffer from the fall out of these relations, she does this using devices such as satire. Duffy marginalizes women by writing from a female point of view so that she is able to depict a woman’s voice behind many historical and mythical events, such as the poem Mrs. Lazarus; which is originally written from a male point of view in the Gospel of John.…

    • 1083 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics