Women In Persuasion

JaMarkus House
McQuirk
3rd Block

Women, as compared to men, are seen as minuscule. Women are expected to completely surrender all aspects of their life to men, while still being the emotional backbone of the family. Society sometimes thinks that women can only hold jobs as housekeepers, maids, or some other type of demeaning job. They are not afforded the opportunity to ever gain any high positions. Not only should they be allowed to gain a higher level of authority; but also gain the respect they deserve. In the book Persuasion, Jane Austen uses multiple characters, to portray how poorly women were treated in the 19th century and how they are taken for granted. In the early 19th century women did not have a big role in
Anne, another character in Persuasion, marries Wentworth, which makes her financially stable in society. If Anne had not married Wentworth she would have remained single, and not necessarily poor, but unstable financially. Posusta agrees that “Women in the 19th century learned their place at an early age. Women received the small amount of education afforded to them under the tutelage of their father, brothers, and guidebooks that were specifically designed to school them on how they should occupy space physically, socially and psychologically”(Posusta 76). Women in those days were sent off to finishing schools to teach them how to succumb to a man’s every wish. Having said this, men thought they were teaching women all they needed to know to get ahead in society, but they were wrong. Women, as well as men, had a right to an education! Posusta also reflects on the fact that “The gender of room in the 18th and 19th century was a product of patriarchal ideas about domestic and public spaces” (Posusta 76). Men and women generally pursue an interest in separate spheres. Because of this, the Victorian period proved that women and men had different aspirations and their ambitions should not be decided by anyone except themselves, therefore separated and different. Men were typically thought of as powerful, active, brave, independent, ambitious, and clean. On the other
Neubauer agrees with Posusta in that they both feel the same. Neubauer states that “Although Anne readily admits that men occupy the world far more dangerously than most women, but men are offered this opportunity, women are not. This distinction is what causes women to cling more tightly to their feelings and to the men they live vicariously through” (Neubauer 132). In society, men are typically offered more and better positions and things in life than women. The opportunity for a male to achieve greatness is simple and they actually succeed nine times out of