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Literature and Gender in the New Colonies

            During the infant stages of America's development throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, settlers came over not knowing what their futures held or all the hardship they must first endure before finally building colonies that would grow and flourish. With the harsh environment and unknown world before them, men were seen as the saviors and the creatures of the new world. In contrast, women were simply pushed aside and not given their rightful place in history. Women were told to stay within their roles as a housewife and caregiver; none could rise up against the oppressive ways they had come to know. While history has shown that there were those who rose up and fought against oppression with blood, few women did so in the colonial period. There were those in the new world who fought the oppressive ways of society by proving that the pen is much mightier than the sword. Writers such as Anne Bradstreet revolutionized the stage for women writers in the early years of the colonies, pushed the boundaries, and made a lasting impact for women's rights. A hundred years after Bradstreet pushed the boundaries with her captivating poetry and paved the way for future women to take over, Judith Murray broke through with her use of unfiltered literature and she continued the fight for women's equality. During the federal period, women like Judith Murray took greater liberty in letters and intellectual pursuits than women such as Anne Bradstreet took during the middle colonial period. With Murray's strong feminist views and Bradstreet's tenacity to see change for the female role in society, they were able to begin the process of change for all women.
             Both Murray and Bradstreet were alike in having been privy to a good education. Bradstreet especially, having been born in a frame of time where the education women received was severely shorter and less comprehensive than the education of men.


Essays Related to Literature and Gender in the New Colonies

1. Puritan Recreation

One of the biggest fears they had when they came to the New World was the fear that they would completely lose touch with English culture, and they tried to avoid this by keeping up with English literature as much as they possibly could. ... The popularity of literature in the colonies influenced people to start reading themselves. ... This is not true - Puritans looked at dancing with suspicion, but no law against all dancing was ever actually passed in New England, as no one could ever come up with a good argument against it, and there was no Bible passage expressly forbidding it. However, ...

  • Word Count: 850
  • Approx Pages: 3

2. Puritan Recreation

One of the biggest fears they had when they came to the New World was the fear that they would completely lose touch with English culture, and they tried to avoid this by keeping up with English literature as much as they possibly could. ... The popularity of literature in the colonies influenced people to start reading themselves. ... This is not true - Puritans looked at dancing with suspicion, but no law against all dancing was ever actually passed in New England, as no one could ever come up with a good argument against it, and there was no Bible passage expressly forbidding it. However, ...

  • Word Count: 865
  • Approx Pages: 3

3. New Movement

The vast majority of Africans brought to the British colonies worked as agricultural laborers; many were brought to the colonies specifically for their experience in rice growing, cattle herding, or river navigation (Collier, 1985). ... Literature of the Harlem Renaissance In the early 1920s, three works signaled the new creative African American energy in literature. ... The book showed both sides of Harlem, helping create a "Negro vogue- that drew thousands of New Yorkers, black and white, to Harlem's exotic and exciting nightlife and stimulated a national market for African Americ...

  • Word Count: 2619
  • Approx Pages: 10
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4. Anne bradstreet

Her version of the facts is more or less a testimony that life was more peaceful in the American colonies. ... The colonies are in some way criticizing England for having a civil war on its ground but what Bradstreet did not foretell is that an American civil war would happen two hundred and twenty years later. ... For the Dialogue between Old England and New, Bradstreet does not represent Old and New England the same way. ... In the American colonies, new ways of thinking were in new places where people faced new conditions of living and the...

  • Word Count: 1674
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

5. The Quest for Identity

People are especially made aware of these discrepancies through the use of the huge amount of different markers which are bestowed to them, and which are all intimately linked to such categories as: social, physical appearance, personality, nationality, religion, family relationships, gender, occupation, culture. ... It is the story of a man who slept for twenty years, waking to find that the colonies had become independent, that the most important event in the American history had happened, ironically, while he was sleeping. ... The first is an allegory of New England history, a few years b...

  • Word Count: 2241
  • Approx Pages: 9
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6. The Diversity of American Thought

The question as to whether groups with different ethnicities or countries actually do "melt"" together, or simply learn to live side by side, is a topic beyond the scope of this paper; but the fact remains that, however a misconception of the majority, race, cultural identity, and gender represent the totality of a person. ... In many of the editorial introductions to the essays, stories, and songs found in "The Heath Anthology of American Literature," the editors seem to wonder the same thing and appear to have taken pains to consult a wide variety of sources for inclusion, "So that the work...

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7. Columbia

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8. The Subordinate Strange "Savage" versus the Superior Success

This will therefore involve the definition and exploration into the film's context, gender, race, stereotypes, objectification, authority, autonomy, agency, roles, binary oppositions, space, time, the exotic, cultural and social significance, identity and boundary. ... For the above to be examined, the attention must first turn to what the literature says on the named issues. This literature analysis will also include a depiction of the mass media and its powers of persuasion, the portrayal of Western ideology, and the establishment of the characters and context in which the movie take...

  • Word Count: 5435
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9. Chinese Women

How has the issue of gender superiority evolved in China? ... (Tan p. 18) These new rules improved the conditions, however, women were still subjected to their husband's demands. ... Women could express themselves through literature and art. They displayed their skills in pottery by the intricate designs they were able to create and their sorrows in literature. ... A new rule was enforced to limit the movements of women. ...

  • Word Count: 2634
  • Approx Pages: 11
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

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