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The Revolt of Mother

The husband "hustled the collar onto her neck with a jerk" and "slapped the saddle upon the mare's back (168). His treatment of the horse symbolizes his treatment of his wife. He wants her to remain quiet and perform her duties just as his horse does. Freeman shows his frustration at her assertive behavior by using the words "hustled," "jerked," and "slapped." Each of these words points toward the implicit violence inherent in oppression. .
             The description of how Adoniram sees his wife reveals both Sarah's character and the oppressiveness of the society. When Sarah bluntly asks Adoniram what he and his men are building, she looks "as immovable to him [Adoniram] as one of the rocks on the pasture-land, bound to the earth with generations of blackberry vines" (168). The description of Sarah's immovability as a rock bound by very old vines suggests her strength is a "natural" part of her womanhood. Within Sarah lie the feminine (represented by the blackberry vines) and the masculine (represented by the rock) traits that make her a complete person. Freeman is also making a subtle comment on Sarah's oppression by and subordination to her husband found in the image of a rock "bound" to earth by "generations"-old traditions of masculine dominance.
             Once Freeman establishes the masculine dominance of the New England society, she begins to place Sarah's domestic actions in the context of male-dominated history. The first example of this comes when Freeman describes Sarah as having an "expression of meek vigor which might have characterized one of the New Testament saints" (170). At first, it appears that Freeman is simply describing a stereotypical view of woman as being "meek" or passive and that the saints she is referring to must be women. However, when one considers how the allusion to the "New Testament saints" fits within the other historical allusions in the story, it becomes apparently clear that Freeman is talking about male saints.


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