Warnings Against Gender Stereotypes in Early Twentieth-Century American

Many early twentieth-century American writers used contravenes establish on female stereotypes as a cardinal theme in their works. For example, the titular character from bloody shame E. Wilkins Freemans short yarn A New England Nun lives a life of domestic solitude, gayly sewing and cleaning while separated from her husband to be for close to fifteen years. Freemans nun uses her domesticity as an excuse to avoid marrying her fianc, though she leads him on for most of the story and only avoids marriage after learning of her betrotheds applaud for another woman. Similarly, the much mentioned but never revealed central character in Susan Glaspells play Trifles seems to embrace domesticity to escape the misery brought on by her marriage, thus far managing to escape both the guilt and suspicion of her husbands murder through her and her match characters embrace of her passive, domestic, and harmless feminine archetype. By focusing on the conflict arising from female stereotypes, these two stories reveal the dangers of stereotyping women as passive, subordinate, and domesticated, both to the adopter and the adoptee.Mary E. Wilkins Freemans A New England Nun reveals the hazards of female stereotypes to their adoptees through the actions of Louisa Ellis. At the while of the story, Louisa has been engaged to marry her fianc Joe Dagget for fifteen years, fourteen of which he has spent onward from Louisa (Freeman 1623). Though Louisa admits that fifteen years ago she had been in love with him, she feels worried about their inevitable marriage after his return (Freeman 1623). Louisas apprehension towards Joe builds throughout the story, but because her embrace of the female stereotype prevents her from expressing her true feelings and breaking... ... escape their unsuitable predicaments. The ease at which the problems in both stories could be solved by abandoning presumptions of how women should behave suggests that Susan Glaspell and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman want people to follow their receive desires rather than the conventions of gender roles. Furthermore, this moral continues to be true today modernistic readers can still benefit from relinquishing their assumptions about how others should behave based on their gender, religion, or ethnicity.Works CitedFreeman, Mary E. Wilkins. A New England Nun. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. 1620-1627. Print.Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. 1968-1976. Print.