Mary Wilkins-Freeman Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Mary Wilkins-Freeman - Research Paper Example Mary Wilkins Freeman is considered as one of the earliest feminist writers and placed at the same category with the writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe and  Sarah Orne Jewett. Critics find her work many a times quite provincial and they claim they are too oriented to New England. But new critics find an inherent feminist call in all her works. There is a story of struggle and women empowerment in all her stories that mark and initiate the trajectory of modern women and feminist discourse. Freeman’s story projects series of character and she is famous for her art of characterization. Critics view that the stories of Wilkins presents Randolph neighbourhood. This essay intends to study the characters from the stories, ‘New England Nun’, ‘A Church Mouse’, ‘Old Woman Magoun’ and his famous story, ‘The Revolt of Mother’ which was also broadcasted and dramatized in PBS in the recent past, and relates the lives of the protagonist of these stories with that of Wilkins and explores the reflection of the life of an individual writer made universal and relative through the immense and intense portrayal of life-like characters. Comparative Study of the Protagonists of Short Stories: New England Nun, A Church Mouse, The Revolt of Mother and Old Woman Magoun and Analysis of their Life with that of Wilkins’ Own Story To analyse the conflict of paradoxical voices within conscience of the protagonists of the stories like ‘New England Nun’, ‘A Church Mouse’, The Revolt of Mother’ and ‘Old Woman Magoun’ and to establish relative contexts with that of the Wilkins’ life, it is important to have a brief look at the writer’s life and these stories individually. A close look at the life of Wilkins enables the reader to understand the kind of struggle the woman has undergone and as a first generation working woman the kind of struggle she had to face in order to strike the balance between her profession and family. As a writer and a conscious citizen, she had a pertinent rebellious spirit captivated within her body and therefore had to fight a consistent and relentless battle between her inner voice that always had tried to stand against the orthodox social and religious constraints and the other voice did not permit out to be a staunch rebel and instead guided her to the path of calm domesticity. Torn asunder under the paradoxes of self and inner conscience, Mary Wilkins Freeman chosen the medium of literature to speak out her mind and aware the society of her thoughts. Under these circumstances of writer’s life it is quite pertinent that the reflections of these paradoxes are deciphered in the characters of her stories. â€Å"New England Nun† is a story of a woman named Lousia Ellis and the story was published in the year 1891. The protagonist of the story is Louisa Ellis, who has spend a major portion of her life alone wit h her pet dog Caesar whom she thinks better to be chained always as it had bitten a neighbour when it was a puppy. Lousia is shown eccentric by nature who is always obsessed with cleanliness of her home and is shown wearing double apron and busy in cleaning her house, books and she prefers to eat in her clean china every day. Lousia promised her beloved, Joe Dagget before leaving for fortune hunting to Australia that she will marry her. After 14 years when