WOMEN'S ROLES IN LITERATURE THROUGHOUT TIME

LITERARY WORKS

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman
• Girl by Jamaica Kincaid
• Women's Work by Julia Alvarez
• Cell One by Chimamanda Adichie

HAMLET

• Ophelia: dependent upon men
• Quote: "Get thee to a nunnery" (III.I.122)
• Queen Gertrude: morally corrupt
• Quote: "Frailty, thy name is woman!" (I.II.146)

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER

• The husband confines his wife to one room
• The wife is driven to the point of insanity
• Quote: "I don’t like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast. I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?" (228).

GIRL

• The mother tells the daughter how to act like a lady
• She is harsh and somewhat cruel
• Quote: "on Sundays try to walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming" (53).

WOMEN'S WORK

• Speaker refers to women's work as cooking and cleaning
• Shows the life of women and their roles around the house
• Quote: "I'd sigh, hearing my friends outside./ Doing her woman's work was a hard art..." (5-6).

CELL ONE

• Sister is the only one to take action
• Quote: "When I got outside, I was not sure what to do, so I picked up a stone near the ixora bush and hurled it at the windshield of the Volvo... Nobody went to see Nnamabia that day. It surprised me, this little victory" (266).

CONCLUSION

• Women's roles in literature have changed throughout time
• Women now take on roles as the protagonist and are often times portrayed as strong and independent

WORKS CITED

• "Gibson Hamlet 3.1." YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2015. Website Copy & paste Parenthetical Edit More