‘A Woman at Forty’ is an excerpt taken from the Part III of the essay under the title ‘Woman in Nineteenth Century’ which was written by Margaret Fuller in November 1844 and published in 1845.
The author starts with the admiration of the accomplishment of ‘Female Authorship’ which has been constantly increasing; especially, women have been doing several things which they were previously supposed to be unable to. Many women had been gaining fame and recognition from the society and because of this many presumptions against women have been removed.
Girls were able to go to school to acquire knowledge as boys. However, the author believed that the education system was not good and appropriate enough to expose them to the new subject matters in the society. What the author thought is that they should be taught by those who ‘had experienced the same wants’, meaning who had the same experiences and understood what they really wanted. Although some women were given the position as the head of education institution, they still had problems in organizing a new system to respond to the needs and wants of general women. However, at least women were now educated which could broaden their views and take them out of the ‘home circle’. In addition, the author claimed that women had intellect which needs to be developed. Therefore, they should not stop after they had little recognition in this point of time.
After women had successfully struggled for right to education, people argued that women were educated so that they would become ‘better companions and mothers for men’. Fuller strongly opposed to this idea. Women should not study for the sake of others but themselves. The purpose of woman’s education is to develop their talents so that they are honored by the society. To be a better companion and mother for men simply means women still could not get out of the home circle.
Besides, the author had a sense of respect towards unmarried women who wanted to depend on themselves rather than on men although the society gave less value to them. Normally, a woman at forty is rarely able to remain their beauty when especially she has been devoted herself to household chores and her family. The author, however, still gave value to marriage, as she raised the idea that ‘We must have units before we can have union’. What is important is that there should be improvement of equality in the roles of the husband of wife.
3 comments:
Yeah, it is a great summary; it will help your classmates easier to understand. Your writing is nice and catchy! however, we need more historical background or other referances to make the story more clearer! As you see in the story they mentions lots of Name that it means more than that, me too face this problem! Well done way to go!!!
In fact, I've checked the names in the essay. I can find some connections between the background of the name and the author's purpose in mentioning them, but some I can't. For example, I knew why the author mentioned Lady Jane Gray, but I don't understand why she talked about Michael Angelo or Canova.
One thing is, the summary will seem to be too long to be understand if i include all the info.
Anyway, thanks for comments.
Michael Angelo was an old genius bachelor; he was one the most famous Italian artist in renaissance period (the period when art, science, literature had been improved in whole Europe). You can search regarding his most famous statue David. and in the story she also mention about Leonardo as well; he was also a famous artist as Michael, but thier would be something to deal with his picture (his was a painter). i did not search about those statue or picture so i don't know about that too.
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