Cult of Domesticity free essay sample

Securing the 19th Century Woman in the Home During the Antebellum age of America, new values and ideals began to arise. These ideals were reflected in the households of middle class citizens and grouped together to create the Cult of Domesticity. The cult helped form the foundation of female inferiority in the male dominated society. As slaves to the home, women were to uphold morals that were no longer relevant in the new industrialized world. The ideas that led to this treatment of women were drawn from religion, scientific studies, and the Industrial Revolution.The Cult of Domesticity was created to work effortlessly with the middle class, and was also known as the Perfect Family (Myth). Prior to the Industrial Revolution, families were dependent on every family member to provide for the household. Men, women, and children alike, would cook, clean, and take care of the entire property (Cowan, 16). However, the Middle Class family after the Industrial Revolution consisted of a single wage earning father and a mother that stayed at home maintaining the household and the children, in a home isolated from the rest of society (Unusual, 1). In l felt a funeral in my brain, Dickinson writes And I and silence some strange race/ wrecked, solitary, here (15-16).This is a prime example of the solidarity that held her captive and caused her descent into madness. Her poem is a cry out for help, but being the submissive woman she was supposed to be, she hid away her feelings while still acting weak and inferior. Another example of submissiveness can be taken from her poem This is my letter to the World. It starts off This is my letter to the world/ That never wrote to Me (Dickinson 1-2). She is again crying out against the unfairness that the world never wrote to her, or acknowledged her because of her sex. As a woman she was instantly in the shadow of a man and therefore did not matter. From These are the days when the Birds come back, Dickinson wrote Thy consecrated bread to take/ and thin immortal wine! (17-18). Her allusion to the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist enforces piety. Women needed to always act as the handmaidens of God, to repent for the sins of Eve in the Old Testament. Religion was a big enforcer of a womans quiet way of life and acted as something to occupy their time at home with. Emily Dickinson struggle with society expectations is greatly shown through her poetry.Dickinson many poems were great in number, but creates only one part of the perspective from a woman about the Cult of Domesticity. In Kate Chopping Story of an Hour, young Mrs.. Brenner Mallard discovers the news of her husbands death. Once the shock and grief wear off, she comes to an important realization. free! Body and soul free! (Chopin 2). Louise finally is free, without her husbands name bearing down on her and out of the clutches of domesticity. She no longer needs to act like the perfect wife at home, constantly taking care Of the house and looking after her husbands every need. She can live for herself like she always wanted. There would be no powerful will bending hers (Chopin 2), and she would no longer be the victim of submissiveness. Her husband no longer had the superior power, which all men were granted at the time of birth, to control and dictate her every move to the point where she was just like a small child that needed guidance and direction. But, in the end her joy is all for naught. Brenner is not dead. And Mrs.. Mallard, when receiving the news of his return, diets] of heart disease (Chopin 2).The thought of being pushed into that submissive state of Ewing that she had just escaped from ultimately caused her premature death. Chopping character Louise was a lot like the narrator of Charlotte Perkins Sailings The Yellow Wallpaper in regards to their relationship with overpowering husbands. John laughs at me of course, but one expects that in a marriage (Gillian 1). The narrator acts with submissiveness as she accepts that she is inferior to her husband, he is always right, and she is just the silly woman. She feels she must take his lead and constantly follow because that is how society wants her to feel.Her opinion does not matter at all, and she even states outright l dont like our room a bit (Gillian 2). She detests the room, with its ugly, yellow wallpaper and barred windows, but since her husband says it is the best place for her she just, once again, accepts it and does not say another word on the subject. The room she would like to sleep in was prettier and airier. But John said that there was only one window and not room for two beds (Gillian 2). This not only reinforces her submissiveness, but also her purity as a woman. The narrator, though married and a mother, sleeps in a different bed from her husband.This is not to keep her gift safe anymore, but to keep from tempting him and to guarantee the rest she needs to recover from her anxiety. Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, and Charlotte Perkins Gillian were all talented writers and advocates in their own ways for the struggles of women with the Cult of Domesticity in the sasss. Each accomplished a way to present a light into the minds of the women who were being suffocated by the mens superiority. Emily Dickinson created poems full of solemn and even remorseful moods that mirrored depression and repression that women felt cause of society expectations.Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gillian created characters that not only used the same suffocating repression, but empowered their women by taking the men out of the equation. Only then were their characters given a chance; Louise without Brenner and a small taste of freedom, and the narrators ability to finally creep along the room in peace when John faints. The Cult of Domesticity was a cause for womens repression but also their strength and growing stand to the unfairness of the treatment they were being dealt for so long.