UNIVERSIDADE DO ESTADO DO RIO DE JANEIRO

ESPECIALIZAO EM LITERATURAS DE LNGUA INGLESA - 2011/2

PROFESSORA DR. LEILA ASSUMPO HARRIS

ALUNA: CTIA REGINA RODRIGUES RAMOS
Tentative Title: A portrait of a woman in the American Modern drama, by Tennessee
Willians, Arthur Miller and
Key Words: female, identity, loneliness, betrayal, American Dream
Introduction:
The American Dream is depicted by the chosen playwrights as a theme to be
discussed as well as put at stage the betrayal of the expectations of a happy life in a
free country where anybody, through self efforts, is able to achieve the dreamed
successful life. But in the midst of the American lives affected either by wealth
success, as in " Cat in a Hot Tin Roof", by Tennessee Willliams, or by the decay and
ruin as in "Death of a Salesman", by Arthur Miller, there can be put in to frame how
women are affected by this particular Men dream.
Aim:
As women writers, these chosen authors skillfully convey the anguish of the female
characters in the pursuit of a "space" of their own. This paper aims to focus on the
work of these female authors and discuss the representations of that struggle for
female autonomy, specially in relation to marriage constrains and the alternatives left
by those who doesn't fit the patterns.
Methodology:
This paper will try to discuss, based on critical analyses, the three alternatives for
female autonomy - maidenhood, suicide and madness -, portrayed by the female
characters Louisa Ellis - in A New England Nun (1891) by Mary Eleanor Wilkins
Freeman -, Edna Pontellier - in The Awakening (1899) by Kate Chopin - and the
unnamed wife of doctor John - in The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) by Charlotte Perkins
Gilman -.

Initial Bibliography:
CHOPIN, Kate. The Awakening. New York: Dover Thrift, 1993.
FREEMAN, Mary, E Wilkins. A New England Nun. In: NEGRI, Paul, ed. Great American
Short Stories. New York: Dover Thrift, 2002.
GILMAN, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. In: NEGRI, Paul, ed. Great American
Short Stories. New York: Dover Thrift, 2002.
HIGONNET, Margaret. "Suicide: Representations of the Feminine in the Nineteenth
Century". In: Poetics Today, Vol. 6, No. 1/2, The Female Body in Western Culture:
Semiotic Perspective. Durham: Duke University Press, 1985, pp. 103-118. At:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772124 Accessed: 27/10/2010 12:07
ROSENBERG, Charles E. "Sexuality, Class and Role in 19th-Century America". In:
American Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press,
May, 1973, pp. 131-153. At: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2711594 Accessed:
27/10/2010 11:49
ROSOWSKI, Susan J. "The Awakening as a Prototype of the Novel of Awakening." In:
KOLOSKI, Bernard, ed. Approaches to Teaching Chopin's The Awakening. Approaches
to Teaching World Literature 16. New York: MLA, 1988, p. 26-33.
SHOWALTER, Elaine. Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Women's
Writing. New York: Oxford V. Press, 1991.
_________________. The Female Malady. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.
WOLFF, Cynthia Griffin. Thanatos and Eros: Kate Chopin's the Awakening. In:
American Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press,
1973, pp. 449-471 At: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2711633 Accessed: 27/10/2010
12:06

www.csun.edu/~sa54649/355/BeyondStereotypes.pdf