Caught Between the Monster and the Angel

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses Colette's novel "La Vagabond" and Woolf's essay "Professions for Women" and in particular the angel-monster duality that haunted women during Colette and Woolf's time and continues to follow women of today where the woman is the angel of the house. It looks at how Virginia Woolf advocates the "killing of the Angel in the house" ie. the Victorian [mis]conception of women and how in comparison, Colette sadly fails in her attempt to do the Woolfian act of killing the Angel. In addition, the paper examines how Colette's "La Vagabond" also falls prey to the monster mentality.

From the Paper:

"In 1900, centuries after literature entered the lives of humans and became an important part of it, men continued to dominate the scene. Even after the publication of "Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) and John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women (1869)" (From Wollstonecraft to Mills), not much change was seen nor felt. Women still continued to be subordinates of men, his inferior counterpart. The expansion of the feminist cause into a full blown movement during the 19th century initially presented how "women were treated unfairly under the law," but it wasn't until "the early years of the 20th century, especially in the final years of the First World War and the first years after the war" (History of Feminism), that women were granted some, not even all, rights enjoyed by men. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Colette. La Vagabond. New York: Bantam, 1994.
• "Colette." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 10 Mar. 2006. 20 Mar. 2006. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colette >.
• "From Wollstonecraft to Mill: What British and European Ideas and Social Movements Influenced the Emergence of Feminism in the Atlantic World, 1792-1869?" Binghamton University. 11 Jan. 2005. 15 Mar. 2006. <http://www.binghamton.edu/womhist/awrm/intro.htm>
• Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan. The Madwoman in the Attic. Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. 812-825.
• "History of Feminism." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 15 Mar. 2006. 20 Mar. 2006. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism>.

More papers on Caught Between the Monster and the Angel:

• Comparison Essay # 6789 : "The Odyssey" and "The Mill on the Floss"
• Comparison Essay # 99019 : "Evil in "The Crucible" and "The Scarlet Letter"
• Comparison Essay # 92307 : "The Odyssey" and "The Aeneid"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: