Feminism In Literature Creative Freedom For Women In Novels

Feminism in literature is about the feministic theories or a feministic flavored text making its appearance in literary works in general. According to the littérateur Virginia Woolf, in the early part of the nineteenth century, women had to face a lot of imposition in expressing their views through their works. Their style of writing also had to be within the norms prescribed by society. Hence in general, women felt caged as their intellectual freedom was chained by social outlook in general.

Even though women were able to get their rights in life in general like getting justice in some social issues, the rights of employment on being pregnant and the ability to cast their votes and in outdoor life in general, it was seen that the creativity bindings still existed for women writers. According to another worthy writer Elaine Showalter, it would take a long time for women writers will be given the liberty and acceptability by society to express their creativity to the fullest. Hence feminism in literature was a distant dream.

The encouragement given to feministic concepts in the early part of the nineteen hundreds made the women writers to venture out of their barriers and write about feministic theories and try out novel ways of putting forward their viewpoints. By the mid twentieth century, feminism in literature was a widely accepted concept. The women writers felt that they actually got the intellectual freedom that they were longing for from a very long time. Hence they started expressing womanly concepts and feelings openly in their works actually conveying extreme happiness and strength for being a woman.

The literary works like The Feminine Mystique (1963) of Betty Friedman, The Bell Jar (1971) of Sylvia Plath and the works of Marilyn French, Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer served to kindle the feminine spirit in woman. These works were taken as examples by later women authors who took liberty to express feminism in literature in great depth, length and with creative freedom. As time progressed the women authors took the liberty to write from the perspective of women and addressing issues that have posed problems for women from time immemorial-the issues being that of their ethnicity, their feminity, libido and last but not the least their freedom as a woman.

The middle part of the twentieth century saw a rising demand for women writers and writers on womens issues as mainstream writers rather than being relegated to the side stream. Hence feminism in literature evolved itself. The women writers belonging to the minority were also given encouragement. Even the lesbian writers were given the right to express their views freely. The women who took a step further than that expected by society to express themselves were socially ostracized. Feminism literature