‘Discuss the representation of women’s experience within the patriarchal scheme of things.’ [68%, 2007]

In this essay I will discuss the representation of women’s experience within the patriarchal scheme of things, with reference to Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’, Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’, and Susan Glaspell’s ‘Trifles’. I aim to highlight the theme of female subjugation within a male-dominated world that is common to all three authors, and examine the reasons proposed by Mary Wollstonecraft and Virginia Woolf to explain such a prejudiced constitution of society. Finally, I shall demonstrate that Susan Glaspell’s literary genius produced a play that puts forward a strong statement on the necessity of female solidarity if women are to survive in a sex-biased society.[…]