A Study Of Howells's View Of Women In The Rise Of Silas Lapham

As the forerunner of American realist literature,William Dean Howells(1837-1920)is an outstanding novelist of nineteenth-century America.He is called “the dean of American letters” and has a great effect on the later realists.The Rise of Silas Lapham is his most representative and influential work.The female characters in this novel have different characteristics,forming an outstanding contrast.This thesis,by analyzing those female characters in The Rise of Silas Lapham and Howells' s life experience,explores Howells' s attitude towards women,arguing that Howells is a typical traditional patriarchal writer,who believes that women,instead of becoming independent-minded and economically independent,should be angels in the house to look after their husbands and children.This thesis consists of three parts: the introduction,the body and the conclusion.The first part briefly introduces Howells,his writing experience,The Rise of Silas Lapham and its studies and the layout of this thesis.The body part includes three chapters.The first chapter mainly analyzes Howells' s praise of Silas' s mother and wife for their devotion,support and encouragement to their husbands and selfless love for their children,and the obedient and beautiful Irene's compliance to patriarchal society.The second chapter interprets Howells' s dislike of the monsters in The Rise of Silas Lapham.It mainly explores Persis who leads to the failure of Silas' s business and the embarrassing situation of her daughters since she becomes a family-controller and Anna for her bad attitude towards her husband and the Laphams.The third chapter analyzes Howells' s expectant women who want to become independent but come to subordinate to marriage.It mainly focus on the intelligent,clever and humorous Penelope and the female worker Zerrilla,both of whom want to become independent but choose to succumb to marriage in the end.The third part is the conclusion,which summarizes the major points of the thesis and restates that Howells is a patriarchal writer,who believes that women should subordinate to men and be angels in the house.