07 August, 2017

MONDAY TRAVELS: TO THE INDIFFERENT WOMAN by Charlotte Perkins Gilman



Happy Monday friends! I hope you packed light and got some party clothes, cause this Monday we going back to North American literature:

So today we are in The United States and we will explore:

TO THE INDIFFERENT WOMAN




American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman:
Charlotte Perkins Gilman  (July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935), was a prominent American feminist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform. She was a utopian feminist and served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story The Yellow Wallpaper which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis. The Yellow Wallpaper was initially met with a mixed reception, however, Positive reviewers describe it as impressive because it is the most suggestive and graphic account of why women who live monotonous lives are susceptible to mental illness.



Description:

You who are happy in a thousand homes,
Or overworked therein, to a dumb peace;
Whose souls are wholly centered in the life
Of that small group you personally love–
Who told you that you need not know or care
About the sin and sorrow of the world?

Do you believe the sorrow of the world
Does not concern you in your little homes?
That you are licensed to avoid the care
And toil for human progress, human peace,
And the enlargement of our power of love
Until it covers every field of life?

The one first duty of all human life
Is to promote the progress of the world
In righteousness, in wisdom, truth and love;
And you ignore it, hidden in your homes,
Content to keep them in uncertain peace,
Content to leave all else without your care.

Yet you are mothers! And a mother's care
Is the first step towards friendly human life.
Life where all nations in untroubled peace
Unite to raise the standard of the world
And make the happiness we seek in homes
Spread everywhere in strong and fruitful love.

You are content to keep that mighty love
In its first steps forever; the crude care
Of animals for mate and young and homes,
Instead of poring it abroad in life,
Its mighty current feeding all the world
Till every human child shall grow in peace.

You cannot keep your small domestic peace,
Your little pool of undeveloped love,
While the neglected, starved, unmothered world
Struggles and fights for lack of mother's care,
And its tempestuous, bitter, broken life
Beats in upon you in your selfish homes.

We all may have our homes in joy and peace
When woman's life, in its rich power of love
Is joined with man's to care for all the world!


Thoughts:

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, never stops to amaze me. It's just so wonderful and alarming in the fact that all these years ago, women faced the same problems. Let us just hope that a hundred years from now, women will read about such times and just wonder about it.


See you next Monday!

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