Women & Hedda Women's Roles Term Paper

Ultimately Judith Shakespeare, (like Hedda Gabler) according to Virginia Woolf, would have very likely taken her own life (1382). Although life today is still far from perfect for many women in many areas of the world, and while some women (in various poorer parts of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, for example) face many of the same attitudes and obstacles Judith Shakespeare would have faced, women in the United States, Europe, and many other areas today are infinitely freer than Virginia Woolf's Judith Shakespeare would have been to pursue artistic (or other careers); support themselves while doing so; and to avoid unwanted pregnancies and childbirths.

Henrik Ibsen, Kate Chopin, and Virginia Woolf, all writing in either the late 19th or early 20th centuries, all depict, within the works I have discussed, various strictures and limitations on the lives and aspirations of women during those times. For today's women, there are both similarities to and differences from the women's lives depicted by these three authors. However, for women today, at least in the European and American societies within which these works were written, there is more autonomy and choice. Unlike then, women in those areas of the world today are, for the most part, far freer than they were then to either resist, reject, or accept some, all, or none of the traditional women's roles depicted within these three literary works.

Works Cited

Chopin, Kate. "A Pair of Silk Stockings." Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia

Library. December 13, 2004. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2id=ChoSilk sgm&images=images/moden... html>. 4 pages.

Ibsen, Henrik. Hedda Gabler. Henrik Ibsen: Four Major Plays. Ed. John Grube. New York:

Airmont, 1966. 153-221.

Woolf, Virginia. From a Room of One's Own [Shakespeare's Sister]. The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. Ed. S. Gilbert and…