Mary Wilkins Freeman's The Revolt Of Mother

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I have chosen to analyze “The Revolt of ‘Mother’” by Mary Wilkins Freeman, as my final paper. I was particularly interested in the mother’s strength of will, in a time period where such characteristics were not commonly found in a woman. As gender power and structure where a part of Freeman’s life, I wanted to explore how she was able to incorporate her ideas into her literature. I will use scholarly articles to delve deeper into Freeman’s poem in hopes of finding the true, intended meaning behind, “The Revolt of ‘Mother’”. There has been a significant amount of debate since the construction of this story. Many have completely different ideas of what exactly Freeman was trying to say. Some took her short story as a comical representation of …show more content…
Behind this folksy humor, however, there is a serious subtext. Sarah Penn is forced repeatedly to understand her powerless status, a status that stems grin her position in a patriarchal, frontier society more oriented toward animals than people, a society that through its focus in conquest and colonization often excludes feminine values.”(Cutter. 1). Cutter brings up a serious issue as she mentions a society that values animals more than it does its fellow human beings. However, this was a common ideal in the colonial period, as the animals were their biggest source of income. If the animals didn’t survive and thrive, neither did the family. Michael Grimwood had a different approach in his article “Architecture and Autobiography in ‘The Revolt of “Mother”’. He begins his article by describing the story as “a …show more content…
“‘Father’ who controls the discourse of the family, who jealously and vigorously guards control of language so that ‘there was never much conversation at the table in the Penn family. Adoniram asked a blessing, and they ate promptly, then rose up and went about their work” Cutter continues by saying, “ This description of the family’s daily dinning habits makes clear that Father is the only one allowed to speak on any sort of regular basis, and it also makes clear Father’s habitually rigid and miserly control over the flow of conversation. Similarly, father can refuse to speak, if he wants, as he repeatedly does a the opening of the story.”(Cutter. 283) This theory says that the man of the house also owns the right to speak, and the right to allow others to speak. It reinforces the idea that women are to speak only when spoken to, and that they are never supposed to speak against their husbands. Wilkins puts this directly into her story as Sarah is speaking to her daughter, “You ain’t found out yet we’re women-folks. . . . One of these days you'll find out, an’ then you'll know that we know only what men-folks think we do, do far as any use of it goes”.(451) The idea of the man holding all the language power seems to fit perfectly throughout the entire narrative. Cutter argues that it is the struggle to break free from this language barrier that is the main theme of the story. It is not unit the end
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