Nirad,

This is my letter back to you from Earth. It is a bowling ball, spinning its way down the waxed alley of perfect syncronicity within the universe. I haven't yet determined if it will crash through the splinters of towering feat at the end of the horizon, only to be recycled through to the next frame, or if it will cross over the edge of the rubicon and find itself dumped into the gutter...zeroed, bankrupt, invalidated.

Anyway, there's some literature I've read through to pass the time. From the end of the American Civil War, through to the mid-20th century, women authors have used their literature to voice a different perspective about the role of women in the evolving American society from it's past. They do this both through prose and poetry, and use such elements as naturalism and realism.

One of the movements in American literature during the latter-19th century was Naturalism; Donna Campbell, in "Naturalism in American Literature", draws the comparison between realism and naturalism by stating, "the naturalist populates his novel primarily from the lower middle class or the lower class...(Campbell). This is the placement in which Sarah Orne Jewett puts her main character Sylvia in for the story "The White Heron". But Campbell notes the distinction between naturalism and realism when she writes, "...the naturalist discovers in this world those qualities of man usually associated with the heroic and adventurous, such as acts of violence and passion which involve sexual adventure or bodily strength..." (Campbell). In Jewett's story, the character of Sylvia embarks on this adventure which involves both passion and great strength as well. Sylvia has had her first thoughts of passion awoken within her by the young man who stays at the farm to hunt birds, as Jewitt writes, "she had never seen anybody so charming and delightful; the woman's heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love" (Jewitt). These new feelings have invaded her otherwise naive and carefree youth, and she's confronted with these feelings that she doesn't fully embrace but yet cannot ignore. Campbell also notes, "the naturalist often describes his characters as though they are conditioned and controlled by environment, heredity, instinct, or chance" (Campbell). For Sylvia, all four of those circumstances are impressing themselves on her, and the main drive of the story is how Sylvia either submits to or confronts these elements. Sylvia has the chance to tell the boy about the white heron, in which she so bravely climbed a great tree to locate for him, but yet she decides to keep this innocent childhood part of herself for the time being and not submitting to the outside elements, as Jewitt notes, "What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb?" (Jewitt). Sylvia may not understand it yet, but her decisive role in confronting the inevitable change in instinct and shrugging it aside speaks to a greater change in the voice of women and their role in general moving into the post-modern age.

Another movement during this period, Realism, Donna Campbell again summarizes the characteristics of in "Realism in American Literature, 1860-1890"; she writes, "characters appear in their real complexity of temperment and motive; they are in explicable relation to nature, to each other, to their social class, to their own past" (Campbell). In "The Revolt of 'Mother'", Mary E. Wilkins (Freeman) uses the character of Sarah to not only paint the picture of what, at least in this particular setting, the role of a women was expected to be, but also to show an evolutionary growth in the female character to rebel against this set role. In the beginning of the story, we can see that her relation to this culture is one of societal demand and deeply rooted within herself even, as Wilkins writes, "However deep a resentment she might be forced to hold against her husband, she would never fail in sedulous attention to his wants" (Wilkins 555). Even though Sarah is furious about not being included in the decision making process within the family unit, as her husband decides to build a new glorious barn while the old house they live in is tattered, she does not inherently hold the possiblility of outright non-conformity to her expected role within this unit of society. But towards the end of the story, Sarah finds the strength to take mental defiance into physical action, bucking the entire culture as a whole and in broad daylight, though behind the back of her husband while he's away. She breaks him, leaving her husband weeping, as Wilkins writes, "Sarah put her apron up to her face; she was overcome by her own triumph" (Wilkins 561). This is an empowering image. Janell Midkiff comments that "the ordinary housewife no longer exists and a new woman following her own rules has emerged from her husband's shadow to prove to the rest of the community that life will never be the same asaian" (Midkiff).

Though much further ahead in history, and not contained within the literary movements I outlined in the beginning of my letter, the voicing of self-empowerment by women through literature can also be seen in poetry. In "Her Kind", Anne Sexton uses various metaphors to try and define how she feels out of place amidst the still very male-dominated nature of society in this time. Anne likens herself "a possessed witch (l. 1), and separates herself from the conformity she sees amongst the majority of women by writing, "A woman like that is not a woman, quite / I have been her kind" (ll. 6-7). She's defining herself as having feelings, like Sarah did in "Revolt of Mother", of brazenly and openly bearing her inner darkness that women in society are expected to bury within for the sake of serving the various roles the  male counterpart wishes them to fulfill. Julie Yost speaks well to this, saying, "while each role differs from the other, they express the feelings many women have when they feel trapped by the strict definitions of such narrow roles..." (Yost). Sexton uses this poem to openly defy the constrictions of this role. And like Sarah who did so in the face of the small town which peered upon her actions, Sexton takes it even further by sounding as if she's taking it to the entirety of American society, writing, "I have ridden in your cart, driver, / waved my nude arms at villages going by" (ll. 15-16). This is quite a leap from a small girl who keeps her secret about a bird's nest or a woman who moves her family's furniture into the new barn. Greg Johnson notes in the "On 'Her Kind" page that "'A woman like that is misunderstood' Sexton adds wryly, but the poem is a serious attempt to understand such a woman - her sense of estrangement, her impulse toward death..." (Johnson). The poem shows the absolute claustrophobia of being pigeon-holed into these roles and Sexton's resolve at the honesty of forth-bearing these feelings.

So, through this period in American history we can see how numerous female authors used various literary devices in both their stories and their poetry to delinieate and uncover the trappings of the roles in which women were societally expected to make, and each through their characters or voice breaks free of these definitions.