"The New Aspect of the Woman Question" and Other Writings Literary Elements

Various: non-fiction essays, short story fiction, novels

Victorian Era England

Essays and stories are dominated by a point of view of the empowered, liberated feminist perspective.

Varies: Shifts in tone and mood occur not only from one work to another but within an individual work. The tone is predominantly characterized by a light irony, derision toward reactionary conservatives, an almost spiritual message of uplifting optimistic and empowerment directed toward women readers. The dominant mood barely contained outrage deceptively concealed beneath a proper Victorian style of prose.

Protagonist: the New Woman. Antagonists: The Bawling Brotherhood and the Old Woman.

The conflict lying at the heart of the majority of Grand’s works is that between the liberated, feminist “New Woman” and the conventions of patriarchal history which obstruct her.

Grand’s short fiction is characterized by open endings which conclude on a note of ambiguity. This almost certainly stems from the realization that the climax to her crusade of empowerment for the New Woman would not be enjoyed in her lifetime. The final words of her short story “The Indefinable: A Fantasia” is probably the most symbolic relative to the idea of a climax: “Give me my due; and when you help me, I will help you.”

The ending of “The New Aspect of the Woman Question” definitely qualifies as foreshadowing to the point of a cliffhanger: “The Woman Question is the Marriage Question, as shall be shown hereafter.”

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In “The Man of the Moment” Grand makes two literary allusions to make a point: “We do not think of accusing men of supposing that all women are Becky Sharps, but men think it necessary to warn us repeatedly that all men are not Roderick Randoms.” In both cases, the allusion is to characters who have become synonymous with being unscrupulous in their morality to pursue and attain whatever they desire from the opposite sex.

A recurring image throughout the writings of Grand—both in her fiction and essays—is referencing to the home as the “Woman’s Sphere.” And by home is meant, of course, everything that is associated with patriarchal ideas of the limitations of women: cooking, cleaning, sewing, finding a husband, etc.

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Parallel structure occurs many times in the non-fiction essays which serve as argumentative debate, but it can also be found in Grand’s fiction, such as this example from her novel The Beth Book which is more extensive than usual: “now that her mind was recovering its tone, and she could see with her own eyes, she discovered the good at war with the evil, the courage and kindliness of the poor, signs of the growth of better feeling in the selfish and greedy rich, the mighty power of purity at war with the license of man, and the noble attitude of women wherever injustice was rife, the weak oppressed, and the wronged remained unrighted”

“The Church” is targeted frequently for its complicity in the patriarchal history of the subjugation of women. “The Church” is, of course, a very common example of metonymic device covering the entirety of Christianity in general and the Catholic Church specifically.

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