Abstract:
The movement for women's rights during the years 19001940 was a cause rich in diversity. This thesis shows how some literary works, in keeping with literature's function as a window on life, give a glimpse of the diversity of the early twentieth century women's movement in terms of women's issues. By examining Willa Cather's 0 Pioneers! (1913), Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915) and "The Yellow Wallpaper" (1892), Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Agnes Smedley's Daughter of Earth (1943), Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (1920), and Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers (1925), one can see women fighting for the right to personal freedoms, breaking traditional gender role expectations and social constraints, and striving for complete equal rights with men.
