Research Paper on:
American Society in Three Literary Views

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
each, the author endeavors to reflect to the American people certain aspects of society that are contradictory to the prejudices that were evident during the time when these works were  created. In other words, these works reflect aspects of the society in which they were created and, in doing so, provide a critique of that society. The authors obviously write  with the intention, or at least the hope, that their story or poem will open the mind of the reader to a new perspective, a new way of thinking.  Katherine Anne Porters "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" can be viewed as a subtle, yet scathing, critique of the way that women were regarded during the nineteenth and early twentieth  centuries. The exact time in which the story occurs is left indefinite; however, from references in the story, it is probably sometime in the late nineteenth century. During  that era, women were considered "weak" creatures, who needed a mans protection in order to survive in the world. Legally, a woman was under her fathers domination in her youth  and her husbands after she married. As the story opens, Granny Weatherall lies dying of old age. Her mind flits around in time, giving the reader an overview of  what her life has been. This view of Granny life offers a contradiction to every misogynist preconception of womanhood that was evident in American society at that time, as Granny  "Ellen" Weatherall is a remarkably strong woman. In her youth, Ellen was jilted. "What does a woman do when he has put on the white veil and set out  the white cake for a man and he doesnt come" (Porter 1059). In Charles Dickens Great Expectations, Miss Haversham was jilted and let the anger of that experience poison her