HENRY, FULLER AND ALCOTT!!

Within the past week, we have read Margaret Fullers’ “The Great Lawsuit” and Louisa May Alcott’s “Behind the Mask”, and I have understood what it was like growing up as a non-conventional woman in a time when men “ruled.” Fuller, an advocate for women’s rights at a time when women had no rights is a very influential woman! I enjoyed “The Great Lawsuit”, I think that maybe she was trying to teach women to value themselves and to fight for individuality. In order for men to see women as valuable, a woman must be able to separate from the man and stand on her own. In doing so, one must free herself form the dependent lifestyle that she may have (but this is easier said than done). How in the world can a woman, in that age, take care of themselves without a man? But I believe that Fullers’ point in the essay was simply to advice. Advising, in such a way that a parent advices a child, sort of like the essay Benjamin Franklin wrote to his son on the way in which to have a successful life. Although Alcott had a very interesting plot with the crafty and evil women involved, I believe Fuller is the better writer. I felt like she enlightened the reader more. Self dependence is very important, now more than ever and her writing helped me to better realize that. The only thing I was confused about was the way she in continues to make the women the submitter. Although I’m sure that was just her way of incorporating the day of age she was in.