Fern, Bradstreet, and Dickinson - Public and Private Existences

The relationship between public and private aspects of life can often only be distinguished by a thin line. As time progresses, men seem to be found less synonymous with their careers, while women have emerged in the workplace and are found to be commonplace. In the 1800 and 1900's, men were defined by their jobs - the townsfolk were known as "the blacksmith," "the shoemaker," "the fisherman." Women were mostly defined by their work at home, which clashed with the concept of separation of public and private lives. While men were characterized by the work they performed, women were merely "housewives." Their private lives were filled with constant toils, be it cleaning the house, cooking the meals, or caring for the children. Men left their jobs at work, and came home to their wives' places of employment. In this, the blurred line of separation between public and private lives becomes fairly distinct for men, and nearly nonexistent for women.

However, not all women of the time period shared the same views of their position. Female authors of the era offer a plethora of different perspectives on their lives, be it a fictional plea for freedom from oppressive employers, a commentary on married life, or the dread of living alone while the man of the house is at work. Whether the works are fictional or autobiographical, they all convey the same sort of idea - men in the workplace and women on the home front. Female activist and author Fanny Fern places herself in the shoes of a middle-class housemaid, who replaces the position of a housewife for an upper-class family in her narrative, "Soliloquy of a Housemaid." Poet Emily Dickinson rather frankly expresses the oppression of married life as a woman in "She rose to His Requirement." Anne Bradstreet celebrates her love for her husband while simultaneously stating her dread and emptiness while he is extendedly at the workplace in "A Letter to Her Husband, Absent Upon Public Employment." While all three women convey different aspects of the toils of being a housewife or maid, they all remain correlated with the underlying theme of work infiltrating the home front.