Creole Gender Roles

Understanding gender roles in a Creole society, we must identify the time this novel took place and its stereotypical image of their roles. This novel took place in the Victorian era which was a time where both genders needed strength and support from each other. The era associated with the values of social and sexual restraints that people had during that time. In the article, Victorianism in America, a man would likely have “this tendency to “’go to work’” (par.4), while the “women were expected to confine their own aspirations to those that fit within their husband's sphere” (par.5). Therefore, this implies that the gender roles in a society during the Victorian era would expect a woman to stay home, care for their children, and care for their husband while the men went to work and come home. In the novel, a female figure in a Creole society and in the Victorian era was Adele, which she was considered as one of the women that did her obligations as a woman. She is not the main character that the narrator focuses on but the narrator uses her to inform about the expectations of women in the Creole society. This society gives the woman an inferior role than men because a male figure has the upper hand in this time and place. Including that Adele is a perfect …show more content…
Additionally, the division of roles was never the option Edna selected to do but it was the option of her husband’s traditional mind of the roles and the society. Therefore, the Victorian woman in this era did not have the satisfaction of their wants or needs in any way because there was not much freedom for a woman. Adele in the other hand had no issue to be considered a trophy wife, however, Edna felt empty living this way. Likely during that time gender roles weren’t biologically in a person, it was socially constructed by people who had a stereotypical image of