Analysis Of Rebel Women By Evelyn Sharp

Rebel Women (1910) is a compilation of short stories about different situations that suffragettes went through, providing the feminist point of view of the author in regards of society; a second edition of this book was published in 1915. The depiction of suffragettes from the inside and her personal point of view were key elements that Evelyn Sharp used to express her view about the general situation of women’s suffrage. I considered for this analysis some short stories that, in my opinion, depict the situation of suffragettes in terms of politics, law and social context: “The Woman at the Gate” “The prison while the sun shines” and “The black spot of constituency”. “The Woman at the Gate” is a short story in which we are presented a peaceful manifestation in front of the Gates of Saint Stephens’ House. In this story it can be appreciated the opinion of men about …show more content…
During women’s manifestations the government used to send police forces to the meeting places, as a result the manifestations ended up with women being beaten up. The amount of police man was way bigger than women in the meeting since “police is not there only to arrest the women___” “You’ve got to smash an idea as well as an army in every war” (Sharp, 14). The following short story deals with the situation of women in jail and how law reacted to them. “The prison while the sun shines” is about the visit of E. Sharp as journalist to the police court to cover the imprisonment of a group of suffragettes. In this story we are not just present the imprisonment of women, but also it portrays the point of view of law in terms of other committed crimes. “Have you anything to say?” [...] Then as the woman in the dock showed every indication of having a great deal to say, this would be followed up with a hasty “Yes, yes; but I have nothing to do with that. I am here to administer the law as it stands” (Sharp,