The Role Of The House In The Victorian House

During the nineteenth century, women had few rights, and were often objectified by men. An ideal woman was subservient to her husband, had plenty of children, and was not expected to work outside the home. As the Victorian era progressed, some women

The home as a place of comfort does not exist for the narrator; companionship with her husband is lost. Her only real conversations occur on paper, as no one else speaks to her of anything other than her condition. She is stripped of her role as a wife, robbed of her role as a mother, and is reduced to an object of her husband's.

“Home is where the heart is.” In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops this famous statement to depict what a “home” really represents. What is a home? Is it a house with four walls and a roof, the neighborhood of kids while growing up, or a unique Cleaver household where everything is perfect and no problems arise? According to Cisneros, we all have our own home with which we identify; however, we cannot always go back to the environment we once considered our dwelling place. The home, which is characterized by who we are, and determined by how we view ourselves, is what makes every individual unique. A home is a personality, a depiction of who we are inside and

Houses, the final symbol, are where someone lives and are therefore echoes the soul of the occupant. The fact that Edna has multiple homes is important because they reflect her changing state of mind. Edna vacations in several houses in The Awakening: the cottages on Grand Isle, Madame Antoine’s home on the Chênière Caminada, the big house in New Orleans, and her “pigeon house”. Each of these houses serve as an indication of her progress as she experiences her awakening. Edna portrays the image of a “mother-woman” on Grand Isle, and to make sure she is the perfect social hostess in New Orleans. While living in the cottage on Grand Isle and in the big house in New Orleans, Edna does not look beyond the confines of these traditional roles.

What does the word home mean? In the essay “On Going Home” by Didion she recreates her feelings and thoughts about her meaning of home. Family is a big part of one’s life and important one at that and Didion uses it as the center of her work. The work itself is about re- defining what home truly is.

The Victorian Era women was vastly different than the female we think of nowadays. Women during that time were expected to fulfill more of a domestic and motherly role, one that stayed at home and took care of the house. They were confined within the private sphere of the world while the men toiled away in the public sphere. The ideal Victorian women was described as:

She tells of the feeling of shame which emerge from not even having a bed throughout her entire childhood (3). She does reassure that she has the security of her family being the only constant in her life, “Close and sweet and loving. Lucky me on my small pallet on the floor” (4). Travelling every summer “We never knew from one day to the next, from one year to the next, where we would go or live or what we would do” (127), her security of her family seemed always there “Having lived in other people’s houses, barns, and in migrant housing in various stages of decay and repair, it felt as though we could make a home out of anything” (99).

I think the term “home” means a place where family members lived together. Everyone in the family supports each other, care about each other, respect each other and everyone gone through hard times together. The home may not be big, but it is cozy, it may not be very fancy, but it is happy to live there. This idea of home applies to the text “Fire From the Rock” By Sharon M. Draper very well. Sylvia and her family lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, during segregation. Sylvia’s neighbor, Mr. Crandall, treated black people badly. Once, Sylvia’s little sister, Donna Jean was bitten by one of Mr. Crandall’s dogs purposely. The other time when Sylvia’s brother, Gary was beaten by Mr. Crandall’s kids because Gary wanted fairness for the black people. Also when everyone in the town knew that Sylvia was one of the black students to attend Central High School, Sylvia faced more pressure and troubles from the white people. But no matter what happen to Sylvia and her family, they always supports each other and care about each other, everyone in the family stood together and gone through hard times together.

The kitchen’s purpose, for instance, is used as a symbol for warmth and security where the family gathers together, eats and talks about common issues. Furthermore this comfort is broken when the little girl “heard her mother closing cupboards and drawers, heard her father’s boots on the linoleum as he moved toward the back porch.” (57) This determines the disruption of shelter and the action of closing the cupboards and drawers suggests the need of protection.

In the book The Prehistory of Home Jerry Moore discusses the importance that home structures have had for humans over time in different places of the world. He says that “In addition to their basic and fundamental function of providing shelter from natural elements, dwellings are powerful and complex concentrates of human existence… our dwellings reflect and shape our lives” (Moore, 3). He believes that homes are representations of the existence of individual humans as well as their surroundings. Jerry Moore is successful in explaining the importance of home in archaeology throughout history with colorful examples as well as a comparison of the importance of the home in the past to the importance of the home in the future.

The poem explores how the home is fundamental to one’s identity and that a person’s notion of home is intact within one’s thoughts even if the scenery or destination changes. The use of the metaphorical language in the line ‘my home which can only stay inside my blood’ highlights that home never leaves one’s identity and is a spiritual entity or quality which is transportable and shelter’s safely in one’s mind. This insightful and intriguing perspective positions the audience to rethink their views on the concept of home and what it entails. This notion is further reinforced in the following example. The use of the evocative imagery in the line ‘ My home which does not fit with any geography’ clearly illuminates that home is inextricably linked to one’s identity as the two are inseparable.

These houses were amalgamation of retained social expectations of housework but also more progressive architectural ideas. The period saw great change thanks in part to the influence of the Garden City Movements and Raymond Unwin. Unwin semis featured additional living space on the ground floor, running hot water, internalised kitchen and bathing facilities. The extra living space on the ground floor provided an area for families to engage with everyday life and again a parlour in the front of the house to entertain with. The changed position of the kitchen to inside the house really demonstrates the change of gender perspective during this time, it lessened the separation of house tasks by bringing them closer to the family. The provision of hot running water, electricity and internal washrooms helped ease some of the labour of housework, beginning to liberate the housewife. It was however still expected that she would prepare and serve all foods. Therefor the housewife found herself in a funny situation of being both privileged with modern conveniences but still bound to being unseen doing her task in a small space as if a

Throughout Everyday Use, the narrator speaks of the home they live in, and the routines that they are accustomed to. Every day, the mother and daughter work on their yard, making sure that it lives up to its standard of being like an “extended living room.” The narrator continually mentions her rough appearance, her manly characteristics from working. The mother and daughter take great pride in their yard and house. They want to make sure that “anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that

Family is what makes a house a home; this statement is undeniably precise. A person could have every material entity in the entire world, but it would mean nothing if he does not have someone to share it with. In other words, home is also semantically related to sharing the happiness, grief, and material things with one’s family. A home gives people a place to care about the people that mean the most to them. It is a place to tell amusing tales, a good story, or make memorable memories with one another. Furthermore, home is more than a place; it is a feeling. It is a feeling of contentment and happiness that they share with the ones they love. Moreover, home is when one knows they are with people that can drive them insane in a second, and the same people can make them happy in a second as well. Home means that no matter what one is going through, no matter how challenging life gets, there will be someone looking out for them.