Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
Song Character Analysis Worksheet - The University of North ...
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new urban centers <strong>of</strong> society that valued culture and education. Yet most <strong>of</strong> this “work”<br />
is unheralded in the historical canon because <strong>of</strong> its volunteer nature. Christopher Lasch<br />
stated plainly that historians knew <strong>of</strong> woman’s role in reform and the building <strong>of</strong> modern<br />
civilization but “for historians, as for everybody else, work is understood as something<br />
dignified by a salary or a wage.” 29<br />
In the 1920s a critical backlash emerged against the Victorian type <strong>of</strong> moral social<br />
reformer, now considered the “custodian <strong>of</strong> American culture” or arbiter <strong>of</strong> civic taste.<br />
Thomas Beer labeled this stereotype the “Titaness” in <strong>The</strong> Mauve Decade (1926). She<br />
was “a terror to editors, the hope <strong>of</strong> missionary societies, and the prey <strong>of</strong> lecturers.” 30<br />
<strong>The</strong> emancipated woman stereotype became the “Flapper,” a woman whose battles for<br />
equality focused on sexual gratification and social independence rather than civic duty<br />
and moral indoctrination.<br />
In the midst <strong>of</strong> these general female stereotypes are four gender role subtypes that<br />
are represented by the female characters in Show Boat: the New England Victorian, the<br />
Post-Bellum Southern Belle, the Ethnic Other, and the New Woman. Although they<br />
share many common qualities through the societal expectations <strong>of</strong> separate spheres and<br />
the “Woman Question,” there are specific traits that provide a distinct stereotype for<br />
each.<br />
29 Lasch, 95-96.<br />
30 Lasch, 100. Lasch described “club women, do-gooders, and cultural missionaries” as symbols<br />
<strong>of</strong> Victorian repression and objects <strong>of</strong> ridicule in the 1920s.<br />
45