American Individualism and Female Autonomy in American Women's Writing

In the United States, where individualism is upheld as both a civic virtue and a cultural birthright, its conditional access for women turns it into a complex and persistent paradox. For women, it has never been a straightforward pursuit, but a path marked by struggle, compromise, and negotiation. Across the six texts examined in this study, Mary Wilkin's Freeman's “A New England Nun,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “A Yellow Wallpaper,” Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Anne Beattie's “Janus,” Ellen Gilchrist's “Revenge,” and Octavia Butler's Parable series, one thing becomes clear. For many women, the ideal of individualism is not a goal, but a response, and how they respond—whether by retreating, adapting, resisting, or rebuilding—reveals the different forms autonomy can take in a society that often denies female agency. Ultimately, what emerges from these women's writings is not the image of the triumphant self-made individual, but of women who redefine strength through endurance, autonomy through relation, and identity through the difficult work of adaptation.

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