"The Revolt of Mother"

This short story, by Mary Wilkins Freeman, truly emphasizes how women were treated and how their rights were limited. In this short story, the main character, Sarah Penn, was the caretaker and she spent her days cooking, cleaning, and keeping her husband happy. Her husband had much more power than her and he was the one in the house who always made the important decisions. In this story, Mrs. Penn's husband was building a new barn. However, forty years ago Mr. Penn promised Mrs. Penn that he would build them a new house. This promise was never fulfilled and Mrs. Penn believed that he should build a new home, instead of a new barn. Even though Mrs. Penn talked to Mr. Penn and asked him to build a new home instead, he refused. In response to this refusal, Freeman writes, "However deep a resentment she might be forced to hold against her husband, she would never fail in sedulous attention to his wants." This demonstrates that even if Mrs. Penn were to disagree with her husband's actions, she must not show them and she must continue to attend to his needs and wants. I believe that this demonstrates that during this time period, the duty of women was to follow their husbands. Even though at times Mrs. Penn did tell her husband how she felt about him building a new barn, when he does not want to speak about it, she lets the subject go. When Mr. Penn leaves town to purchase a new horse, Mrs. Penn, with the assistance of her children, begins to move everything from their old home into the new barn. Eventually, when everything was moved over to the new barn, Mrs. Penn declared that this would be their new home. I believe that this shows Mrs. Penn fighting for her rights and for what she truly wants. Instead of sitting back and allowing her husband to put animals in this new barn, she takes action by going against her husband and following her own beliefs. This idea reminded me of many other organizations and movements that I have researched about, which helped women gain their rights. I believe that the women who participated in these organizations and movements took action and used this as a way of gaining rights. In this short story, I think that Mrs. Penn took action by moving into the barn and by defying her husband's orders, in order to make her dreams become a reality. Overall, I feel as though this short story is very interesting, and it definitely gives me a new perspective on my topic.