Creating Your Own Space: The Metaphor of the House in Feminist Literature

The relationship between women and houses has always been complex. Many influential writers have used the space of the house to portray women’s conflicts with the society of their time. On the one hand, houses can represent a place of physical, psychological and moral restrictions, and on the other, they often serve as a metaphor for economic freedom and social acceptance. This usage is particularly pronounced in works written in the nineteenth and twentieth century, when restrictions on women’s roles were changing: anxieties about space sometimes seem to dominate the literature of both nineteenth-century women and their twentieth-century descendants. The Metaphor of the House in Feminist Literature uses a feminist literary criticism approach in order to examine the use of the house as metaphor in nineteenth and twentieth century literature.