Literature in the 19th century depicted women to be subpar to their male counterparts. Various texts portray women to either be concerned with nothing but physical needs, or too involved with their emotions. Whether is a happy or tragic ending to the text, it is evident that the author felt that women have flaws or behaviors that are in need of correcting. Charles Baudelaire’s, “A Carcass”, depicts women as a vile, rotting corpse. He showed that her body too, will be subjected to such treatment. In Anton Chekhov’s, “The Lady with the Dog,” women are seen as too emotional. In this text, women did not know how to give their affection and emotions to those who can return it.
In Baudelaire’s text, he compares the woman’s future to a rotting corpse they spotted. As stated; “And you, in your turn, will be rotten as this: Horrible, filthy, undone […]” (1387, 37), the line bluntly states that she will be subjected to the same doom. She is characterized as a dead corpse, laying in the most vulnerable and revealing way. It lies there unwanted, wasted, and a thing of the past. The body will be something no longer wanted. It is as he wants her to realize that the soul and “love” will be everlasting. Such attention on the physical will render useless. Such point makes sense when thought of the long run. The magnitude of this uselessness may have been blown up beyond necessary. The language used reinforces the idea that women are seen as lower than men due to their ideas and beliefs.
Chekhov’s text takes on another aspect, women’s emotions. The text makes the points that women are almost fragile in relations due to emotions. It seems that he feels women do not have the ability to separate the two. The woman in the text needed constant reassurance and fell for him, despite knowing it was not the best idea. By her stating; “‘How can I justify myself? I’m a wicked, fallen woman […]” (1527), she acknowledges that she couldn’t contain herself. That is the author’s attempt to tell his readers that women cannot control themselves. This leads back to the idea that men are superior in yet another way. Men have the ability to control or recognize their feelings. They may not help who they love, but they know when they must recognize it and act upon it. The author’s thoughts make sense from a man’s point of view, for they do have a different thought process that involves a slightly smaller amount of emotion. However, the idea that a woman is fragile and needy is pushing the emotional differences to both extremes.
Both the texts present an idea that women focus on certain aspects more than a man would. The author’s themselves view that women have these flaws that will not have the best results. The actions of the woman, or the visual of the exposed and revealing carcass, shows that women were not seen as the highest in morals and values.