The home is the centre and circumference, the start and the finish, of most of our lives.
It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests a deeper understanding of a woman's struggle and societal behavior, particularly in relation to how women express themselves in public versus private.
In this quote, Charlotte Perkins Gilman reflects on the complexities of women's behavior and societal expectations. The phrase 'creeping' implies a sense of secrecy or constraint, suggesting that women often have to hide their true selves or desires in public. This stark contrast between daylight and creeping illustrates the societal pressures that discourage women from expressing their individuality openly, highlighting a critical perspective on gender roles and the inherent struggles women face.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion on gender equality at a women's rights event.
More from Charlotte Perkins Gilman
All quotes βTo swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind.
Woman" in the abstract is young, and, we assume, charming. As they get older they pass off the stage, somehow, into private ownership mostly, or out of it altogether.
We all need one another; much and often. Just as every human creature needs a place to be alone in, a sacred, private "home" of his own, so all human creatures need a place to be together in, from the two who can show each other their souls uninterruptedly, to the largest throng that can throb and stir in unison.
Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.
When the mother of the race is free, we shall have a better world, by the easy right of birth and by the calm, slow, friendly forces of evolution.
Similar quotes
It is never on account of its formal nature as a psychic act that faith is conceived in Scripture to be saving. It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. The saving power resides exclusively, not in the act of faith or the attitude of faith or nature of faith, but in the object of faith.
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.
The sin of fallen man is this: Man seeks the benefits of God while at the same time fleeing from God Himself.
God! how is it that we fail to recognize that the mask of pleasure, stripped of all hypocrisy, is that of anguish?
It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgment has performed that office with wonderful correctness.
I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of daily life.