Marti

Works

Information about the work and context of creation

Lithuanian writer, democrat and educator, Julija Benešivičiūtė (Žemaitė) was greatly affected by the 1863 revolution in Lithuania. Her family actively supported the rebels. In her autobiography, Žemaitė remembers this time as a time of meaningful national activity.

After her husband's death in 1900, Žemaitė became actively involved in the life of the emerging Lithuanian society. In 1907 she participated in the first Lithuanian Women's Congress in Kaunas. In the same year she came to the first exhibition of Lithuanian art and wrote about it to the newspaper „Vilniaus žinios“. She insightfully discussed the connections between the paintings of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and Lithuanian mythological imagination. From 1914 to 1915 in Russia and the United States collected money to help victims of the First World War. Žemaitė became famous as a mesmerizing orator of great eloquence at the Women's Congress, Lithuanian public events in Vilnius, and the gathering of the Lithuanian diaspora.

Other Lithuanian women writers of the same period were Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė, Lazdynų Pelėda and Liudvika Didžiulienė-Žmona.

Daughter in law it’s a typical realism novel, in wich depicting the plight of a woman in the twentieth century. In this novel it depicts the hard part of the main character Katre as a woman in patriarchal society. The novel story tells the story of Katre, who was forcibly married and had to live with a man’s family in which she was disrespectful. Katre was gentle, hardworking, from a wealthy family, but her husband family despised her for it. Katre lamented the new family in every way, but her husband and husband's father constantly reminded her that she was only a woman and had to listen to men. Katre was deeply unhappy in this new family the girl who was  humble and nice became angry and sad. Even when Katre get sick her husband and father in law choose drink alcohol then call the doctor who could help Katre to recover. In the end Katre was died. Tt’s tragic story, which shows daily life of women in Lithuania in the XX century. 

Creation is based on the principles of aesthetics of realism, social, critical. Daughter in law reveal the negative, often tragic consequences of marriages from deduction, condemned men's despotism in the family, the pursuit of material gain for peasants, spiritual darkness.

This work is dominated by an objectified narrative, with elements of irony and comedy, depicts the daily, well-known life of the Lithuanian rural village, material and ethical relations and works of peasants, and a lot of space is given to the situation of women. The feelings and experiences of the characters are shown through external objects, and their characters are vivid. The language is picturesque, expressive, close to the language of folk narrators. Every word has a clear meaning, without any abstraction and sensuality are avoided. The work are written in the Samogitian dialect. 

Indications

INDICATIONS: Optional. 

It belongs to the works of Realism. 

Didactic approach: This work can be used in subjects like 

• Lithuania literature
• World literature 

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