SOURCE: “Frontiers of Language: Engendering Discourse in ‘The Revolt of Mother,’” in American Literature, Vol. 63, No. 2, June, 1991, pp. 279–91.

In the following essay, Cutter examines the different psychological orientations of the male and female characters in “The Revolt of Mother” as expressed through the characters' use of language.

Sarah Penn, the heroine of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's well-known short story “The Revolt of ‘Mother,’” wants a comfortable home for her family.¹ But her husband, although well off, insists on building more barns and buying more cattle, thereby confining his family to their meager, run-down hovel of a home. So while Father is away, Sarah takes control of the situation, subverting her husband's intentions by moving her family and all their possessions into Father's newest barn. When Father returns, Sarah tells him: “we've come here to live, an' we're goin' to live here. We've got jest as good a right...