The Awakening (1899) is Kate Chopin's novel of a young woman who struggles between the prescribed role of wife and mother and the desire to act independently and inevitably suffers the consequences of trying to establish herself as an independent spirit.

In the play A Doll's House (1879), Henrik Ibsen examines a woman's child-like role as wife and mother in the nineteenth century and the disastrous effects those limitations have on her marriage when she attempts to help her husband.

Stephen Crane's short story "The Open Boat" (1898) depicts the struggles of four shipwrecked seamen to reach shore.

George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs. Warren's Profession (1898) focuses on a daughter who struggles to deal with her discovery that her mother has been running successful brothels, the source of her family's income.