The Devil Baby at Hull-House

The Devil Baby at Hull-House by Jane Addams is a wonderfully written essay. It is written to men to show them that hard-working women make up the bulk of women in the word. They may go through terrible times but they keep on moving forward. Jane Addams was a suffragette leader and pushed women's rights as much as possible because she believed that men and women should be treated as equals. The Devil Baby at Hull-House was originally published in, "The Atlantic Monthly, 1916; collected in The Long Road of Woman's Memory"(Addams 75). It begins with the story of a devil child living in her town. People from all over gathered to pay money and see the demon child but there never was one. While some got angered and felt conned, others felt it was their time to talk about their lives and the demons that plague them. She sees how the women seem to be calloused and no longer feel then pains of life. Jane Addam's use of imagery in her narrative paints a picture in the minds of readers. A little girl went crazy because she saw, "blood splashed on the wall" (Addams 78), after her father killed himself. He had previously been trying to kill the girl and her mother. She," [...] shivered and shook all that night through, and the next morning she had lost her voice [...]" (Addams 78) making her madness more visible. It also made that part of the essay more haunting. She also had the brilliant allegory of the devil child also being a representation of the demons these women had to deal with cause the men in their lives had been either of no help in, or the cause of, the worst tragedies these women had to bear. This made her point that women continue to push through their hard times and work hard, very strong. 

Suffragette Women Talk

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