The Crux (Annotated)

Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-The Crux by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.The purpose of realizing this historical context is to approach the understanding of a historical epoch from the elements provided by the text. Hence the importance of placing the document in context. It is necessary to unravel what its author or authors have said, how it has been said, when, why and where, always relating it to its historical moment.It is an important early feminist work that highlights complicated issues of gender, citizenship, eugenics, and border nationalism. First published serially in feminist magazine The Forerunner in 1910, The Crux tells the story of a group of New England women moving west to start a men's pension in Colorado. Innocent central character Vivian Lane falls in love with Morton Elder, who has gonorrhea and syphilis. The novel's concern is not so much that Vivian contracts syphilis, but that, if she married and had children with Morton, it would harm the "national stock." The novel was written, in Gilman's words, as a "story ... for young women to read