Society has set different norms that are supposed to govern how people live. Men and women have specific roles that they should adhere to fit in society. Failure to follow the criteria established for each function may result in being looked down upon and even discriminated against (Margaret, 2023). These roles are sometimes excessively severe and unfair; males are supposed to be the leader of their households and provide for their families, and they are usually allocated more onerous responsibilities. On the other hand, women are expected to stay at home and look after their homes, and they should not work or perform tasks that need more physical energy. They should not take leadership positions because politics seems too harsh and rough, and thus women cannot withstand such an environment, and they are also obliged to be humble to their men. This article examines how well male and female literary characters mirror the roles of men and women in the novel Oryx and Crake.
In this novel, Jimmys mother tells him to leave his dad alone because he is thinking and does not have time for him. She then hauls him with a wrist and leaves the house. This is because his done was thinking about work, and his mother could not allow him to disturb his dad because he was the one who worked to provide for his family. In that case, she has to pick up his son and move out of the house to give his husband peace of mind to do his job. This shows that men are the ones who provide for society, and they should not be distracted by children because that is not their obligation.
When Ramona, Jimmys dads lab technician, asks him how his wife is doing, he says that his wife is not hot, and that is a problem that makes him get worried. This shows that he does not care about anything else about his wife except that the wife has to look good. This shows that his dad expects his wife to look beautiful. In society, women are there to be seen and not to be heard; thus, he expects his wife to look good.
Jimmys dad says that Ramona was talking like a shower-gel babe in an advertisement, yet she was a technology genius and not stupid (Margaret, 2023). This shows that women can be judged by how they look or talk. Society expects people with tough jobs to talk or behave a certain way, especially women because no one cares about how men talk; they are perceived to be intelligent. In society, women who seem beautiful, like Ramona, are expected to do jobs that do not need much professionalism and seem easy.
When Jimmy asks his mother why she left her job, she tells him that she had to quit to stay with him (Margaret, 2023). Her mother answers him this as he looks at her husband, and this is evident that she did not quit because she was coerced. Her mother seemed to like her job, but she was supposed to stay home because she was married and had a child. In society, women should take care of their homes and not go to work because providing for the family is not their responsibility. Women are only obliged to stay at home.
This novel shows the societal norms that are set to govern how men and women perform their duties (Margaret, 2023). Some of these perceptions should be terminated because they limit the countrys economys success because women are not supposed to work, and also, womens personal goals cannot be achieved because they should only attend to their children.
Reference
Margaret, A. (2023). Oryx and Crake: a novel. (Pdf download) Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood Free Download. Web.
The images of women and their ideal role as portrayed in Mrs. Beetons Book of Household Management, and in Godeys Ladys Book share many important characteristics, but reveal subtle differences which reflect the gap between the British Empire and its wayward ex-colony. In neither country were women accorded the rights which we, today, take for granted. In neither country did this lack of rights translate into being exempt from the heaviest of labor inside the household. However, there are discernable differences, inferable from both publications, in the role of the wife and mother in the creation and growth of the nation.
In the middle of the 19th century, women on both sides of the Atlantic had many decades to go before obtaining the right of suffrage. Instead, the role of the mother of the nation was widely discussed as the aim and goal of American women. In this model of womens place in society, mothers were to raise all their children to be model civic participants and support their spouses civic and economic achievement. An obvious weakness of this sop thrown to the bright and energetic women of the Federal period was that it marginalized, even more than they already were, women who could not or would not marry or have children. Additionally, this task was rather small beer for women who had lived and worked and made personal sacrifices through the heady days of the fight for independence, or who had seen and heard of their mothers doing so, or read about these exploits in articles such as Heroic Women Of The Revolution: Jane Gaston in Godeys Ladys Book (Ellet). However, this encouragement for the civic preparation and therefore the education of all the children ( even if the girls were only to be taught in dames schools or in the off-season when haying and harvesting left the one-room schoolhouses empty of boys), was not without long term results. The early funding of public schools, colleges, and libraries, and the impetus for universal literacy probably owes much of its energy to this pressure for mothers to not only bear and rear, but also train, the future citizens well (Ellet).
However, this heavy responsibility for the future health of the Republic was laid upon womens frail shoulders in the context of the fair sex being entirely subordinate legally to their husbands, unable to hold property in their own name, enter into contracts, go to court, pursue higher education alongside men, or enter professions. This did not pass unremarked, as is apparent from the excerpt from Goethe (Goethe). As discomfort with the issue of slavery and other inequities drew women into the arena of advocacy, the irony of campaigning for the rights of others while their own rights were still a dream became more pointed. However, the popular press was not necessarily the venue where such concerns were routinely hashed over.
The March 1850 issue of Godeys Ladys Book appeared in the same half-decade as very public initiatives on behalf of womens suffrage and rights. Not one hint of this ferment is visible explicitly in the articles. In fact, the tone of the excerpt from Goethe translated as The Sphere of Woman (Goethe), is dismissive of all objections to the status quo. On the contrary, the prudent woman , according to Goethe, reigns in her family circle, making happiness and every virtue possible, and spreading harmony and peace throughout her domain. As contrasted with the world outside the home, where the husband may not be able to realistically accomplish what he wishes, with a prudent wife running his household as he desires and she achieves, he is a happy prince over that happiest domain . Goethe goes on to assert, regarding the householder thereby freed from concern about his household, Thus, in a spirit of true independence, he can devote his energies to great objects and become to the state (by promoting its prosperity) what his wife is to the household over which she presides. (Goethe) It is tempting to speculate whether this essay in the original German is quite so neatly congruent with the aims of the young Republic, or whether the translator has subtly shaped the English text to fit the perceived needs of the newly independent and newly self-governing America.
A piece of historical fiction in Godeys, the story of Katherine Walton, shows a heroine who is gracious even to her enemies, who describe her thus; By my life, said Cruden, the girl carries herself like a queen. She knows how to behave, certainly. She knows what is expected of her. In fact, the likelihood that all the valuables have been spirited away to hiding and safekeeping passes unobserved because, says one of her British visitors, everything was so neatly arranged and so appropriate, that I could fancy no deficiencies. (Simms)
However, the men observing her express their hope that as in that of all other unmarried young women, that she may soon find her proper sovereign. The smitten Balfour says of her, She is a queen&I only wish that she were mine. It would make me feel like a prince, indeed. I should get myself crowned (Simms)
As it transpires, Katherine is indeed the intended queen of one of them, a fellow passing as a Loyalist, She chides him, in fine Revolutionary fashion, when they have a moment alone. She upbraids him for endangering himself and the cause, as follows: I know that you are not the person, at a season when your services are so necessary to the country, to bestow any time even upon your best affections, which might better be employed elsewhere. Surely, there is a cause which brings you into the snares of our enemies, of a nature to justify this rashness. (Simms)
It is clear that her lover, Singleton, is fully aware of her personal strength and ardor for liberty because he draws attention to the change in her.
You have become strangely timid and apprehensive, Kate, all of a sudden. Once you would have welcomed any peril, for yourself as well as me, which promised glorious results in war or stratagem. Now.
Alas! Robert, the last few days have served to show me that I am but a woman. The danger from which you saved my father brought out all my weakness. I believe that I have great and unusual strength from (sic) one of my sex; but I feel a shrinking at the heart, now, that satisfies me how idly before were all my sense and appreciation of the great perils to which our people are exposed. (Simms)
And indeed, later in the story, when the British threaten, Singleton places her safely behind himself (Simms passim). This Katherine Walton is a prime romance novel heroine of her age; brave on behalf of the nation, but a shrinking blossom when her familys safety is in danger, and there is an appropriate male to protect her. Of course, she is also always a lovely hostess and good manager of the household, even concealing by her neatness and artful table arrangements her sequestering of the familys silverware (Simms passim).
Another article that highlights the ideal of American womanhood is the aforementioned story of Jane Gaston in the Revolution. The incidents that she and other women endured are as distressing as anything seen today on the news. The spirit and defiance of these colonial ladies are remarkable. The clue to what readers were to take away from the tales of these resourceful women (imagine the challenge of making a meal from the sweepings from the floor), is as follows; the expectancy of the State is of those who are descended from the patriots whose lives have been devoted to the service of their country . Even while recounting stories that clearly prove that women can be as tough and capable as men when motivated, Godeys message is that they are meant to be the bearers (literally) of the seed for the future of the country (Ellet passim).
In England in 1850, conditions for women were not noticeably better. Women were subject to the same absence of rights and access to suffrage, education, professions, property holding, legal identity and action, divorce, and such, which afflicted their American sisters. In fact, since American law was based on English common law, these American deficiencies were attributable to the historical place of women in Britain for the previous several centuries.
English law regarding women reflected the long-standing negative attitudes of the Catholic Church towards women as the source of evil in the world, even though England had been independent of Rome for over a hundred years. Additionally, English women were subject to the additional burden of a far more rigid class structure, which limited the economic and social mobility of both sexes. There was also the issue of the established church; for those in the British Empire who were not members of the Church of England, many educational and employment opportunities were effectively closed off. Further, there was the question of ethnicity to contend with. The English were famously contemptuous of the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish, and, unfortunately, the dark-skinned peoples of their far-flung Empire. If you were a woman whose religion, race/ethnicity, or class, was not English, Anglican, and gentry, you were really at the bottom of the pile. Finally, once Queen Victoria took the throne, her personal idiosyncrasies stamped their imprint on the styles and fashions of the era, and these were not generally conducive to female independence.
In this context, Mrs.Beetons Book of Household Management both empowers the mistress of the household realm and reaffirms the rigidity of the existing order. It is clear that Mrs. Beeton believed that women were in charge of a complex and serious enterprise, and one which had implications outside her home, in managing the household economy. But there is much in Mrs. Beetons which oppresses. There are repeated apprehensive references to the careful choice of friends and acquaintances, suggesting that those who possess a long experience of the world, scrutinize the conduct and disposition of people before they trust themselves to the first fair appearances. (Sic). The section on friendships paints a picture of isolation that is almost painful for a modern reader. The lady of 1850 was obligated to choose her associations on the basis of their being prepared to reprehend vice and defend virtue . It is instantly understandable the wisdom of Beetons directive that A gossiping acquaintance who indulges in the scandal and ridicule of her neighbors should be avoided as a pestilence , just as one would avoid someone who practices fair-faced deceit . This all sounds very modern in tone. However, forming a friendship of a kind as well tend to the natural interchange of general and interesting information sounds a bit bland and empty (Beeton 301). With such an agenda, friendship sounds like a rather sterile and duty-bound business. One wonders if the 1850s wife and mother had, perhaps, vanishingly few outlets for ventilating her frustrations save her diary. While the specific Godeys Ladys Book articles examined here do not address this particular issue, it is intriguing to wonder whether Americans would have developed their famous openness, had they also been so heavy-handedly scolded by their editorial authorities against carelessly forming acquaintances and sharing confidences.
There is also an assumption expressed in this section on the Mistress that the household will include domestic servants, which many might regard as enabling the continued oppression of the less privileged classes. These people in her employ are acknowledged as being human at all mainly in the recognition that they are subject to self-indulgence in the same way their employers are. Otherwise, they are domestics or servants (Beeton 300).
The mistress is the model for the behavior of her staff (and other residents of her household). She is ideally modest , prudent , and careful (Beeton 300). She rises early, avoids self-indulgence , behaves thriftily, takes cold or tepid baths daily, and ensures that the whole household does likewise (Beeton 300) (a practice which most modern women and men would abjure with shivering loathing, but which must have represented an improvement over the virtual absence of bathing in earlier periods). Our model housewife seeks out constructive recreation and edifying society who may be entertained with reality and truthfulness and with genuine hospitality (Beeton 301).
Mrs. Beeton also makes some judgmental statements, even in this short passage, which reveal a prevailing hypocrisy of the era. Beeton includes a quote linking frugality to temperance, prudence and liberty, and implying that extravagance leads to poverty (Beeton 300). While this observation may be accurate in many cases, this quote from the (male) epigrammatic authority, Samuel Johnson, blithely ignores the important role of uncontrolled fecundity in impoverishing families and trapping them in poverty. In 1850 there was no legal way to control family size effectively and definitively, and the untrammeled rights of a husband to his wifes person made voluntary conception control a rather hopeless enterprise. Women of all classes were at the mercy of their innate fertility and the whims of their husbands in any effort to plan conceptions. Although the next several decades would see increasing pressure to change this, it was not until living memory that true conception control became legal and available.
Mrs.Beetons opening encomium to the role of the prudent wife parallels that by Goethe, in the article previously cited from Godeys (Goethe). This introductory section is capped by a lyrical verse from the Biblical book of Proverbs1. Beetons text makes the wife and mother out to be the angel of the household. Regarding her husband and children, she reclaims the one from vice and trains up the other to virtue . She is responsible for keeping her husband from doing the unspeakable, literally holding him back from degradation, and saving him from a souls disaster (Beeton 300). Note how this differs from the slightly different aim, expressed in the Goethe essay in Godeys (Goethe), of freeing the husband for concentration on civic accomplishment.
Note also that the issue of children is covered in a section titled as the Management of Children (Beeton 300). Is this rather chilly choice of words by chance? Clearly, for Mrs. Beeton, child-rearing was yet another opportunity to demonstrate good supervision. Enjoying it was a very different question.
Beeton supports the mothers responsibility to educate her children to virtue (Beeton 300). This goal of rearing children capable of demonstrating moral excellence and chastity is of course admirable, but it is subtly different from the American model. Virtue, alone, is not necessarily the same as civic virtue, as is held up for admiration in the articles in Godeys (Ellet) (Simms), and it is certainly not the same as civic accomplishment, or, for that matter, any kind of accomplishment at all.
It is interesting, and yet another reflection of the status of women in 1861, when her book was originally published, to note that all the authorities which Isabella Beeton cites are male. Although she manages an international nod to the United States by quoting Washington Irving, sadly she could not include a quote from a woman to credibly support her contentions. Goethe is male, and the other Godeys articles cited herein are also by men.
There is not a huge difference between the two views of women and their roles in Godeys and Mrs.Beetons. However, the class structure definitely impresses itself on the mood of Mrs. Beetons, and adds an extra layer of obstacle to womens freedom, movement, mobility, and independence. Additionally, where Godeys woman is responsible for helping her husband and children to serve the new country, Beetons lady is responsible for helping her husband save his soul, safeguarding her childrens moral standing, and maintaining the social class structure. In both instances, the woman is expected to be competent at managing a household enterprise thriftily, with all the associated tasks of human resource management, real estate, food production and preservation, and possibly animal husbandry, gardening, education, among others, while retaining religious faith, good temper, social graces, and personal daintiness2.
Bibliography
Beeton, Isabella. Mrs. Beetons Book of Household Management, Chapter 1, The Mistress. Ed. French, and Poska. n.d. 300-301.
Ellet, E.F. Heroic Women of the Revolution. 2010. Godeys Ladys Book, March 1850. University of Rochester. Web.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. The Sphere of Woman. 2010. Godeys Ladys Book, March 1850. University of Rochester. Web.
Simms, W. Gilmore. Katherine Walton: or, The Partisans Daughter: A Tale of the Revolution. 2010. Godeys Ladys Book, March, 1850. Web.
Footnotes
1 The chapter in the book of Proverbs from which this verse is excerpted goes on to describe in detail the complex artisanal, husbandry, and entrepreneurial activity in which an Old Testament wife was expected to engage, independently, for the profit and support of her family. It is a bit ironic that this approach to womens responsibility was reflected throughout the Bible, and formed the basis for the tradition, amongst some more modern Jewish populations, of women working out in the world, often in very responsible positions requiring higher education, to support their husbands in their exclusive study of sacred scripture.
2 It is instructive to recall that both English and Yankee women were expected to accomplish all this without any representation politically and without indoor plumbing, birth control, or monthly sanitary protection.
Since time in memorial, the role that women should play has been widely debated in many societies. There are those societies that feel that the womans place is in the kitchen while other believes that women should forever be under the authority of men. Societies have changed and women have taken greater roles in societies. It is with this greater concern that some writers have come out of the closet and written on womens roles in the society. Even in the 20th century, it is not surprising to note that the roles that are assigned or predetermined to be played by women in society have remained the same with few women taking up the challenge to engage in the male-dominated fields.
Taking a closer look at the writings of Naula OFaolain, in her autobiography Are you somebody , we are left with no doubt that the experiences that her mother went through greatly influenced her writing. Though OFaolain spent her life single and died childless, she expresses her loneliness which to her is better than ending up like her mother. She has struggled with the meaning of love and confesses in her autobiography that she found it hard to have long lasting relationships. The writer clearly brings out the theme of family which seems to be intertwined with love. The Irish tradition portray women in the traditional sense of being subordinate to men and their role as having children in the family. This is clearly brought out in the autobiography through way the her father treated her mother which makes OFaolain, hate the traditional perception of Irish marriages and therefore struggles with searching for the meaning of love in life. Her resentments caused by her childhood experiences makes her to continually involve herself with both men and women with the hope of finding the right partner and inevitably love but she ends up not getting involved with anybody. The theme of family in the autobiography Are you somebody shows the state that women were subjected to in the Irish community. Women had no equality in the society and were constantly abused by their husbands and their role centered more on bearing children with a good illustration being that the mother of the author had nine children even with her good education. To further stress my point, some people regard OFaolain, as a bitter writer who expresses her feelings of growing up in an abusive family in her writings by the mere fact that she did not have children of her own and died unmarried. The role of mothers in OFaolains writings is vaguely brought out through the way she expresses her loneliness. In her autobiography, OFaolain writes that at one time she wrote to her mother telling her that she was lonely only for the mother to reply to her in a very unloving manner (OFaolain 58). We can therefore say that women should be role models to their children so that their children would be greater people in the society, unlike OFaolains mother who engaged in alcohol making her children including the writer wanted to despise her. Though not directly portrayed in the novel, OFaolain seems to live the life of her mother in the novel. Her life is filled up with a long search for love (OFaolain 24) which does not end well for she died a lonely person just like the way her mothers life ended in alcoholism. The style in OFaolain is the collection of her real-life experiences commonly referred to as a memoir.
Mary Wollenstonecraft is another writer whose writing draws attention to womens issues. In the novel The wrongs of a womans , the character Maria, self educates herself when she is locked up in an asylum by her husband. She befriended one of the attendants of the asylum who agreed to bring her books which she studied (Wollenstonecraft 17). Bringing my point closer home, Maria writes manuscripts in which she advises her daughter who was taken from her by her husband. Mary Wollenstonecraft therefore clearly shows that womens roles should be educating their children. However, Wollenstonecraft portrays society as regarding women as inferior by not educating them. Interesting to note is that she does not argue for womens equality with men and perhaps this can be attributed to the time context her novels are written in. The time frame that her novels are written in does not coincide with the time that feminism move was rampant and this clearly illustrates why she still regarded men as having a greater degree than women in her novels. My subjective conclusion, therefore, is that the time frame in which a particular literary piece of work on the way society portrays women is written is dependent on the timeframe that particular novel was written in. Modern writers on women issues have taken a more direct attack claiming on equality between men and women while writers in the 18th century saw no need to equate men to women. However, both sets of writers are not comfortable with the way society has treated women throughout time.
The injustices that women were subjected to in the 18th century as indicated in the novel The wrongs of a womans are clearly brought out in the novel when Maria is forced into an asylum by the husband on claims that she was mad (Wollenstonecraft 8). The novel however utilizes the third person narration together with the first-person narration. The combination allows the characters in the novel to address each other freely between the first person persona and the third person persona and thereby making it easy for Maria to tell her story through a narrative to her daughter. Thus, the combination allows Maria to relate to her daughter directly.
George Eliots Silas Marner has an interesting twist on how societies portray women. The book is written by a woman who used a male name to camouflage that it was the work of a woman and therefore needless to say that even in the 19th century, women were oppressed in society. Geoffrey Cass is a character in the novel Silas Marner and who longs to have children but is married to a woman who only had one child. Cass involves himself with another woman by the name of Nancy to escape the wrath of being tied to a woman who cannot have many children (Eliot 17). This clearly shows that women were being valued with the number of children that they could give birth to in society. In addition, when Silas hope and love are restored to him when he found Eppie, he finds its hard to discipline the child when the child starts to become naughty. This also shows women were the ones to take care of their daughters and sons and discipline them for the men knew nothing about disciplining children, which further illustrates the role of women in society. The style used in this novel is imagery where the behavior of Silas is compared to a spider, an insect and also, an ant.
In Joyce Carol Oatess We Were the Mulvaneys ; the narrator clearly introduces us to a cheerful family which has a common element that joins them together as the Mulvaneys. The narrator introduces the theme of the family in a clear manner and goes on to narrate how the family finally disintegrates following their misfortunes which started with the rape of their daughter, Marianne at a Valentines Day dance. In the novel, the narrator, Judd Mulvaney, tells us of how the family was widely known in the rural setting of New York but later on lost its status and its brightest moments after sad events started to happen to the family (Oates 15). The narrator tells us how the father felt defeated for failing to avenge when his daughter was raped and thereby settling to alcoholism. Judd tells us that Marianne was sent far away from the family after the mother realized that she had a duty to her husband bringing us to the shift in focus on the role of motherhood in the novel. It is sad to note that after the parents sent off Marianne, the family slowly fragmented with some of the siblings opting to live far away from home. It is when the mother committed herself fully to caring for her husband that she lost focus in the family. In Joyce Carol Oatess novel We Were the Mulvaneys , the theme of the family stands out the most with regard to the way the narrator tells the story. Corrines character portrays a woman who is living her dream of being a mother to a happy family before the family falls apart and thats why she could not believe that Marianne had betrayed her through her innocence and kept quiet about her rape ordeal. Through Joyce Carol Oatess work, we get a glimpse of societys expectations of women through Corrines character. The novel portrays women to be caring, warm and a woman who loves their children though she prefers looking at the husband at the expense of the child (Marianne) to maintain the family image. Therefore, the novel shows how women desire to be good mothers and a mother can only be truly happy like Corrine if they have a happy family. The style commonly used in the novel is the denouement, where the story unravels and unfolds right as the reader continues to read the novel to an end that seems calculated to a climax, in this case, the death of the father who shattered the family through his indulgence in alcoholism, Michael Mulvaney.
Relating Naula OFaolain, autobiography Are you somebody to Joyce Carol Oatess novel We Were the Mulvaneys , the striking similarity is that the two are written by people who experienced family breakups. For instance, Are you somebody is an autobiography by OFaolain and in Joyce Oatess novel; the narrator is Judd Mulvaney, who is the youngest of the Mulvaneys.
Frankenstein is a fiction novel by the writer Mary Shelley. The novel revolves around romance and love. Frankenstein creates a monster which makes him disgusted for the monster turned out to be ugly. Frankenstein makes the mistake of leaving the monster with the hope that the monster would not resurface in his life. He is mistaken to think that the monster would disappear after he abandoned it for the monster comes haunting Frankenstein through murdering his loved ones (Shelley 13). The monster feels lonely and alienated and asks Frankenstein to make him a female companion. When Frankenstein refuses the idea of creating a female companion, the monster gets angry and murders Elizabeth who Frankenstein had married. Through Shellys novel, women are depicted as companions for their male counterparts and this is evidenced by the monster avenging because Frankenstein did not create a female companion for him. Frankenstein also failed to create a female companion for the monster because he thought that the two monsters would procreate and there would be many monsters (Shelley 46). This further tells us that society views women as child-bearers and this becomes the value that is attached to a woman. A major theme in Shellys novel is relationships. It is through the loss of Elizabeth who he loved that Frankenstein finally decides to go on a mission to kill the monster (Shelley 19). Feminism is also evident in the novel where the females involved in the novel are suffering at the hands of the monster. Females in the novel are therefore submissive and rely on their male counterparts to rescue them for example in the case of Elizabeth who died for she was unable to defend herself from the monsters wrath. The style in Shellys Frankenstein is in epistolary form for she has used letters written between Walton and the sister to tell us the story of the monster and Victor. The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly utilizes gothic style through the introduction of the monster to bring the horrifying experiences and therefore is very different from the others for instance Joyce Carol Oates We Were the Mulvaneys .
We also cannot fail to note that while the authors of these novels greatly featured family themes, romance and love, Joyce Carol Oates and Naula OFaolain did not marry and had no children of their own though they portray the family as the center of love and care for the children.
In summary, the time periods that the novels were written do nothing to elude the fact that men are seen as superior to women. Taking the example of Mary Shellys work, all the characters who die at the hand of the monster are women. In addition, the daughter of the great feminist Mary Wollenstonecraft continues to depict women in her novel as passive and thereby projecting the way society has continually viewed women as lesser beings in comparison to men.
Just like OFaoliain, Wollenstonecrafts childhood experiences revolve around an abusive father who beat her mother and therefore not surprising to note that she took the role of challenging societys commonly held beliefs of women. To my conclusion, the women who have taken up the role of writing on the role of motherhood in womens writings have been directly affected through their childhood experiences. Their fathers used to abuse their mothers and as a result, these writers in conveying the information to all women in the world have also used the experiences to document their childhood life experiences. Yes, to some people, these women have conveyed their bitter feelings for not getting married and others may read their novels with the conclusion that they never had families of their own and therefore not in a position to write on the role of motherhood in society and the way society portray women. Nevertheless, these brave women have shown that society has a long way to go in accepting women and regarding them with dignity.
Works Cited
Eliot, George. Silas Marner. New York. Bantam Classics, 1981
Oates, Joyce Carol. We Were the Mulvaneys. The UK, E P Dutton (HB) & G P Putnams Sons (PB), 1996.
OFaolain, Naula. Are You Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman? New York. Henry Holt & Company, 1996.
Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein; Or the Modern Prometheus: Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1818.
Wollenstonecraft, Mary. The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria: New York, Norton: Ed. Moria Ferguson. 1975.
Virginia Woolf broaches the subject of Shakespeare by exploring the fact that a professor whose work she has studied suggests that a woman could never write anything in the way of the playwrights genius. It is her conclusion that, at any rate, it would have been impossible for a woman to match the genius of Shakespeare in the time of Shakespeare (Woolf, 3).
Woolf posits that if Shakespeare had had a sister, and this sister matched Shakespeare in adventurousness and imagination, she would have had no opportunity to exercise these qualities in likeness to that of Shakespeare himself. Shakespeare, Woolf explains, would have been sent to a private school where he would have learned rules of logic and grammar while this sister would have been offered no such opportunity (Woolf, 3).
Her parents would have discouraged her from even musing about in Shakespeares papers and books. Her suggestions seem accurate and well thought out. She is saying that capability was not the determining factor in females realizing genius. Preparation and opportunity also must be present, and these things were not afforded to females of Shakespeares time.
Shakespeare would have ventured to London with his inclination for the theater, acting and living at the center of creativity at the time (Woolf, 3). Woolf suggests his fictional sister, posed here for the purpose of argument, would have been betrothed and forced by the fire of her similar talents to shame her father and abandon that betrothal. This is obviously something that cannot be verified. Woolf, his carried away by her admiration for the struggles a female of genius would have had to endure.
She takes her example here to the extreme, and in so doing cheapens her main point. It is not necessary for the fictional heroine of her example to flee a betrothal and kill herself out of a need to preserve her brilliance. The fact of the matter is, most women in this circumstance simply endured the confines of the expectations placed upon them and did not end their lives out of some desperate need to honor their talents or die. Yet, with all the mangled passions of a poet trapped inside Shakespeares fictional sister so painfully, she would have, Woolf, imagines, committed suicide to escape the pain of so little self-actualization.
She continues to describe the impossibility of Judith, even if she had existed, possessing a genius like Shakespeares, because Shakespeares genius is one that emerges in aristocracy. The servility pressed upon women is not the soil from which that type of genius could spring (Woolf, 3).
This is a completely believable assertion. Women who needed to earn their sense of self from constantly performing tasks to others expectations would have naturally become, in some fashion, mentally dependant. If there is any component that all genius shares, it is originality, and this feature would have had little opportunity to flourish when constantly met with an expectation of subservience.
The genius of fiction in a man is met with indifference by the world. The genius of fiction in a woman is met with a scoff (Woolf, 3). The difference in the response is explained by Woolf through assigning to the world a plausible statement it may as well have made to either sex in reference to such fictional genius. The world told men their writing made no difference and told the women to write at all was ridiculous (Woolf, 3). She explains how difficult it is for a man to write an entire work from his mind without impediment to highlight how much more daunting the task must have seemed to women inclined.
This is where she comes upon the truth of incandescence of Shakespeares mind. His work, she points out, bears no hint to his inner sufferings, to his pains, or to his grievances with the world, but manages to stand on its owncomplete musings of a writer who was able to drive out, through the light of his blinding brilliance, entire, self-sustaining fictions that require no consideration of intention of the author. The meaning of her analysis of Shakespeare is that he, being of a genius supported by the freedom of his familys status and his gender, is put in an optimal circumstance from which to bring to life his elaborate, plot-driven, imagination.
To this, it is easy to respond with a simple question. Does Woolf believe that all creative genius is wasted when used to combat personal plight? In looking at Shakespeares work it is not impossible to view his inclinations for certain forms of drama. Does this not provide insight into who the author was, and what she preferred? In Woolfs determination to paint women in the light of the forsaken and mistreated, she creates for herself a need to define creative genius in a very limited way. Though from aristocracy works can be created that have little to do with the unmet, fundamental needs of the masses, which does not mean that such work is superior.
That is not the nature of Shakespeares superiority. His gift was one of language, and the fact that a person of his genius would not have been afforded the opportunity to work if born into a lower class is more indicative of the kinds of discrimination that were common in the age. If people valued work that reflected common struggles, perhaps women would have been provided an opportunity to indulge in the arts without forsaking their roles. Perhaps artist and woman would not have been a juxtaposition of terms.
Woolfs Research
Woolf finds that female writers, as they begin to appear in print sometime after the Elizabethan Era, often use their poetic inclinations to struggle with the role of women in society. She finds that women poets like Lady Winchilsea burst with indignation in their writings (Woolf, 4). Lady Winchilseas mind, in contrast to Shakespeares, is rife with impediments to the pure experience of a creative heart. Woolf notices that Lady Winchilsea of the seventeenth century is able to set aside her indignation, her sense of oppression, and write with the natural embers of the creative spirit lighting the way to her words (Woolf, 4).
Woolf simply points out that this ability is blighted by the indignation present in most of Winchilseas writings. Woolf ultimately criticizes Lady Winchilsea for never being able to free herself from all that bound her gift. She compares the state of her talent to a flower growing out of weeds and briars (Woolf, 4). Here again, she undervalues the courage innate in such displays, and the necessity of female artists of the time addressing the nature of their confinements with all the passion that confinement would create.
Woolf continues, discussing next Margaret Cavendish. She expresses a sense of shame that Cavendish ventured into obscurity rather than to fight the good fight publicly. This is a contrast to Woolfs assessment of Lady Winchilsea. Whereas Winchilsea wrote and exposed her work to the public without ever freeing herself of her grievances, Cavendish was so crippled by her passion and its context that she could not bear exposure. Here, again, it is worth noting that Woolf does not assign credit to Cavendish for having the courage to keep writing in the face of all that oppressed her.
She then examines one Dorothy Osborne in her letters. She explains this woman as having a talent that she was never allowed the freedom to explore professionally (Woolf 4). Her criticism in this case seems to be on the state of the world, and not directed at Osborne, noting that Osborne was made to believe that her writing was futile and ridiculous (Woolf, 4). Though this critique of the world is expressed here through the case of Osborne and her letters, it is implied in the criticisms of the previous writers as well.
Woolf seems harder on writers who came closer to self-actualization, whereas she finds Dorothy Osbornes unrecognized talent cause for pity. This is baffling. Osborne is by all rational standards less of a success than Cavendish and Winchilsea, and yet receives none of the criticism Woolf gives to either of them.
Alphra Behn is the next writer covered by Woolf and is described as a transcendental figure. Behn is forced to make her living off of her wits, and in so doing creates for herself a life of independence. She sets a precedent, Woolf explains and realizes the possibility of women making money from their writingssomething that made the endeavor seem practical for the first time. This is something Woolf admires and praises. It seems that Woolf has no admiration for those caught in between servility and independence, and praise for those conditioned in either.
In the nineteenth century, Woolf finds that there emerged many female authors. She is intrigued by the fact that these authors only seem to write novels. She makes note of the fact that Jane Austin, having to hide her manuscript as something taboo when the company approached her workspace, managed to create a work without the impediments referred to above. Woolf notes that her writing is remarkably similar to that of Shakespeares incandescence (Woolf 4).
Grace Poole, Woolf suggests, is an example of a genius greater than that of Austins, but trapped by the indignations she expresses in protest to her lot.
Virginia Woolf begins to reconcile her findings through an understanding of the various pushes and pulls women had to deal with to create any work of fiction. The successes of Jane Austin and Emily Bronte were idiosyncratic. They were special, she explains, as they both had that quality of incandescence. The fact that all women were writing without any heritage to look to in reference forced them to rework the schema of a novel into something feminine, without sacrificing any integrity as writers. This is the task they all faced, and this is the explanation Woolf gives for why so many were stunted and distracted while crafting their fiction.
Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of Ones Own. Lecture to the Arts Society at Newnham 1928: two papers. EBooks@Adelaide. 2010. The University of Adelaide. Web.
Published in a 1978 issue of the New Yorker, Girl by Jamaica Kincaid is an example of communication between a mother and her daughter, where she lays down the expectations that society has of her as a woman. The story illustrates stereotypical and patriarchal societal norms, which lead the mother to pass on apparent feminine traits or cultures that their society expects girls to know and follow.
For instance, the mother explains to her daughter the importance of cooking, cleaning, and entertaining. She also mentions severally the importance of not being perceived as a slut. She concludes the story by asking her daughter, Are you really going to be the kind of woman that the baker wont let near the bread? (Kincaid, 1978) in a further illustration of the stereotypical gender roles dictated in their society. Kincaids short story demonstrates how society enforces and perpetuates stereotypical societal roles for women by dictating what is expected of them.
The Implied Value of Domestic Knowledge
In the story, the mother is assured that passing on valuable domestic knowledge to her daughter will save her from a life of ruin and promiscuity and empower her to be a productive member of society. For example, she gives her daughter instructions on washing clothes, sweeping, cooking pumpkin fritters, buying bread, and growing okra (Kincaid, 1978). Undoubtedly for many patriarchal societies, domestic knowledge prompts a womans usefulness and productivity, which wins respect from society and their family. In the context of the short story, household work seemingly results in womens distinction and power as well as keeping them occupied and away from temptation.
It is discernable from the reading that the mother has immense reverence for the power of domestic knowledge due to the various explicit guidelines she offers her daughter. As far as the mother is concerned, good domestic knowledge results in respectability and decency. With this in mind, a simple act, such as sewing up a dress, subsequently becomes more than just a maintenance act as it can save a womans sexual reputation in society.
Societal Expectations Concerning Womens Conduct
The entire story is an example of how women are expected to be careful of everything they do. In the most basic definition, Girl is a set of rules for a young girl growing into a woman. These rules outline what she can and cannot do as a woman within society. One clear example is when her mother tells her, this is how to behave in the presence of men who dont know you very well (Kincaid, 1978).
Most of the rules are given to her to know how to act to avoid being perceived negatively. The mother tells her daughter all of the things she needs to know to be noticed as a perfect woman. These instructions make the daughter feel like anything she does must be perfect, which undoubtedly puts undue pressure on her. With this regard, the story portrays the pressures women in society must deal with and how young girls have unrealistic pressures to be perfect individuals. Such pressure is unhealthy as it may result in anxieties, depression, and feelings of low esteem in women who cannot live up to these standards.
Womens Sexuality: Expected Norms, Behaviors, and Responses
In many societies, women often risk being called derogatory terms based on what they wear and their participation or exploration of their sexuality. Girl shows how this is true based on the things the mother tells her daughter. For example, the mother instructs, try to walk like a lady and not like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming (Kincaid, 1978). She also tells her daughter, this is how you hem a dress when you see the hem coming down and so to prevent yourself from looking like the slut I know you are so bent on becoming (Kincaid, 1978). The mother says to her daughter, this is how to behave in the presence of men who dont know you very well, and this way they wont recognize the slut I have warned you against becoming (Kincaid, 1978).
The girls mother repeatedly refers to her daughter as someone with the potential of having more than one sexual partner, that is, a slut . This example shows the extent of slut-shaming that goes on within their society and culture. This perspective implies that men can have sex with as many people as they want to, but if a girl does the same or dresses in the wrong way, they will be ridiculed and called names. Along the same line, the mother instructs her daughter to be careful of how she looks and does in public for fear of being seen as less than she is.
Conclusion
Girl is a short story that demonstrates and illustrates how stereotypical and patriarchal societal norms are perpetuated and enforced. Authored as a conversation between a mother and her daughter, the story shows the various lessons and cultures society expects girls to know and follow for their validation. In the storys illustrations, domesticity shows how societal norms are propagated by implying that the knowledge of domestic work and culture prompts a womans usefulness and productivity. This apparent usefulness results in a womans validation by gaining respect from society and their family. However, the propagation and enforcement of these norms is unhealthy. It may result in anxieties, depression, and feelings of low esteem in women who cannot live up to these standards.
Women throughout history have oftentimes been regarded as the inferior sex. They have been through slavery, neglect, ridicule, persecution, deprivation, and all sorts of degrading acts. Ages ago and in distant and varied cultures, newly born girls were instantly killed. They were thought of as bad luck or as useless to society. Women didnt have equal rights with men for a very long time. They were not afforded education because it is only the men who should learn and women should serve their husbands. Womens roles were limited to being a wife, mother, daughter, housekeeper, and nothing else. Are all these maltreatments a form of gratitude for how women took care of children and their needs at home? Grave as it is, this bad treatment of women lasted for as long as we can remember, and it took a series of struggles for women to gain the rights they deserve. In contemporary society, women are now treated differently. There is greater respect for women, and opportunities open to them are abundant. Women now are independent, and they occupy seats of power, may it be in government, civil society, or the corporate world. Though it is also a reality that there are still cultures or groups in different parts of the world where women are regarded as the lesser gender, how society treats women now is far better than in the 18th or 19th Century.
The story of The Last of the Mohicans was set in the mid-1700s. The story specifically happened in 1757. We shall focus on the two main woman characters in the novel for the purposes of this paper. The two women in the story were Cora and Alice. Both have different personalities, but nevertheless, both portray the status and role of women in those times. Cora is the older of the two sisters. She was of mixed racial heritage, different from her half-sister Alice. Her mother is a descendant of West Indie slaves, and her father is Scottish. She was brave, though her courage was restrained because women were deemed weak, soft, and unable to protect themselves in those times. She was protective of her half-sister Alice. Her affection and caring for her sister were likened to that of a mother to her child. She was always willing to sacrifice for her sisters sake, to the point verging on martyrdom. Whenever Alice would seem fearful, Cora will immediately come to her side and abate those fears. She was also very forgiving. Alice, on the other hand, was very helpless. She showed no traces of independence. She was greatly dependent on her sister. She faints when she is stressed and does not speak for herself. She speaks only when responding to someone speaking to her. Women during the mid-1700s were treated as damsels in distress with no capability whatsoever of standing on their own or of defending or protecting themselves. In the novel, however, there were instances when Cora subtly used her femininity or sexuality as a factor in getting what she wanted. There were times when the desires of the men were highlighted. This somehow reflects the treatment of women as sex objects or objects of desire.
The major theme of the novel is the spirit of heroism in men. The issue of color prejudice was likewise tackled. This is another discourse at hand which we will not dwell upon here. The issue of prejudice against color and of mixed races is also very dominant in the film. We will, however, only focus on the issue of how women were treated in the novel. The main characters were men, and the plot revolves around saving women who were kidnapped. In the course of the effort to save the women, battles were fought, and relationships were formed and destroyed. In the novel, women were used as a means to make the men more interesting. They were treated as objects fought upon and desired by men. They were regarded as one of the reasons for battle and, at the same, a reward once a battle has been won.
The role of women from the 1700s to the mid-1800s have generally remained the same; they took care of the household. They had no opinion and voice in society. They were considered soft, unassuming, and very forgiving. They were submissive to their fathers and husbands. If they are given a chance to speak up, then it is just a matter of familial courtesy but is not taken seriously. They were definitely not treated as being equal to men. They were only subordinates. They were regarded as being lower in status and role in society. They are not allowed to own any property once married, and they could not get a divorce. They were mere reflections of the successes or failures of men. It was then a very patriarchal society.
As time progressed and situations changed, the treatment and status of women likewise changed. People learned to view women and their importance in society in a different and more positive way. This did not, however, happen in an instant; the battle was long and arduous. From the industrial revolution to World War I and II, women have taken on roles and jobs usually filled by men, but after the war, women again return to their roles at home and their low-paying jobs. Major steps were taken to advance the cause of women, like The Civil Rights act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination against gender, race, or religion, and the Equal Pay Act of 1964 (United States).
Today, women are empowered. They have the options and the means to pursue endeavors without gender barriers. Women have gained their rightful place in society and in the fields of politics, education, and the economy. Though we see the government still being dominated by men, the arena is open to women. Politics is generally accepted as a chauvinist field, but there are women who take this as a challenge and do not see this notion as a hindrance to their goals. To this date, there are women holding key positions in the government, and many other women are exercising their political rights by voting, a right which they acquired in 1920. The judicial courts also comprise women judges, and we see countless women lawyers who are active in their chosen fields of law. Law enforcement is now not limited to men only. There is an increasing number of female police officers in the system, and still, a growing number interested to join the police force. Gone were the days when women are supposed to be meek and afraid. Women now are not afraid to show their strength and ferocity, but at the same time, they are also handling maternal roles at home, which require tenderness. This is the flexibility of a woman.
Corporations and big businesses still see a huge bulk of top management comprising men. Women are very visible in the workplace, but they occupy the lower positions. It is usually the men who hold the top positions or those positions which require making major decisions. There are women power figures in top corporations, but they are only a handful. The economic ground is much like the political field where the chauvinist thinking that men are the stronger sex still exists. This chauvinist thinking, while it is a major disadvantage to women, could also serve as a motivator for other women to strive harder in achieving their goals. Women in the workplace, by their sheer number, regardless of their positions, have a power that they can utilize to advance and safeguard their rights.
In the field of education, women are now able to pursue their learning endeavors in every which way they like. From all the choices of learning institutions and means, women can choose where and how they like to learn. Schools are prohibited from discriminating against gender when admitting students. This right to education will enable them to gain competence comparable to that of a man in engaging in endeavors previously only regarded as a mans field.
The major difference between the treatment of women then and now is the concept of choice. The rights equal to that of men are now afforded to women and thus give them the opportunity to decide which path they wish to tread upon. There are now no barriers but only options to choose from.
Work Cited
United States. Womens Rights: A Journey Around the World. 2007
Virginia Woolf broaches the subject of Shakespeare by exploring the fact that a professor whose work she has studied suggests that a woman could never write anything in the way of the playwrights genius. It is her conclusion that, at any rate, it would have been impossible for a woman to match the genius of Shakespeare in the time of Shakespeare (Woolf, 3).
Woolf posits that if Shakespeare had had a sister, and this sister matched Shakespeare in adventurousness and imagination, she would have had no opportunity to exercise these qualities in likeness to that of Shakespeare himself. Shakespeare, Woolf explains, would have been sent to a private school where he would have learned rules of logic and grammar while this sister would have been offered no such opportunity (Woolf, 3).
Her parents would have discouraged her from even musing about in Shakespeares papers and books. Her suggestions seem accurate and well thought out. She is saying that capability was not the determining factor in females realizing genius. Preparation and opportunity also must be present, and these things were not afforded to females of Shakespeares time.
Shakespeare would have ventured to London with his inclination for the theater, acting and living at the center of creativity at the time (Woolf, 3). Woolf suggests his fictional sister, posed here for the purpose of argument, would have been betrothed and forced by the fire of her similar talents to shame her father and abandon that betrothal. This is obviously something that cannot be verified. Woolf, his carried away by her admiration for the struggles a female of genius would have had to endure.
She takes her example here to the extreme, and in so doing cheapens her main point. It is not necessary for the fictional heroine of her example to flee a betrothal and kill herself out of a need to preserve her brilliance. The fact of the matter is, most women in this circumstance simply endured the confines of the expectations placed upon them and did not end their lives out of some desperate need to honor their talents or die. Yet, with all the mangled passions of a poet trapped inside Shakespeares fictional sister so painfully, she would have, Woolf, imagines, committed suicide to escape the pain of so little self-actualization.
She continues to describe the impossibility of Judith, even if she had existed, possessing a genius like Shakespeares, because Shakespeares genius is one that emerges in aristocracy. The servility pressed upon women is not the soil from which that type of genius could spring (Woolf, 3).
This is a completely believable assertion. Women who needed to earn their sense of self from constantly performing tasks to others expectations would have naturally become, in some fashion, mentally dependant. If there is any component that all genius shares, it is originality, and this feature would have had little opportunity to flourish when constantly met with an expectation of subservience.
The genius of fiction in a man is met with indifference by the world. The genius of fiction in a woman is met with a scoff (Woolf, 3). The difference in the response is explained by Woolf through assigning to the world a plausible statement it may as well have made to either sex in reference to such fictional genius. The world told men their writing made no difference and told the women to write at all was ridiculous (Woolf, 3). She explains how difficult it is for a man to write an entire work from his mind without impediment to highlight how much more daunting the task must have seemed to women inclined.
This is where she comes upon the truth of incandescence of Shakespeares mind. His work, she points out, bears no hint to his inner sufferings, to his pains, or to his grievances with the world, but manages to stand on its owncomplete musings of a writer who was able to drive out, through the light of his blinding brilliance, entire, self-sustaining fictions that require no consideration of intention of the author. The meaning of her analysis of Shakespeare is that he, being of a genius supported by the freedom of his familys status and his gender, is put in an optimal circumstance from which to bring to life his elaborate, plot-driven, imagination.
To this, it is easy to respond with a simple question. Does Woolf believe that all creative genius is wasted when used to combat personal plight? In looking at Shakespeares work it is not impossible to view his inclinations for certain forms of drama. Does this not provide insight into who the author was, and what she preferred? In Woolfs determination to paint women in the light of the forsaken and mistreated, she creates for herself a need to define creative genius in a very limited way. Though from aristocracy works can be created that have little to do with the unmet, fundamental needs of the masses, which does not mean that such work is superior.
That is not the nature of Shakespeares superiority. His gift was one of language, and the fact that a person of his genius would not have been afforded the opportunity to work if born into a lower class is more indicative of the kinds of discrimination that were common in the age. If people valued work that reflected common struggles, perhaps women would have been provided an opportunity to indulge in the arts without forsaking their roles. Perhaps artist and woman would not have been a juxtaposition of terms.
Woolfs Research
Woolf finds that female writers, as they begin to appear in print sometime after the Elizabethan Era, often use their poetic inclinations to struggle with the role of women in society. She finds that women poets like Lady Winchilsea burst with indignation in their writings (Woolf, 4). Lady Winchilseas mind, in contrast to Shakespeares, is rife with impediments to the pure experience of a creative heart. Woolf notices that Lady Winchilsea of the seventeenth century is able to set aside her indignation, her sense of oppression, and write with the natural embers of the creative spirit lighting the way to her words (Woolf, 4).
Woolf simply points out that this ability is blighted by the indignation present in most of Winchilseas writings. Woolf ultimately criticizes Lady Winchilsea for never being able to free herself from all that bound her gift. She compares the state of her talent to a flower growing out of weeds and briars (Woolf, 4). Here again, she undervalues the courage innate in such displays, and the necessity of female artists of the time addressing the nature of their confinements with all the passion that confinement would create.
Woolf continues, discussing next Margaret Cavendish. She expresses a sense of shame that Cavendish ventured into obscurity rather than to fight the good fight publicly. This is a contrast to Woolfs assessment of Lady Winchilsea. Whereas Winchilsea wrote and exposed her work to the public without ever freeing herself of her grievances, Cavendish was so crippled by her passion and its context that she could not bear exposure. Here, again, it is worth noting that Woolf does not assign credit to Cavendish for having the courage to keep writing in the face of all that oppressed her.
She then examines one Dorothy Osborne in her letters. She explains this woman as having a talent that she was never allowed the freedom to explore professionally (Woolf 4). Her criticism in this case seems to be on the state of the world, and not directed at Osborne, noting that Osborne was made to believe that her writing was futile and ridiculous (Woolf, 4). Though this critique of the world is expressed here through the case of Osborne and her letters, it is implied in the criticisms of the previous writers as well.
Woolf seems harder on writers who came closer to self-actualization, whereas she finds Dorothy Osbornes unrecognized talent cause for pity. This is baffling. Osborne is by all rational standards less of a success than Cavendish and Winchilsea, and yet receives none of the criticism Woolf gives to either of them.
Alphra Behn is the next writer covered by Woolf and is described as a transcendental figure. Behn is forced to make her living off of her wits, and in so doing creates for herself a life of independence. She sets a precedent, Woolf explains and realizes the possibility of women making money from their writingssomething that made the endeavor seem practical for the first time. This is something Woolf admires and praises. It seems that Woolf has no admiration for those caught in between servility and independence, and praise for those conditioned in either.
In the nineteenth century, Woolf finds that there emerged many female authors. She is intrigued by the fact that these authors only seem to write novels. She makes note of the fact that Jane Austin, having to hide her manuscript as something taboo when the company approached her workspace, managed to create a work without the impediments referred to above. Woolf notes that her writing is remarkably similar to that of Shakespeares incandescence (Woolf 4).
Grace Poole, Woolf suggests, is an example of a genius greater than that of Austins, but trapped by the indignations she expresses in protest to her lot.
Virginia Woolf begins to reconcile her findings through an understanding of the various pushes and pulls women had to deal with to create any work of fiction. The successes of Jane Austin and Emily Bronte were idiosyncratic. They were special, she explains, as they both had that quality of incandescence. The fact that all women were writing without any heritage to look to in reference forced them to rework the schema of a novel into something feminine, without sacrificing any integrity as writers. This is the task they all faced, and this is the explanation Woolf gives for why so many were stunted and distracted while crafting their fiction.
Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of Ones Own. Lecture to the Arts Society at Newnham 1928: two papers. EBooks@Adelaide. 2010. The University of Adelaide. Web.
Since time in memorial, the role that women should play has been widely debated in many societies. There are those societies that feel that the womans place is in the kitchen while other believes that women should forever be under the authority of men. Societies have changed and women have taken greater roles in societies. It is with this greater concern that some writers have come out of the closet and written on womens roles in the society. Even in the 20th century, it is not surprising to note that the roles that are assigned or predetermined to be played by women in society have remained the same with few women taking up the challenge to engage in the male-dominated fields.
Taking a closer look at the writings of Naula OFaolain, in her autobiography Are you somebody , we are left with no doubt that the experiences that her mother went through greatly influenced her writing. Though OFaolain spent her life single and died childless, she expresses her loneliness which to her is better than ending up like her mother. She has struggled with the meaning of love and confesses in her autobiography that she found it hard to have long lasting relationships. The writer clearly brings out the theme of family which seems to be intertwined with love. The Irish tradition portray women in the traditional sense of being subordinate to men and their role as having children in the family. This is clearly brought out in the autobiography through way the her father treated her mother which makes OFaolain, hate the traditional perception of Irish marriages and therefore struggles with searching for the meaning of love in life. Her resentments caused by her childhood experiences makes her to continually involve herself with both men and women with the hope of finding the right partner and inevitably love but she ends up not getting involved with anybody. The theme of family in the autobiography Are you somebody shows the state that women were subjected to in the Irish community. Women had no equality in the society and were constantly abused by their husbands and their role centered more on bearing children with a good illustration being that the mother of the author had nine children even with her good education. To further stress my point, some people regard OFaolain, as a bitter writer who expresses her feelings of growing up in an abusive family in her writings by the mere fact that she did not have children of her own and died unmarried. The role of mothers in OFaolains writings is vaguely brought out through the way she expresses her loneliness. In her autobiography, OFaolain writes that at one time she wrote to her mother telling her that she was lonely only for the mother to reply to her in a very unloving manner (OFaolain 58). We can therefore say that women should be role models to their children so that their children would be greater people in the society, unlike OFaolains mother who engaged in alcohol making her children including the writer wanted to despise her. Though not directly portrayed in the novel, OFaolain seems to live the life of her mother in the novel. Her life is filled up with a long search for love (OFaolain 24) which does not end well for she died a lonely person just like the way her mothers life ended in alcoholism. The style in OFaolain is the collection of her real-life experiences commonly referred to as a memoir.
Mary Wollenstonecraft is another writer whose writing draws attention to womens issues. In the novel The wrongs of a womans , the character Maria, self educates herself when she is locked up in an asylum by her husband. She befriended one of the attendants of the asylum who agreed to bring her books which she studied (Wollenstonecraft 17). Bringing my point closer home, Maria writes manuscripts in which she advises her daughter who was taken from her by her husband. Mary Wollenstonecraft therefore clearly shows that womens roles should be educating their children. However, Wollenstonecraft portrays society as regarding women as inferior by not educating them. Interesting to note is that she does not argue for womens equality with men and perhaps this can be attributed to the time context her novels are written in. The time frame that her novels are written in does not coincide with the time that feminism move was rampant and this clearly illustrates why she still regarded men as having a greater degree than women in her novels. My subjective conclusion, therefore, is that the time frame in which a particular literary piece of work on the way society portrays women is written is dependent on the timeframe that particular novel was written in. Modern writers on women issues have taken a more direct attack claiming on equality between men and women while writers in the 18th century saw no need to equate men to women. However, both sets of writers are not comfortable with the way society has treated women throughout time.
The injustices that women were subjected to in the 18th century as indicated in the novel The wrongs of a womans are clearly brought out in the novel when Maria is forced into an asylum by the husband on claims that she was mad (Wollenstonecraft 8). The novel however utilizes the third person narration together with the first-person narration. The combination allows the characters in the novel to address each other freely between the first person persona and the third person persona and thereby making it easy for Maria to tell her story through a narrative to her daughter. Thus, the combination allows Maria to relate to her daughter directly.
George Eliots Silas Marner has an interesting twist on how societies portray women. The book is written by a woman who used a male name to camouflage that it was the work of a woman and therefore needless to say that even in the 19th century, women were oppressed in society. Geoffrey Cass is a character in the novel Silas Marner and who longs to have children but is married to a woman who only had one child. Cass involves himself with another woman by the name of Nancy to escape the wrath of being tied to a woman who cannot have many children (Eliot 17). This clearly shows that women were being valued with the number of children that they could give birth to in society. In addition, when Silas hope and love are restored to him when he found Eppie, he finds its hard to discipline the child when the child starts to become naughty. This also shows women were the ones to take care of their daughters and sons and discipline them for the men knew nothing about disciplining children, which further illustrates the role of women in society. The style used in this novel is imagery where the behavior of Silas is compared to a spider, an insect and also, an ant.
In Joyce Carol Oatess We Were the Mulvaneys ; the narrator clearly introduces us to a cheerful family which has a common element that joins them together as the Mulvaneys. The narrator introduces the theme of the family in a clear manner and goes on to narrate how the family finally disintegrates following their misfortunes which started with the rape of their daughter, Marianne at a Valentines Day dance. In the novel, the narrator, Judd Mulvaney, tells us of how the family was widely known in the rural setting of New York but later on lost its status and its brightest moments after sad events started to happen to the family (Oates 15). The narrator tells us how the father felt defeated for failing to avenge when his daughter was raped and thereby settling to alcoholism. Judd tells us that Marianne was sent far away from the family after the mother realized that she had a duty to her husband bringing us to the shift in focus on the role of motherhood in the novel. It is sad to note that after the parents sent off Marianne, the family slowly fragmented with some of the siblings opting to live far away from home. It is when the mother committed herself fully to caring for her husband that she lost focus in the family. In Joyce Carol Oatess novel We Were the Mulvaneys , the theme of the family stands out the most with regard to the way the narrator tells the story. Corrines character portrays a woman who is living her dream of being a mother to a happy family before the family falls apart and thats why she could not believe that Marianne had betrayed her through her innocence and kept quiet about her rape ordeal. Through Joyce Carol Oatess work, we get a glimpse of societys expectations of women through Corrines character. The novel portrays women to be caring, warm and a woman who loves their children though she prefers looking at the husband at the expense of the child (Marianne) to maintain the family image. Therefore, the novel shows how women desire to be good mothers and a mother can only be truly happy like Corrine if they have a happy family. The style commonly used in the novel is the denouement, where the story unravels and unfolds right as the reader continues to read the novel to an end that seems calculated to a climax, in this case, the death of the father who shattered the family through his indulgence in alcoholism, Michael Mulvaney.
Relating Naula OFaolain, autobiography Are you somebody to Joyce Carol Oatess novel We Were the Mulvaneys , the striking similarity is that the two are written by people who experienced family breakups. For instance, Are you somebody is an autobiography by OFaolain and in Joyce Oatess novel; the narrator is Judd Mulvaney, who is the youngest of the Mulvaneys.
Frankenstein is a fiction novel by the writer Mary Shelley. The novel revolves around romance and love. Frankenstein creates a monster which makes him disgusted for the monster turned out to be ugly. Frankenstein makes the mistake of leaving the monster with the hope that the monster would not resurface in his life. He is mistaken to think that the monster would disappear after he abandoned it for the monster comes haunting Frankenstein through murdering his loved ones (Shelley 13). The monster feels lonely and alienated and asks Frankenstein to make him a female companion. When Frankenstein refuses the idea of creating a female companion, the monster gets angry and murders Elizabeth who Frankenstein had married. Through Shellys novel, women are depicted as companions for their male counterparts and this is evidenced by the monster avenging because Frankenstein did not create a female companion for him. Frankenstein also failed to create a female companion for the monster because he thought that the two monsters would procreate and there would be many monsters (Shelley 46). This further tells us that society views women as child-bearers and this becomes the value that is attached to a woman. A major theme in Shellys novel is relationships. It is through the loss of Elizabeth who he loved that Frankenstein finally decides to go on a mission to kill the monster (Shelley 19). Feminism is also evident in the novel where the females involved in the novel are suffering at the hands of the monster. Females in the novel are therefore submissive and rely on their male counterparts to rescue them for example in the case of Elizabeth who died for she was unable to defend herself from the monsters wrath. The style in Shellys Frankenstein is in epistolary form for she has used letters written between Walton and the sister to tell us the story of the monster and Victor. The novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelly utilizes gothic style through the introduction of the monster to bring the horrifying experiences and therefore is very different from the others for instance Joyce Carol Oates We Were the Mulvaneys .
We also cannot fail to note that while the authors of these novels greatly featured family themes, romance and love, Joyce Carol Oates and Naula OFaolain did not marry and had no children of their own though they portray the family as the center of love and care for the children.
In summary, the time periods that the novels were written do nothing to elude the fact that men are seen as superior to women. Taking the example of Mary Shellys work, all the characters who die at the hand of the monster are women. In addition, the daughter of the great feminist Mary Wollenstonecraft continues to depict women in her novel as passive and thereby projecting the way society has continually viewed women as lesser beings in comparison to men.
Just like OFaoliain, Wollenstonecrafts childhood experiences revolve around an abusive father who beat her mother and therefore not surprising to note that she took the role of challenging societys commonly held beliefs of women. To my conclusion, the women who have taken up the role of writing on the role of motherhood in womens writings have been directly affected through their childhood experiences. Their fathers used to abuse their mothers and as a result, these writers in conveying the information to all women in the world have also used the experiences to document their childhood life experiences. Yes, to some people, these women have conveyed their bitter feelings for not getting married and others may read their novels with the conclusion that they never had families of their own and therefore not in a position to write on the role of motherhood in society and the way society portray women. Nevertheless, these brave women have shown that society has a long way to go in accepting women and regarding them with dignity.
Works Cited
Eliot, George. Silas Marner. New York. Bantam Classics, 1981
Oates, Joyce Carol. We Were the Mulvaneys. The UK, E P Dutton (HB) & G P Putnams Sons (PB), 1996.
OFaolain, Naula. Are You Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman? New York. Henry Holt & Company, 1996.
Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein; Or the Modern Prometheus: Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1818.
Wollenstonecraft, Mary. The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria: New York, Norton: Ed. Moria Ferguson. 1975.
In the political system of any state, the conflict of ideologies and clash of views is a natural part of evolutionary social development. As derived from Marxist philosophy, the highest point of such a class struggle is revolution. Human history knows many examples of revolutionary uprisings, violent clashes, and armed civil conflicts that have occurred in virtually every era. However, it is not so many revolutions as a phenomenon but the role of women in them that this essays subject. More specifically, the work aims to assess the role of women critically and qualitatively in revolutionary uprisings from the perspective of what they had to offer to public rebellion and what they risked.
Main body
Of primary importance to this paper is a discussion of why gender is essential to study in this context. According to historical references, womens role before the French Revolution was believed to have been limited to performing domestic tasks (Hufton, 2017). Against this background, solving problems of national importance could not become the responsibility of women because, as Wiesner-Hanks writes, is it to men that nature has confided domestic cares? (Wiesner-Hanks, 2021, p. 154). It is the existence of gender conflict that determines the motivation for the need to discuss the role of women in times of revolution. Stanton (1848) wrote that men have historically suppressed women and prevented them from fighting for their rights. If it is believed that a womans only destiny is to take care of her family and be faithful to her husband, then deviation from such behavior gender deviancy is an excellent reason for discussion. It was, however, during the French Revolution that radical ideas of equality and justice raised a serious question about the social role of women in a rapidly changing society.
The ideas of equality raised by the French Revolution found profound public reflection. Already in preparation for the revolutionary uprisings, an essential role of opposition propaganda and education was given to women who educated young oppositionists on critical questions of philosophy, law, and history (Foreman, 2015). The origin of this term is not coincidental since it was in the French salons that ideas of gender equality originated. It follows that one of the most important contributions to the creation of opportunities for women to participate in revolutionary uprisings was made by the transformative events of late eighteenth-century France.
It is noteworthy that the Enlightenment era was ambivalent about the role of women in the struggle against the state. While the most progressive views emerged during the French Revolution, many philosophers continued to view women exclusively in terms of teaching and educating children, while men were to engage in more meaningful activities. On the other hand, the memory of the harsh laws of the ancient and then medieval world, which were unfair to women but loyal to men, was still relevant (McVay, 2009). To put it another way, there was still a stigma attached to women, which was a priority for social policy and womens activist movements. To some extent, it could be said that these ideas catalyzed the growth of social protest, which eventually led to an expansion of the importance of women. Meanwhile, during the New Age, womens social role became more often discussed in favorable, ambiguous terms.
Since women were given a public voice equal to that of men, revolutionary sentiments in society have not diminished. Since the French Revolution, humanity has experienced the Haitian, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions and other violent and nonviolent uprisings of the past two centuries. Each of these uprisings created a different contribution to the development of a history of bridging the gender gap. Ultimately, this has resulted in the modern woman becoming a fully integral part of any social protest, for it is no longer the prerogative of the strictly male population. Pankhurst (1913) made an excellent point when she said that the loss of the newly acquired female voice would cause a civil war. Thus, womens political and social role has become critical to modern society, and that is why women have something to offer in the struggle against the state.
One of these womens contributions is the use of all the same tools that men have traditionally used. In the fourth episode of the mini-show, Foreman (2015) points out that there is little difference between the total contributions of women and men to the history of the world, including the history of revolutions. Similar thoughts are expressed by Wiesner-Hanks: womens roles as colonizers and as colonized tend to be underestimated in world history narratives& (Wiesner-Hanks, 2021, p. 147). However, womens efforts tended to be neglected socially, which created the apparent problem of the gender gap. Letters written by Adams in 1776 to her husband correlate with this. The woman in them asks her socially engaged spouse to take care of womens rights (Adams, 1776). While this is not a contribution to the history of confrontation with the state in the literal sense, this approach reflects a female concern for society comparable to that of men. It is safe to say that women have always tried to use available resources and opportunities to participate in revolutions, even indirectly. However, it was precisely this participation that meant that such women had something to lose.
High social importance led to an increase in perceived responsibility. The main threats to womens well-being remained fundamental human rights and family ties that could be broken. De Gouges writes about this, literally pointing out that womens only weakness remains that of marriage (De Gouges, 1997). In other words, womens active opposition to the state system may ultimately lead to problems related to family well-being. This includes threats from the security forces, forced deprivation of parental rights, and criminal prosecution. The current practice of opposition movements clearly demonstrates these trends.
It is enough to study the current political crises in developing countries to understand how important it is for women to be pressured into having a family. The Belarusian protests of 2020-2021 show that contemporary revolutionaries could be pressured politically through threats to their families, after which the woman was forced to leave the country. This practice is expected to have been very popular in many eras since the bond between woman and family is perceived to be much deeper than that between man and family. Consequently, in times of revolutions and rebellions against the state, the fear of losing her family goods was the lever that prevented almost free participation in episodes of social conflict. However, if women took such risks, they knew exactly what they wanted to gain.
It is difficult to pinpoint all the social, economic, and political benefits that women, for the most part, sought by participating in the revolutionary uprisings. Primarily it concerns the emancipation of their civil rights and the recognition of their freedoms (Wiesner-Hanks, 2021). It follows from this data that women wanted conditions in which they would have opportunities commensurate with those of men. It is about opportunities to realize their potential and develop in economic, political, and cultural spheres, where women would not experience problems related to discrimination. In addition, women probably wanted better working conditions, higher wages, and recognition of their social role. Obviously, these were very large-scale transformations that required considerable effort and time. However, as history has shown, in the end, these outcomes were achieved.
Conclusion
In conclusion, one should emphasize the transforming social role of women. While in the past, the basis for the perception of women was their family function, with the development of progressive ideas, women have ceased to be additions to men. Such trends were especially noticeable in the history of revolutionary uprisings when women were empowered to promote enlightenment and fight in the streets against the state. Revolutionary tendencies were not uncommon for todays political agenda either, but womens role in this was much different from what it used to be. From the revolution, women wanted recognition of their civil liberties and an environment in which they could fully realize themselves commensurate with men. In other words, the basic message of most women as participants in the revolutions was to emancipate them from their rights. Obviously, in this case, women faced the risks of losing their own freedom or of having their families threatened.
References
Adams, A. (1776). Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 1776. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive.
De Gouges, O. (1997). Declaration of the rights of women, 1791. Fordham University.
Foreman, A. (2015). The ascent of woman [Film]. BBW Two.
Hufton, O. (2017). Women and the limits of citizenship in the French revolution. University of Toronto Press.
McVay, P. (2009). Envisioning women in world history: 1500-present. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Pankhurst, E. (1913). Militant Suffragist.
Stanton, E. (1848). Declaration of sentiments: Seneca Falls convention. New York.
Wiesner-Hanks, M. E. (2021). Gender in history: Global perspectives. John Wiley & Sons.
Women have been one of the most important elements of society but were never able to make an eminent place in the world, due to the dominance of men all over. This gender of society has forever been the lower one, with male supremacy and authority taking their toll through time. With the passage of time, some women did come up with questions raised as to why they were not given equal opportunities as men. With the rising enthusiasm of women, they seemed to long for a place in society, thus began getting out of their households to work in equity with men.
Roles of Women Changing in the World Today
The role of women in todays world is no longer one that pertains to the boundaries of the four walls of the home. The need for women to get out and bring home bread money is increasing, and so is the spirit of being able to achieve a name in the world ruled mostly by men. Women are now leaving their homes to work, and are becoming outspoken with their emotions, and are no longer shunned down by their counterparts. We have evidence of many women bringing a name to themselves and to their country, with examples of their governance. These are good motivating factors for those females who would like to be heard by others in their lifespan.
The Factors that Remain the Same
Despite the fact that women have been trying to walk up the ladder of success in competition with their male partners, some elements remain unchanged. Acculturation, i.e. the mingling of different cultures has taken place all over the world, but many people still condemn the elevation of women. If acculturation is prevalent in most parts of the world, then there should not be a problem for people to adapt to changes in the country they reside in as foreigners. Secondly, if broad-minded individuals come to reside in those nations where narrow-mindedness is seen, and they get married here, they should be able to change the thinking of the latter group of people, and let women be liberated to some extent. At times even multiculturalism or pointing out the importance of different cultures is not helpful in the walks of life, as it leaves no positive impact on the degraded genre of the community, which is that of the despaired women.
Are Women Becoming More Empowered?
The term power means different to every individual. It basically means to have the liberty and authority to do things at ones own will. From the stories we have read and studied, we can see the example of Liu Hui, who is a restaurateur at such a young age. This shows the courage and determination of the woman, but she does not claim to have achieved this state the easy way. Women have always had to struggle more in comparison with men.
In a country like China, where a lot of the West has been influencing the youngsters minds, women seem to be taking care of domestic issues, child-rearing, and working full-time. The story of how Liu Hui switched from a dirty cigarette rolling job to a restaurant business was a tough one, showing her freedom to choose her next profession, as an independent individual. Holding discrimination amongst men and women is not a secular issue. No religion says to disrespect or dishonor females. Women like the Japanese one in the study, know they have to work, and do so with high spirits; it gives them a feeling of self-content and further motivation.
Are Women Essentialized in Specific Gender Roles?
Studies show that women have undergone plenty of mistreatment in family lives due to the authoritarianism of the male members. Changes have come through to some extent, like we can see from the visual aid, that in the past, women did not say much to their families, especially after marriage. They would just indulge in household chores, and not be allowed to interfere or participate in the family decisions. But now many households contain those women who talk back and voice their opinions against their mothers-in-law, especially in countries like India. Despite the essentiality of the women being employed and bringing home bread money, they are hardly appreciated and they just work like robots day and night.
Some rural areas have no system of division of labor, i.e. the distribution of work in a fair and equal manner. Women are burdened with piles of work, and some of the chores are very energy consuming also, due to the trend of domestication (people taking care of animal breeds) of animals, etc. Hard labor is taken from the female gender, but with no outstanding rewards. These issues have convinced women to be confident with time, and with the influence of the West, in many countries.
The Western world still had some liberty held for their women, whereas the Eastern world lagged far behind in this regard. But with the notion that whatever the West did was right, and better, people have started changing their views about their lifestyles. Many have begun liberating their female counterparts to go ahead and build their careers and do as they please to help contribute to the family. This has also become a need of the hour today.
One other issue that has been addressed in the visuals was that of Muslim women wearing scarves in the Western world. Girls are seen wearing a headscarf, and this indicates that they have the freedom to practice their faith and beliefs according to their religious and family requirements. There are racial discriminations world over. Ethnic groups bring in their own matters and try to impose whatever they think is right for them. There was once a time when everyone was afraid of the people who would have more influence on society but now the weaker gender specifically, has gained enough strength to deal with everyone whilst doing well for themselves too, which they never did earlier.
Women have always been the lower class, and will remain to be so. The emergence of womens power and governance has not made women equal or superior to men, nevertheless, they are striving to make their place in the world. They will not be given due importance as men, but their hard work and effort in every field for attainment of equality, or how similar people are to one another, will remain, because of their inner sense of inferiority.
Women need their say in matters, to maintain their self-respect, and be regarded for the hard work they do. Their extra efforts to succeed in the road of economic development have given them more chance to withhold an ego, with which people refer their kinship relations, and work to maintain it. This is the only way they can flourish, and live with dignity, rather than disgrace. They should be treated with care and encouraged toward advancement, rather than be enslaved.
References
China From the Inside: Part A and B. Web.
Covered Girls: Web.
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology.
Rosenberger, N. A Japanese Womans Path of Resistance.