The Proudest Moment Of My Life Essay

In her essay, “Where I Came from is Like This,” the author Paula Gunn Allen effectively utilizes ethos, logos, and pathos to convince her audience, women studies and ethnic scholars, of her claim that the struggles of American Indian women have had with their identities. Gunn Allen uses all three modes of persuasion to describe the struggles of American Indian women. She uses ethos to strengthen her credibility, logos to logically explain the issue, and pathos to emotionally explain the struggles of American Indian women have had with their identities. With ethos she tells us where she is from and how she got her information, which makes her more trustworthy and believable. In her essay Gunn Allen uses Logos to describe how American Indian Women were treated compared to how European Women were treated at the time.

The documentary went back in history to show how the reality of the past has shaped the lives of women today, without even realizing it. Media plays a huge role in portraying women and how they should look, dress, act, and what jobs they should hold. Therefore, through media, women are seen as doing the household chores and taking care of the children while the men

Out of all the stories we have read so far, the two stories that immediately come to mind are, Antigone and Medea. Although both of these stories show how woman were treated during this time, both woman go against the status quo and think, and act for themselves. In Medea, she gives a speech that emphasizes the way woman were supposed to act, “If a woman leaves her husband, then she loses her virtuous reputation. To refuse him is just not possible. When a girl leaves home and comes to live new ways, different rules, she has to be a prophet, learn somehow the art of dealing smoothly with her bedmate”( ).

“Where I Come From Is Like This” is an essay that primarily is addressing the people who have misinterpreted the significant roles that Modern American Indian women played in traditional American Indian culture. Paula Allen sets up her argument in the first paragraph and states that American Indian Women are “deeply engaged in the struggle to redefine themselves.” (1.) They struggle with the fact that they have to incorporate both the traditional tribal and modern definitions of Indian women in their lives. The first claim that Allen makes in order to validate her argument is that she has “known a wide range of personal style and demeanor” in Indian women. Sometimes people see “women as fearful, sometimes peaceful… but they never portray women as mindless, helpless, simple, or oppressed.” (2.)

Change can be caused by self­exploration and experience. These experiences can change one’s emotional feelings of the world around them. In Kate Chopin’s novel, T​he Awakening,​the protagonist, Edna Pontellier evolves into who she truly is. Edna transforms throughout the book from an unsatisfied wife and mother into an independent and selfish woman. Additionally, she transforms from a complacent young lady to a defiant woman who values her own desires over the opinions of society.

According to Bowell’s feminist standpoint theory, “the process of achieving knowledge begins when standpoints begin to emerge” (Bowell sec 5). In Sayeed’s piece, the appearance is apparent as she seems relegated by her culture, parents’ wishes, religion, sexuality, and role, while she is caught between western culture, religion, feminism and her opinions of what she is trying to mesh together from a place in her own concealed prospective. She deliberates her social circumstances with regard to “socio-political power and oppression” (Bowell sec 5) of a power-struggle of a potential arranged marriage and remaining within her parents expectations. Therefore, Sayeed contemplates finding a balance and to find her own opinion, a collective identity

When confronted by oppression, there are two ways to respond. People either embrace this tyranny and conform to its ideals, or they take a stand and question and search for an end to this unjust treatment. Chopin, writing her novel The Awakening in the turn of the century, uses the internal turmoil Edna faces as a symbolic reference to the sprouting ideals of feminism and resisting the gender inequalities that society has imposed on women. Edna, like many women of her time, is caught between this societal obligation of living up to the preconceived ideas of a woman’s role in society and a personal desire to obtain more autonomy and freedom. Chopin combines this struggle with an ambiguous ending to highlight the importance of freedom of

Her novels depict how women fit themselves into this society either by rejecting or by accepting the changes to construct their emancipated New Selves. Her women continually fluctuate between similar and contradictory attitudes and evolve to create within themselves a kind of freedom with the aid of culture and which they may share with some kindred souls struggling in the same turmoil.

Barbara Ewell and her team in “The Role of the Wife and Mother”, “In the later nineteenth century things for women began to change.” This change was reflected, and even encouraged, in The Awakening. As women began to question their roles in society during the late nineteenth century, Edna also questions her role in the novel. With questioning also came exploration of other areas of involvement for women in both The Awakening and the world. As Edna searches for her role in society, exploring options, and ultimately pursuing her special interests, emotions, and beliefs, women who read The Awakening were encouraged to do the same. Therefore, the tension Edna faces between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the overall encouragement for interior questioning and exploration in order to achieve self-determination and individuality prevalent throughout the book.

The women in Woman Hollering Creek are constrained in different ways—all seeking for a type of freedom. To reach that freedom, however, they go through several tasks, such a self-definition, to gain their own sense of freedom and empowerment. Literary critic Jeff Thomson believes the power of the women is “to master the pain of the past and understand the confluence of all things… they become themselves through the honest acceptance of the world beyond the body” (Thompson). Cisneros’ character, Cleófilas, exemplifies Thomson’s notion of self-definition. Cleófilas feels trapped as a wife.