Misogynistic Gender Roles

Edna’s characterization throughout The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, describes Edna as someone with burning passion who desires to improve not only her life, but the lives of future generations. However Edna’s actions make her often seem weak to the oppressive people around her; sometimes, and in this case unfortunately, good ideas and beliefs are stopped cold by one’s surrounding influences. Edna’s feminist attitude, though formidable, is no match for the individuals who accept the current society’s customs. I find Edna to be a weak person from a general standpoint. However the story masks this obviousness fact by illustrating some of Edna’s questionable actions.

Her lies are less a thought of her own character and more a reflection of her husband’s surroundings .She does feel the need to keep up her self –respect, while satisfying her own needs. Again, her lies established the fact that how stressed she is by the opinions of her husband. The patriarchal setup of the play and gender roles are being broken as she is destroying the strict rules and by deciding to go out of family. She says that Torvald stops her from eating macaroons as they will destroy her teeth as well as her beauty, she still eats the macaroons. The limitations didn’t stop her from satisfying her own pleasures and she refused to obey through harmless actions showing that she strongly desires independence, but is too afraid to raise her own voice.

Zeena’s jealousy is displayed early on in the story when Ethan starts showing more interest in Mattie than his own wife. Zeena’s negativity ultimately leads to Ethan shutting her out altogether and not speaking. Zeena’s hypochondria and few legitimate illnesses serve as an excuse for her to find remedies for her many unresolved sicknesses. Despite her distasteful qualities, Zeena responds to the tragedy at the end of the novel with resigned tenacity as she takes the responsibility for the care of Ethan and Mattie. Zeena continues to find fault and complain; however she comes out of her hypochondriac self-pity by the need to care for her loved ones.

This is also somewhat the case in Clifton’s poem. She points out, however indirectly, that the slaves did the “honored” work, although they were not at all recognized for it. This is, as Clifton indirectly points out, not morally right. These pieces of literature are also similar because they both utilize the poetic device of repetition. Clifton repeats the phrase “here lies” four times to create an image of reading tombstones with no names, whereas Truth repeats “Where did your Christ come from?” twice to emphasize the ridiculous fact that people based their claims of the inferiority of women on the fact that Jesus was not a woman.

Although there is almost no chance for her to ever see either of them again, she still tries to preseve the relationship. She is used by Commander for sex and companionship and had an affair with Nick (higher preganancy chance). Most of her actions are being forced “Which of us is it worse for, her or me?”(151) meant the sex between the narrator and commander is unbearable to the point of watching your husband having sex with another women right infront of you. Her only defiance done totally by herself is “I will use the butter later that night.” (113), everything else including escaping the Gilead, having an affair with Commander, having an affair with Nick and leaving the Commanders house are all stimulated by others. Offred represent those who does not stand against oppresion, being pushed around and used for sex.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Book Critique “Since progress was inevitable and since a dive spark nestled within each human consciousness, nothing more was necessary to correct apparent social disorders than to remove the outmoded obstacles inherited from the past.”(Banner ix) The book Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Radical for Woman’s Rights, written by Lois W. Banner, the author was focusing on the impact Cady Stanton made on the movement for women’s suffrage, as well as the intimate influence she received from her family while growing up. This book could also be seen as a biography, but besides jus focusing on her life, Banner focused on Cady Stanton’s achievement, and how history began to change. Cady Stanton played a very important role on women’s rights and suffrage movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a very well-known female character, as well as the first feminist because her main concerns were typical

“His wife, Hera (who was also his sister, by the way), was understandably jealous”(Christian and Mazunik 9). This quote shows that the author is explaining how the gods are dysfunctional. No one nowadays marries their own sibling. The tone that that the author helps us helps us figure out her purpose, and by figuring out her purpose, we can figure out the theme. In this myth, she uses a very comical tone, as if she is making fun of the gods, to highlight their flaws.

We read at the very beginning of this story of Consuela’s shame of being born female when the author writes, “…so they draped her in a diaper to cover her shame…” (Allende 2). This gender imbalance continues with the story of Lukas Carle and his opinion of his wife. “To Lukas Carle, his wife was an inferior being, closer to animal than to man, God’s only intelligent creation” (Allende 27). Towards the end of this story, even Eva could not understand why Melesio wanted to be a woman, when ironically she says, “I had told myself so often that it is a curse to be born a woman that I had some difficulty understanding Melesio’s struggle to become one” (Allende 212). Elvira’s words of advice, “you have to be tough, life is dogfight” (Allende

O’Connor takes a different approach by showing that people who do not seek redemption often enough are handed it, while those who seek redemption may be given it. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find” the author uses the grandmother a lot for the sole purpose of bringing sin and redemption out. Throughout the story, the grandmother repeatedly criticized both her son and daughter-in-law, she always seemed to be lying and messing with other people's feelings. The Grandmother considers herself morally superior to others because she is a “lady,” therefore she freely and frequently judges others. Similar

In lines 5-8, readers see a how women are restrained when it comes to speaking their minds when the author says, “They plainly can their thoughts disclose/Whilst ours must burn within/We have got tongues, and eyes, in vain/And truth from us is sin” (“A Lady’s Complaint”, 857). Men on the other hand are not held to such a standard, because they can freely say what they wish and be believed. Further on in this unknown woman’s complaint, in lines 9-12, she brings in the biggest example of the hypocrisy of the eighteenth century when she says, “Men to new joys and conquests fly/And yet no hazard run/Poor we are left, if we deny/And if we yield, undone” (“A Lady’s Complaint, 858). Men can go off and sleep with whomever they want without fear of repercussion, but women are not given the same luxury. If women went around sleeping with whoever they wanted to sleep with, they would be left poor and with a ruined reputation.