One job that she learned about racial differences was being a housekeeper, where she worked for a lady named Mrs. Burke. Mrs. Burke bluntly tells her that because she is black, she doesn’t get paid that much. Through holding local guild meetings at her house with her gal friends, Moody discovers how white people expressed their hatred toward black people. The triple exploitation of nationality, work, and gender characterizes Moody’s motivation to her individuality of becoming a civil rights activist. Similar to Coming of Age in Mississppi, Mirta Vidal’s article on Chicanas
“The Help” Research Paper Life in the 1960s was very different from the time we live in now. There was segregation in every public place and even in the white’s homes if they had maids. In The Help’s portrayal of the black maids and white women of the 1960s, the white women were superior over the black maids. The white women hired the black maids to do their work, such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of their children. Most black women quit school to work so they could support their families.
June is another victim of patriarchal oppression just like Connie’s mother, a typical “house wife”. Both the mother’s and sister’s roles fully reflect how women were treated at that time. They were controlled by males, displayed a lack of confidence and did not have their own independent self-consciousness. Oates used Connie’s independent identity and rebellious behaviors to represent women’s dissatisfaction with patriarchy, but had no courage to make a change. When Oates starts the story by introducing Connie without a last name, Oates created a character with a clear independent identity, while at the same time rebelling against the patriarchy.
During Lily’s first spiritual encounter, she reached out her hand to touch the black Mary, but August stopped playing the cello abruptly. Lily knew it was because of her color. In addition, Lily was being faced with racism from other white people in Tiburon. “‘You’re staying in her house?’ she said” (p.157). Miss Lacy, Clayton Forrest’s secretary was appalled at the thought of a white girl staying with black women, referring to August as her.
Because of discrimination against women rights, and how society view women is nothing much than their sex slaves, Elizabeth suffered from great loss of family and love. From her experience of giving a birth to a dead baby to the point of becoming a sex worker, it perishes her hope of living in a comfortable and pleasing life. The absence of love for Elizabeth causes her to suffer from grief and catastrophe. Society against women rights prevents Elizabeth to speak up for her tragedy because she has no place and no one to blame to. Instead, she has to endure all the horrifying loss from both society and
p67-68). She does not have enough self- confidence to meet anyone. Moreover, Bella has been taught for so long by her mother not to feel, and this creates a barrier forcing her to fail at
In the novel Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen, she creates a portrait of a mother, a father, children and violent consequences. Mary Beth Latham, is a suburban, white women who is a mother of three teenaged children that had always came first, before her role as a wife to a doctor or even her career as a landscape gardener. Mary Beth cared deeply for her family and preserved their everyday life as sovereign. However, when Max, one of her sons, becomes very depressed, Mary Beth became focused on her son, and is blindsided by an outrageous act of violence when half of her family became murdered by her daughter Ruby's ex-boyfriend Kiernan, leaving her with only one son, Alex. Every Last One is a novel about a women having to face difficult situations in life while being emotionally and financially responsible for the rest of her family.
From perspectives of the black maids, Minny and Aibileen, they do not want to speak up to Skeeter about their true lives working as black maids in Mississippi at first. Even if the blacks did not receive any respect, no one is willing to do anything to change the situation. As the growing US Civil Rights Movement enrages a lot of radical white racists in the South, However, their normal lives could hardly continues. Racial discrimination started to cause more and more assaults toward them. The dastardliest villain in the story Hilly, the influential women president of the Jackson Junior league, who is also a representative of the hypocritical racists, almost succeeds in implementing the idea of building separate bathroom for black maids because she convinces her friends that they carry diseases.
As all children are expected to be obedient in their home, the rebellion of Jing-mei in her home shows her strong feelings against being lived through vicariously. Instead of a stable environment, the home becomes a battlefield where Jing-mei’s mother is traumatized, “as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf.” The conflict between Jing-mei and her mother develops from their separate dialects. Because she grew up in America, Jing-mei has flawless English. In contrast, Jing-mei’s mother talks in imperfect English, with tense and verb errors. During the climax of the story, Jing-mei’s mother reverts to her native Chinese as she shouts at her daughter.
The daughters in the stories thought their mothers were very pushy about some things and they did not like it. However, what they did not realize is the intention their mother had for them to be in a better, more independent situation then they were. Jing-Mei Woo was one of the daughters in chapter eight titled Two Kinds and it stated, “I hated the tests, something inside of me began to die”. (Page 141) When Jing-Mei’s mother saw other people excelling, she thought it was necessary for her daughter to do the same thing. She had been put on a pedestal in her mind as a type of prodigy.