Motherhood and marriage is seen to be a key factor in the society of which The Bell Jar is set ,and is portrayed as one of the things that supresses female identity when Esther is asked to be “Mrs Buddy Willard” as if she is owned by Buddy and not her own person. Even though Top Girls is set in 1980’s England while Margret Thatcher is Prime Minister, it shows direct correlations to the ideas shown in The Bell Jar. Just as the bell jar itself portrays motherhood and marriage to be a hindrance to Careers In the form of Dodo Conway, Top Girls protagonist Marlene symbolises the other option women have in the choice between a career and a family. Marlene, unlike her sister Joyce, is shown to have given up her child for the chance to pursue a career as if having both is impossible; a lot like Jaycee is in The Bell Jar. This essay will argue that In both texts motherhood and marriage is shown to be a hindrance to both women’s careers and their female identity.
Gwen Harwood chooses to represent social institutions in a negative light because often in Gwen Harwood’s poems, women are portrayed as victims of the social circumstances of the 1950s and in the past as well. But Harwood sometimes chooses to take a different view and instead has the women either fight against the male dominant character, choosing to be more than just the mans possession or be an independent women who has ambitions and determination to be successful and not necessarily just be a mother. By placing the man as the dominant sex that provides for the family, and the women as the housewives and mothers, she gives the reader a view of how people were in the 1950s, and then adds a twist of the women dismissing this accepted behavior to express her opinion of such issues. Gwen Harwood’s work frequently focuses on woman being demoralised by society’s practices that reduce her to a lesser being. A common worldwide value that Harwood rejects as the normality in life with her poems.
Claudia Cox ‘The main interest of the novel is in its portrayal of intricate characters.’ Explore the methods which the writer uses to create complex characters in the yellow wallpaper. The Yellow Wallpaper, written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 focuses on the main interest of the novel being the portrayal of intricate characters. The text explores the mental deterioration of the nameless protagonist, who is trapped under patriarchal control and the reader shares the journey of the protagonist’s descent into madness. ‘The chilling tale of a woman driven to the brink of insanity’ (Maggie O’Farrell, 2008) aims to educate other women within society, despite being isolated within her marriage; in which she is refused power, dismissed and belittled by her husband. The characters in the novel display complex personalities and the main focus is on the intricate protagonist, the
Miller takes the “woman scorned” approach to his character of Abigail. Abigail’s assertiveness is observed early when she tells her uncle “the rumour of witchcraft is all about; I think you'd best go down and deny it yourself,". This remark, within the confines of a deeply hierarchical and patriarchal society, shows her to have knowledge of social situations and also that she does not conform to the Puritan society, which has already been evidenced by her affair with John Proctor. She is spiteful which helps to build the classic “woman scorned” role which Miller moulds her into: “Oh, I marvel how such
With people tormenting her about her cousins who were teen moms, or her father who made a fool of his drunken self in public, the poor girl felt like nothing more than dirt, and she wanted to be thought of as flawless and beautiful. Edith dreamed of being a celebrity, she wished to be a perfect girl, and to live in a perfect world "in which only married women had babies, and in which men and women stayed married forever." The shacks in which Eddie grew up were less than desirable, and supposedly thought of as contemptible, by people of a higher social class. When Edith moved to the boarding house, with set meal times, she was quite ashamed to think of how people living in the shacks didn't have meal times, they simply found any food they could and ate by themselves when they were hungry. The potato-chip plant that Eddie worked at
How is Marlene presented as similar to and different from Margret Thatcher? Why does Churchill make these parallels? In Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls, we are shown a world of Post-Feminism and Thatcherism gone mad. Women speak over each other in dialogue, not really listening to what the other is saying, use rude language, and one character leaves her child in the care of her sister so that she may advance in her career. Churchill’s lead character in the play is paradoxically a female misogynist who takes on a stereotypically male business persona who climbs to the top of the corporate ladder.
Curley’s wife is the loneliest character in the book. Crooks may be isolated from the rest because he’s black or Candy because of his old age and injury, and Lennie because of his stupidity. But she’s a complete outcast. Never wanted, never loved. Curley treats her as if she were an object, and Steinbeck puts more ‘loneliness’ to her by not giving her a name because she’s merely a property belonging to Curley In her moment of greatest vulnerability, Curley’s wife seeks out even greater weaknesses in others, preying upon Lennie’s mental handicap, Candy’s debilitating age, and the colour of Crooks’s skin in order to steel herself against harm.
“No, you two infinitely stupid male creatures: the problem of what is to be done with her afterwards.” (Shaw, 65) Mrs. Higgins shows she doesn’t see the girl as some experiment un like the men in the play who do not seem to view women as the same value. Having a women who respects and has morals for other women is very important for this play. “Do without, I’m afraid, Henry. The girl has a perfect right to leave is she chooses.” (Shaw, 84) This is Mrs. Higgins explaining to her son that he can’t control the young women that she has some rights of her own, and he is to blind to see this on his own. Making the role of women important to see that the young Liza Doolittle has some rights of her own.
She is to turn her attention to lady-like hobbies. Women are merely objects of display and necessary utilization. Scout is treated as a “girl” not only by society but also by her brother because that is his opinion of females. “I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that is. Why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could go off and find someone to play with” (Lee, 119).
Oscar Cruz EN 102 Prof. Helm March 17, 2013 Domination of Women in the Yellow Wallpaper “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, tells the story of a woman’s fall into madness as a result of the rest an ignore the problem cure that is frequently prescribed to cure hysteria and nervous conditions in women. More importantly, the story is about control and attacks the role of women in society. The narrator of the story is symbolic for all women in the late 1800s, a prisoner of a confining society. Women are expected to bear children, keep house and do only as they are told.