The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Top Girls By Caryl Churchill both feature motherhood and marriage as one of their main themes even though the texts were set at different points in time. The Bell Jar was published in 1963 around the time of the publication of Betty Freidan’s Feminine Mystique. The Feminine Mystique stated that the ideal housewives of the 1960’s were a myth as each one of them were secretly unhappy but never spoke out about their unhappiness due to fear of not abiding by the social normality of the time. This feeling of displacement in the social norm is what Plath bases the experiences of protagonist Esther upon and what eventually drives Esther into mental instability. 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.
For example, she used a British accent while filming her video. 3. Chantal has a passion for baking. She decides to bake a cake for a party, so she can be known as the Cake Princess. Chantal’s mother thinks if you do all the right things, nothing bad will happen.
She describes her mother as a natural story teller (Kramer 48). Her mother had a great impact on her life. As a child Tan was rebellious against her origins and was often embarrassed by her family’s customs (“Amy Tan” 1). Though The Joy Luck Club was not an autobiography, many of the stories are based on her and her mother’s own life experiences. Tan’s first book, The Joy Luck Club, had many influences including her relationship with her mother, the stories her mother told, understanding and becoming comfortable with her culture, and her own life experiences.
The explanatory models of science, like the plots of literary works, depend on linguistic structures which are shaped by metaphor and metonymy. The feminist reader is perhaps most sensitized to those symbolic structures which employ gender as a major variable or value. When Francis Bacon announced, "I am come in very truth leading to you Nature with all her children to bind her to your service and make her your slave,"1 he identified the pursuit of modern science with a form of sexual politics: the aggressive, virile male scientist legitimately captures and enslaves a passive, fertile female nature. Mary Shelley was one of the first to comprehend and illustrate the dangers inherent in the use of sexist metaphors in the seventeenth-century scientific revolution
Understanding Heritage in Everyday Use and A Pair of Tickets The theme that was used Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and Amy Tan’s “A Pair of tickets”, were based on Heritage and the use of it. Both authors showed the differences in which heritage was used by different people. They showed that in “Everyday Use”, Dee (Wangero) feels as if things should be colleted and cared for but not used but Maggie thinks that things should be of use and have a purpose with it. Dee wasn’t getting an understanding of the meaning of the word HERITAGE. In “A Pair of Tickets”, Jing-mei carried on her mom’s dream for her to meet her half twin sisters and to learn and understand more about her heritage.
“I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and who will see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it.” (para. 4). Most of the essay shows how husbands are demanding when it comes to taking care of the family. The writer is trying to get a point across that wives are expected to a whole lot of things perfectly but are not giving the due appreciation. The writer makes her readers aware that she knows what she is talking about in the early parts of the essay because she has experienced it herself.
In the 1950’s advertising promotions were used to encourage women back into the home and a life of domesticity after having employment during and after the war. Women of this period were portrayed as having a particular identity, they were housewives and mothers and
Assess the contribution of Feminist perspective for an understanding of the family in contemporary society. (24 marks) Within modern day society the nuclear family is still seen as the idealistic family type. Feminist argue that the family oppresses women through these main factors unequal division of domestic labour and domestic violence against women. Feminist do not regard gender inequality as natural or inevitable but as socially constructed; there are various views towards this liberal, Marxist and radical. The liberal feminist believe we are moving towards greater equality, since they argue that women were once the oppressed gender in family and society as a whole.
“Men are universally privileged by gender and women are not.” This excerpt from a writing piece by Daran of feministcritics.org states than women cannot and will not be able to share the same privileges that men are now enjoying. Judy Brady’s essay “I Want a Wife” also acknowledges that this is a possibility through her use of humorous, sarcastic, and occasionally ironic tone of defining what a wife ought to be. Her essay explores the many expectations of married women in a patriarchal society. Judy Brady displayed how wives of a household are tapered into becoming a house mom and a house maid. Within her essay she uses the phrase “I want a wife” numerous times to indicate that there is an ideal wife, one that should strive to be the things that she states in her essay.
This creates an image of a dutiful housewife that serves the stereotypical gender role within a nuclear family. On the other hand she does not fit into that ancient stereotypical image of an obedient, close-minded housewife as she appears to possess intellectualism. Describing her pleasure to read a book about Richard Nixon shows her recurrent pursuit of knowledge. This somehow demonstrates that she is not dominated by her husband but rather holds an equal status within their marriage as a sophisticated woman. The description of her outer appearance is very much influenced by the varying moods of the narrating husband.