As Hannah becomes a mother herself and a mother being the first model of love that the children experiences, she emotionally detaches herself from Sula as she was detached from her mother. Sula is able to shape her ego and separate herself from her family after she overhears her mother’s conversation: "You love her, like I love Sula. I just don't like her". Hannah not representing an admirable empathetic mother figure makes Sula assert control over her identity through the inability of connecting with other people as an adult. She is able to find her autonomy and independence denying responsibilities and attachment to anything.
When Victor compares himself with Elizabeth, he says “I was capable of a more intense application, and was more deeply smitten with the thirst of knowledge.” Mary uses her character Elizabeth to review the lack of support and the demand for institutionalized education of girls in public, whereas Mary could only be home-educated by her father. This lack of education makes it so women have no access to the “outside world” - a world of exploration, investigation, and curiosity to the secret of nature, where
The Awakening Society frowns upon women who are trying to be independent and have a free life. Many people tend to look down on women who lived their life in a “dream” and who have awakened from it and acted out this “dream”. During the 19th century any women who did not follow expected social behavior were often looked down on as a disappointment. In the tragic realistic novel, The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, a young American woman of the late nineteenth century seeks to realize her full potential as an independent human being. Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz are two women in which Edna’s options of life paths are exhibited, however, Edna finds both role models lacking.
This lifestyle kept most women in a child-like state of ignorance, since they were so sheltered from what the real world was actually like. Keeping the women separate from society took away their desire to have the right to vote, and continue onto higher education. Caitlin McElligot explains the nineteenth century
She gives her instructions on how to speak, act, cook, clean, and how to carry herself as a lady. The way that the daughter is spoken to is not in a gentle manner filled with love. The mother speaks down to her child telling her such things as, “this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well, and this way they won’t recognize immediately the slut I have warned you against becoming” (Kincaid 44). This statement can lead to the belief that perhaps the girl within this story had done something that her mother had considered very slutty and she wasn’t going to let her daughter get away with thinking it was acceptable behavior. It can be assumed that this daughter probably just started her monthly period, from the line towards the beginning to “soak her little clothes right after she takes them off” (Kincaid 43).
Uphold her mother’s traditions, but her mother’s memory and identity. This is similar to agree to disagree, even though she has been guilty remains not to go back and didn’t finished college she fears that she has already failed to uphold her mother’s dreams. An-Mei Hsu: Scar In this vignette, the author writes, “So I knew Popo wanted me to forget my mother on purpose, and this is how I came to remember nothing of her” (Tan 42). This quote shows that her mother was ignored. This ties to balance individuality and closeness because An-Mei is easily allowing the balance of connection and separateness fall apart with her mother.
Her fight with self-discovery and her battle to find a place in society demonstrates the view that the women who do not fit into traditional roles should be ostracized from conventional society given that they pose the danger of change. It is clear that women like Susanna, who have little ambition in becoming a carbon copy of their mother, are seen as a threat and therefore classified as crazy. Susanna is clearly misinterpreted by her peers as well as the authority figures in her life. She is not a degenerate but a young girl frustrated with her limited options for the future. When Susanna is held after class by her teacher to discuss why she is the only senior not going on to college, she tries to reach out for support from her teacher, by explaining that she's not a druggie but she is concerned about ending up like her mother.
Jing-mei wanted to be her own person so she was determined not to try hard at the piano lessons. Jing-mei says to her mother, "You want me to be someone that I'm not, I'll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be. "(Tan, 51) This external conflict between Jing-mei and her mother serves as a premise for the remaining conflicts in this short story. Another example of conflict, an internal one, is that of Jing-mei's gloomy, sad feeling after she realizes that she cannot become the great person her mother wants her to be. Jing-mei thinks to herself, "After seeing my mother disappointed once again, something inside of me began to die; I hated the tests, the raised hopes, and failed expectations.
“I am going to make you talk you sissy-girl.” Kingston stated to the girl that she picked on during school and tried to make her talk because she did not speak to her. Kingston wanted her to yell stop or say something because she could not stand the fact that the girl did not stand up for herself. She could not face her because of how weak she presented. Kingston does not believe that women should be fragile. From my personal perspective, women should be able to speak up for themselves and should be treated equal to that of a male.
It’s not easy for Connie to live with her mother, who constantly harps on the way Connie looks and how she doesn’t live up to her sister reputation. “If Connie’s name was mentioned it was in a disapproving tone.”[453]. Every time Connie’s mother comments anything about June’s profile, it pushed Connie unconsciously to be nothing like her sister. Mother usually complained about her about habit of looking into a mirror. The narrator states the mother’s resentment of Connie’s beauty because “her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie.”[451].