Adrienne Rich's Snapshot of a Daughter-in-Law and Don DeLillo's End Zone

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Adrienne Rich’s Snapshot of a Daughter-in-law and Don DeLillo’s End Zone use negative diction and imagery to describe their thoughts on feminism and postmodernism. Rich uses negative diction and imagery to describe a woman who has adapted to the world’s opinion of what a woman should be and what women should do in the home. DeLillo uses negative diction to describe Myna after she conforms to beauty of the day. Rich brings in ideas of how domestic chores create a burden on women physically and emotionally. DeLillo also uses Myna to describe what he thinks about the world’s view on beauty and notions for women. If women are told that they are only worth what they look like and what they do and not what they think, nothing will ever truly change.
Rich stated that the daughter-in-law had “henna colored hair, skin like peach bud”(Rich 568 line 2), and shaved her legs till they “gleam like petrified mammoth-tusk”(570 line 50-51); Rich illustrates the “beauty” of these women in an unattractive way. Women use henna to dye their hair, and that phrase implies some of the unnatural things a woman will do to keep her hair colored with no gray in it. Peach buds are hairy on the outside, and shaving your legs to make them gleam like mammoth tusks so you will not be as fuzzy as a peach does not sound attractive. People tend to put to much stock in beauty. Almost all the fictional stories have a beautiful woman who is saved by a strong man, and it influences people from when they are young and through their whole lives. From fairytales from childhood that make girls want a prince charming to generic romantic movies that makes adult women want a perfectly sculpted body for that unrealistically picture-perfect man, society gives us a picture of a...

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... she said she had been happier when she did not think about what others thought about her. She conforms to what others think she should be and ignores the things that make her happy. The idea that you do everything because certain people in the world expect you to is ridiculous. People should be allowed to think what they want, but people should be cautious.
Rich stated at one point: “neither words nor music are her own… adjusted in reflection of an eye.” Even though women have come a long way, as a group women are sill are not as . Though feminism and postmodernism do not go perfectly together, they both question the way people are raised and the way people live their lives.

Work Cited
DeLillo, Don. End Zone. Baskerville: Houghton Mufflin Company, 1972. Print.
Rich, Adrienne. Snapshot of a Daughter-in-law. N.p.: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., n.d. 568-72. Print.

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