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.
Helena Viramontes' short story, "Miss Clairol," takes the reader through a day in the life of Arlene, a single Hispanic mother, and her daughter, Champ. They begin their day at K-Mart in search for just the right beauty products for Arlene because she is going on a date that evening. After leaving without paying, they spend the day at home. Arlene prepares for the date while Champ assists her, watches television, and fixes herself dinner. Once Arlene is sufficiently fixed, she leaves for the date, ignoring Champ as she yells goodbye. Although I had to read "Miss Clairol" all the way through several times in order to develop a full understanding of the story and its purpose, I needed no extra reading to understand Arlene and my feelings about her. From the beginning of the story, my gut reaction to Arlene was disgust, and as I continued to read, my distaste only enlarged. Although I do not feel that Viramontes' sole purpose was to disturb the reader by her characterization of this single mother, that was what kept my attention from the moment she was introduced.
The introduction is followed by seven chapters that describe the manner in which women from Colonial to Antebellum lived and how their work in the home changed and was valued: "An Economical Society," "A New Source of Profit and Support," "How Strangely Metamorphosed," "All the In-Doors Work," "The True Economy of Housekeeping," "The Political Economy of Housework," and "The Pastoralization of Housework." The last chapter acts as the conclusion where she states how the Antebellum woman felt devalued in her role as housewife and that women today are still devalued in the home
For example, “men often feel that they are supposed to be tough, aggressive, [and] competitive” [in the workplace…]. Women, on the other hand, are ‘unsexed by success’” (Kimmel 2013, 250). At the same time, we have seen these gender roles played a vital role in the family. According to Jhally, “the women of the dream world are fragmented and presented as a number of simple and disconnected body parts” (Jhally 2007). Therefore, “the media helps to maintain a status quo in which certain groups in our society routinely have access to power and privilege while others do not” (Mulvaney 2016). Therefore, “these images and stories have worked their way into the inner identities of young women who view their own sexuality through the eyes of the male authors of that culture” (Jhally
The lives of men and women are portrayed definitively in this novel. The setting of the story is in southern Georgia in the 1960’s, a time when women were expected to fit a certain role in society. When she was younger she would rather be playing ...
In the 1950’s, a woman’s life path was pretty clear cut, graduate from high school and find a good man while your ultimate goal is to start a family and maintain an orderly house. This is shown when Kingston says to the little girl “Some one has to marry you before you can become a housewife.” She says this as if becoming a housewife is a top priority for a woman. However presently, most women in America hold very respectable jobs and the role as housewife is slowly disappearing from American culture. Another example of modern day women showing strength is portrayed when the narrator’s mother goes on a cultural rampage and forces the narrator to go to the drug store and demand a piece of candy simply because the druggist missed the address of the house. This scene is shown in pages three, four, and five. By doing so the narrator comes off as poor and illogical.
Betty Friedan is the author of the famous book, which credited the beginning of a second –wave feminism in the United States. Friedan’s book begins with describing “the problem that has no name” to women who had everything, but were unhappy, depress and felt like they had nothing. Women are expected to be happy by buying things, a new refrigerator, house, best-selling coffee, having the right make-up, clothes and shoes, this is what the Feminine Mystique symbolized. Something that women wanted but can never have. Furthermore, society in present day is full of advertisements everywhere we go in TV, books and on the radio. The young generation as well as adults get trap in a fantasy world full of perfection. Women always want to have a thin waist, the most expensive make-up and purses, it’s all based on stereotypes. In her book, Friedan mentions that the average age of marriage was decreasing compared to increasing birthrate of women. Moreover, Friedan has been nit-pick at for focusing on the middle-class women and for prejudice against
The Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening were two works written during the Age of Expression. The entire country was going through an era of Reconstruction; politically, socially, culturally and econmically . The Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening are feminist works aimed at the psychological, social, and cultural injustices during the era. According to Mizruchi, “ Cosmopolitanism aroused dis-ease: depression and disaection were prevalent in a society whose pace and variety seemed relentless. Yet the same circumstances also instilled hope. For it was widely recognized that the burgeoning heterogeneity of a newly global America would be a source of enduring vitality.”(Mizruchi, 2008) The wives portrayed in these works defeated the attitudes of their husbands during this patriarchal culture.
In the story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the role of a woman in society is one of domestic duties. Jeenie, the protagonist’s sister-in-law, is a great example of this. The protagonist is forbidden, by her husband, to “work” until she is well again, so Jeenie steps in and assumes her domestic identity of a woman and wife. The protagonist calls her “a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper” and says she “hopes for no better profession” (Gilman 343). Jeenie clearly has no aspirations outside the confines of her domestic role. The protagonist herself worries she is letting her husband, John, down by not fulfilling her domestic duties. She says “it does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way” (Gilman 342). Besides the domestic role, which she is unable to fulfill, the protagonist plays the helpless, fragile, role of a woman where she is deemed incapable of thinking for herself and is reduced to acting more or les...
She wanted them to see themselves through their own eyes, not the eyes of another race. If they can only accept who they were, they would become happier and more prosperous as individuals and lead to improvement of the entire race. The goal is for them realize their own beauty and self worth before it leads to destruction.
This essay will analyze the themes of sexual and class exploitations in the story “The Wife’s Resentment” by Delariviere Manley. By exploring these themes we are able to get an idea of why Manley wrote this story. That is, she hoped to make young women, whether rich or poor, aware of the value of their virtue as well as their rights as married or single women to protect that virtue or honor. By revealing the themes that are presented in the story, we can see what Manley stood for and why she wrote this story in the period she lived in.
Society has evolved significantly from its initial gender stereotype of the black and white images of the hard-working husband and the loving, domestic housewife. According to Raewyn Connell in his book Gender (2009) he says that men are or at least should be the ‘producers or breadwinners’ and that women should be the ‘consumers’. However, it was around the middle of the 20thcentury during the onset of the feminist movement when the idea of the perfect woman was featured by glamorous magazines and television. Yet, there has been much controversy about the ways in which the mass media represents women and how they have been affected by these images. In the patriarchal society of the period, there was a decrease in strong women being emotionally and mentally stable, intellectual and sexually attractive. Building on that premise, this paper will examine and analyse the different stereotypical roles the female characters of Desperate Housewives portray, how they are viewed by the audience, and what impact these gender constructions have on society.
Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique, explains the mind set of society in the 1960s. She writes that the women of the ‘60s were identified only as creatures looking for “sex, babies, and home” (Friedan 36). She goes on to say “The only passion, the only pursuit, the only goal a woman [was] permitted [was] the pursuit of a man” (Friedan 36). This mind set, this “feminine mystique,” is clearly shown throughout the show Mad Men. The side effect of the feminine mystique hurt all the women of this time. Matthew Weiner shows how this conception of the “ideal woman” hurt all of his lead women. The consequences are shown in the two women who bought into the idea, Betty and Joan, and the one who re...
Friedan frustratingly explains how women’s choices to revert back to domestic roles after World War II compromised women’s independence and identity. Friedan uses this frustration to revive modern feminism and extinguish the prison that gender roles had imprisoned women in. In The Feminine Mystique, Friedan illustrates how women fell into the common portrayal of a housewife just fifteen years after the war and how “millions of women lived their lives in the image of those pretty pictures of the American suburban housewife, kissing their husbands goodbye in front of the picture window, depositing their stationwagonsful of children at school…their only dream was to be perfect wives and mothers…”(Friedan 61) and other description that fit the occupation of “housewife”.
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” shows in society how a woman should be placed and what it means to be a woman. A women doesn’t question her partner, instead she is subservient to him. A woman’s duties include staying at home taking care of the children and cooking; while the man works and brings home the money. A feministic approach to Kincaid’s “Girl” points to the idea of the stereotypes that women can only be what they do in the home, they should only be pure and virtuous, and their main focus should be satisfying their husband.
The traditional society condemns men to bread-wining responsibilities. However, with modernity, comes the change in roles. Women have an equal share in role taking. The modern society not only permits women but also gives them an opportunity to provide for their families among other responsibilities. However, this drastic change is a factor towards competition, a need for supremacy or pride. Therefore, regardless of their different struggles, conflicts or challenges they face, every woman has a zeal towards success. In “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, the narrator’s extensive description of her daughters’ difference in character and personality clearly shows that she is biased towards Maggie, who is more inclined to support her cultural beliefs