Life In The Iron Mills Gender

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Gender in many ways is a defining factor in the communities of both real life and the literature that real life inspire. As an often politically charged identity category, it contributes heavily in defining how community. Three works of literature that show the effects of Gender in defining a community are Life In The Iron Mills by Rebecca Harden Davis, Sula by Toni Morrison and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. These books explore the themes of gender identities defining a community in different settings and succeed in showing it all of them. Life In The Iron Mills is a dark tale of oppression in the beginnings of the Industrial Era and through its dual protagonists, Hugh and Deborah Wolfe shows how dominated by masculinity …show more content…

This gives him a sense of not belonging to this hyper-masculine and lower class life style. The dreams of raising himself up results in his downfall. Deborah, Hugh’s cousin role in society is that of a working woman who like the rest of her class of women are marginalized and considered more masculine due to her crippled appearance and lack of …show more content…

For example, When Sula comes home and sees Eva for the first time they clash with Eva asking why Sula isn’t married yet. Eva says “Selfish. Ain't no woman got no business floatin' around without no man.” (Morrison 91) This reinforces society's perception of a woman’s role of the community. Saying she should settle down and get married as in the community you need to at least be married and tied down to a man at some point. The way the community vilifies her due to this and doesn’t vilify men who do the same thing also shows how heavily male-favoured this community is. While the character of Sula shows what happens if you don’t conform to the gender roles of the community the character of Nel shows what happens if you conform to the marriage in a male dominated community where her husband can leave her with nothing and he’d be considered fine still. The communities in Sula are defined by maleness due to how the community judges women and males in different

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