Madonna Kolbenschlag's Lost in the Land of Oz
"In "Lost in the Land of Oz", Madonna Kolbenschlag explores the way old societal myths, which are created from the metaphors in our life, are no longer useful in today's society. The author believes we need to embrace the ego archetype of the orphan, the most influential metaphor for the self, in order to become a whole and complete person. Madonna Kolbenschlag discusses how our society is particularly hostile towards women, resulting in an acute feeling of self-loathing, doubt, loneliness, and guilt. Today, women as the orphan feel a complete sense of powerlessness and abandonment, not only by everyone around her but also by God. Instead of suppressing our anxiety, Kolbenschlag advises that we should deal with it and remove the hidden layers of denial. We need to befriend the orphan within us and through all of this we will grasp a new insight and develop new spiritual consciousness.
I feel the book is geared more towards women reclaiming their cultural and spiritual power. Chapter Four, "Women-Out of the Cave, Into the Desert," discusses this issue, including the modern problems facing women and some solutions. Today, women struggle to rediscover and reconcile their new societal roles with their feminine identity. In the book, Kolbenschlag uses Dorothy of the "Wizard of Oz" as the feminine model that must confront the psychological challenges along her path in order to reintegrate her true feminine self. (p.20) Women are orphaned in so many ways by our society, but through realizing certain truths can we befriend the orphan within us.
Previously, Kolbenschlag felt that there were only two levels of feminine consciousness: those asleep and those who were awaking. (p.78) However, in today's society distinguishing these levels have become more complex. Through her "liberation index," she identifies the five levels of feminine awareness of modern times, which are innocence, denial, escape, defection, and deviance. Many young women are in the first stage of innocence because they have been sheltered from the realities of life, coming from a "picture perfect" life. Poor women are also in this stage because they believe that their reality is the only way of being for them. In the level of denial, women recognize their options, but feel that it is more beneficial for them to stay in their present state. On...
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...d independence is another great dilemma that I think many women go through, especially those in professional arenas and takes many of them a long time to resolve the two. Growing up in a matriarchal family, my mother has always instilled through actions the need for a woman to be independent. She raised my sister and I alone and I have seen her struggle with this dilemma, when she remarried. As Kolbenschlag said, often dependency is equated to domination, which is not what most women want. I think that sometimes everyone wishes that they had someone that they could lean on, especially through trying times, but that doesn't mean they want that person to take over the situation. I also do not believe that for a woman to be considered "independent" she must give up her femininity and individuality. In my opinion a male-dominated society has no authority to dictate the characteristics of femininity to a woman.
As a conscious, young man, I know that are many obstacles in the path of women, some involving race and others gender. I am a combination of many characteristics, values, and beliefs. While I do not think I am ready to befriend my inner orphan yet, I know one day I will be.
The Salem Witch trials were when hundreds of citizens of Salem, Massachusetts were put on trial for devil-worship or witchcraft and more than 20 were executed in 1692. This is an example of mass religion paranoia. The whole ordeal began in the home of Reverend Samuel Parris. People soon began to notice strange behavior from Parris’s slave, Tituba, and his daughters. Many claimed to have seen Parris’s daughters doing back magic dances in the woods, and fall to the floor screaming hysterically. Not so long after, this strange behavior began to spread across Salem.
During the time of the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692, more than twenty people died an innocent death. All of those innocent people were accused of one thing, witchcraft. During 1692, in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts many terrible events happened. A group of Puritans lived in Salem during this time. They had come from England, where they were prosecuted because of their religious beliefs. They chose to come live in America and choose their own way to live. They were very strict people, who did not like to act different from others. They were also very simple people who devoted most of their lives to God. Men hunted for food and were ministers. Women worked at home doing chores like sewing, cooking, cleaning, and making clothes. The Puritans were also very superstitious. They believed that the devil would cause people to do bad things on earth by using the people who worshiped him. Witches sent out their specters and harmed others. Puritans believed by putting heavy chains on a witch, that it would hold down their specter. Puritans also believed that by hanging a witch, all the people the witch cast a spell on would be healed. Hysteria took over the town and caused them to believe that their neighbors were practicing witchcraft. If there was a wind storm and a fence was knocked down, people believed that their neighbors used witchcraft to do it. Everyone from ordinary people to the governor’s wife was accused of witchcraft. Even a pregnant woman and the most perfect puritan woman were accused. No one in the small town was safe. As one can see, the chaotic Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were caused by superstition, the strict puritan lifestyle, religious beliefs, and hysteria.
The exterior influences of society affect a woman’s autonomy, forcing her to conform to other’s expectations; however, once confident she creates her own
John M. Murrin’s essay Coming to Terms with the Salem Witch Trials helps detail the events of these trials and explains why they might have occurred. The witch trials happened during a “particularly turbulent time in the history of colonial Massachusetts and the early modern atlantic world” (Murrin, 339). Salem came to be in 1629 and less than seventy years later found itself in a mess of witch craft.
In the early winter months of 1692, in colonial Massachusetts, two young girls began exhibiting strange symptoms that were described to be "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease to effect (examiner.com)." Doctors looked them over, but could not come up with any sort of logical explanation for their ailments. Therefore, the girls were accused of taking part in witchcraft. Soon, other young women in the village started showing similar symptoms. This "illness" of sort slowly made its way through the village to many of the residents. Soon, people started coming up with possible theories as to what started all the madness.
During the early winter of 1692 two young girls became inexplicably ill and started having fits of convulsion, screaming, and hallucinations. Unable to find any medical reason for their condition the village doctor declared that there must be supernatural forces of witchcraft at work. This began an outbreak of hysteria that would result in the arrest of over one hundred-fifty people and execution of twenty women and men. The madness continued for over four months.
Women have been an important role in society whether or not it is not remarked to the public eye. Oppression against women is never-ending along with violent acts constantly being pursued on them for over a century which is not only crucial but it is lessening their value worldwide. The suggestion of women’s emotions being a barrier for them to be equal to men is falsified, there is not one predicament that prevent a woman from being equal than a
The Salem witch trials, an event in colonial Massachusetts between 1692-1693 occurred in present day Danvers, Massachusetts, once known as Salem Village. This paper will validate Salem’s witch trials having a very immense influence on the U.S. today; such as the trial’s religious, philosophical, political, and ethical impact on our nation today. Life in Salem Village was harsh, farming was difficult, an epidemic of smallpox was killing families, and all misfortunes were seen as the Devil's work. Puritan lifestyle was a strong influence for the trials; they had a strong belief in the devil and witchcraft and made up a great number of the Massachusetts population. Salem was divided into two parts, Salem Village and Salem Town. Residents from both living areas were abundantly different. The people of Salem Village were commonly pauper farmers at a disadvantage by living in rocky terrain while those living in Salem town were mostly wealthy merchants.
A woman's world may be disconnected from the realities of the actual world, but it acts as a safety blanket to secure sanity for not only herself, but also for a man to avoid losing hope. When Marlow, a sailor who sets off to the Congo for exploration, speaks to his aunt before his departure, he sees how women's worlds are “too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset” (77). The world of a woman is set up so that she can bloc...
The further they become saturated with the male dominated life, the harder it is for women to become open to their own identity formation and needs. It is instilled in women from an early age that it is expected that they learn how to cook and clean, manage household bills, raise children, and be able to manage a home. With increasing number of women having to work to help support the family, they must also learn how to divide their time between career, family, and a husband.
The whole fiasco started with Reverend Parris’s nine-year-old daughter, Betty, and his orphaned eleven-year-old niece, Abigail Williams (Schanzer 18). These girls are believed to have ergot (“Part II: The Witches of Salem: Theories and Speculations”). “Ergot of Rye is a plant disease that is caused by the fungus Claviceps” (“Ergot of Rye - I: Introduction and History”). Even though the ergot on the grain looks different than the grain itself, it was so common that it was thought to be part of the rye until the 1850s (Ergot of Rye - I: Introduction and History). It is a decrepit disease that dates back to the Middle Ages and possibly even ancient Greece (Ergot of Rye - I: Introduction and History).
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
Since the beginning of time, women have strived to achieve an equal status in society. The vast majority of women have rebelled against the norm for equal status. As if washing the dirt off one’s hands, women are forgotten for all of their achievements. The identity of women in the Western world has evolved from domesticity and servility, and moved toward their valuation as individuals of intellect, talent, and independence. The culture about women’s empowerment has been reflected in literature and history throughout many ages.
...tivities that I chose to do, I slowly began to fall into place, on my own. I believe that its very important for parents to be open minded when it comes to gender. Looking back at my own situation, my parents followed the norms in the beginning and forced me into a realization that I wasn’t ready for. Therefore, as a young child, I did the only thing I could and rebelled. However, as they began to change and let me make my own decisions I got right back on track. I grew into a woman, and the previous experience helped me become my own person. Because of my father, I was determined to be my own individual, an independent and powerful woman. That was my number one priority growing up and I contribute a lot of my later success to that previous attitude.
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”.