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Steinbeck portrayal of women
What does Steinbeck’s novel reveal about attitudes towards women in the society in which the novel is set
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Power of Women in The Grapes of Wrath
Women are known for as holding families together. When times get rough women are the foundation to the family and help keep things together. A woman poses different qualities that can help keep the family strong. These qualities can be categorized in the four archetypes of a woman. The idea of the woman Archetype is presented by Carl Jung. The first being Mother Nature, the very physical aspect and the second is the virgin, which represents the spiritual aspect of the archetype. The third is the young which who is the physical state while the fourth is the old witch possessing the spiritual side of the woman archetype. The four women in John Steinbecks, The Grapes of Wrath represent these four archetypes and take on responsibilities that in the end help the family succeeds in achieving their dreams.
Ma Joad is a woman of strength and hope who is the backbone of the family. She represents the Mother Nature archetype while she posses the physical aspect of guiding the family and staying strong when the family needs her most. Steinbecks shows the importance of ma's character by the syntax usage to describe ma. " Ma was heavy, but not fat; thick with child-bearing and work...her ankles, and her strong, broad, bare feet moved quickly and deftly over the floor", Ma is described with these features to show her strength as a mother who has control and survives through hard situations (95). Her 'bare feet' being close to the earth shows how she takes on a 'Mother Nature' archetype to her character. She is one with the earth just as Mother Nature is. Mother Nature is one that gives birth, produces, sustains life and nurtures her family. All of these archetypes are expressed in ma's character.
Even though she is a very strong woman she knows her role in the family. Ma knows when it is her time to help the family and when it is appropriate to step back and let the father run things. It is an unsaid statement but known by all in the family that "ma was powerful in the group" and they look to her for important decision making (133).
On January 20, 1969 our 37th president, Richard Milhous Nixon, was sworn into Presidency. His main focus as president was to pull forces out of Vietnam in order to end the War that began in 1961. Nixon began this process by pulling 75,000 troops out of Vietnam in the first year he was president. Nixon also worked to improve US relations with China as well as with the Soviet Union. He was the first president to visit China. He also imposed a wage price freeze to combat inflation that was replaced by a system of wage price controls, to be later removed. Nixon?s term as President will forever be remembered due to his resignation from presidency over the Watergate scandal.
The existence of slavery was the central element of the conflict of the north and south. Other problems existed that led to this succession but none were as big as the slavery issue. The only way to avoid the war was to abolish slavery, but this was not able to be done because slavery is what kept the south running. When the south seceded it was said by Abraham Lincoln that “ a house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.” Because slavery formed two opposing societies and slavery could never be abolished, the civil war was inevitable. These were all the reasons why the south seceded from the union, this succession was eminent and there was no plausible way to avoid it.
Tom Joad is an ex-convict that was only into his own self-interest and lived by a mantra of live your life day by day and not concerned with the future, to becoming a man who thinks about the future and someone with morals and an obligation to help others. Ma Joad is a typical woman of the early 1900’s whose main role was a mother only with a role of caring and nurturing. Later in the novel, she becomes an important figure for the family and is responsible for making decisions in keeping the family together and emphasizes the importance of unity. Another important transition in the book is the family starting off as a single close knit unit to depending on other families to survive. This common interest and struggle bonded the community of individual families to a single one. Steinbeck wrote this novel very well, by having great character dynamics and development that displays the characters strengths and also their
Mama, as a member of an older generation, represents the suffering that has always been a part of this world. She spent her life coexisting with the struggle in some approximation to harmony. Mama knew the futility of trying to escape the pain inherent in living, she knew about "the darkness outside," but she challenged herself to survive proudly despite it all (419). Mama took on the pain in her family in order to strengthen herself as a support for those who could not cope with their own grief. Allowing her husband to cry for his dead brother gave her a strength and purpose that would have been hard to attain outside her family sphere. She was a poor black woman in Harlem, yet she was able to give her husband permission for weakness, a gift that he feared to ask for in others. She gave him the right to a secret, personal bitterness toward the white man that he could not show to anyone else. She allowed him to survive. She marveled at his strength, and acknowledged her part in it, "But if he hadn't had...
Eventually slavery did die out and the southern states were once again apart of the union, but not without a civil war. Ultimately the North and South’s differences could not be resolved through anything other than a Civil War. These causes, as well as others, left the South no other viable option, in their eyes, than to secede from the union, leading to the Civil War. Political, societal, and philosophical conflicts combined with one another to form the ultimate disagreement over slavery between the two regions. All in all, admitting a disproportionate amount of free states to slave states into the union, preventing slavery from expanding, and President Lincoln’s election were significant factors that lead to the secession of the southern states in 1860 and 1861.
A. Man vs. Man - Mama is the matriarch of the family, and she is very much in control of her children's lives. She is driven by a strong sense of pride and a strong faith in God. Her ideas conflict with three other characters:
In this last scene, Mama proves to herself that you do not need an education, or generation knowledge to be able to posses strength. For Mama had inner strength all along, she just needed her true rich and beautiful beliefs of her heritage to shine through, and they did.
For readers who observe literature through a feminist lens, they will notice the depiction of female characters, and this makes a large statement on the author’s perception of feminism. Through portraying these women as specific female archetypes, the author creates sense of what roles women play in both their families and in society. In books such as The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the roles that the main female characters play are, in different instances, both comparable and dissimilar.
...om’s Cabin in 1852, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, and the outcome of the Presidential Election of 1860—created conditions where Southerners felt the need to secede from the United States (they felt that their “way of life” was being threatened), as well as created conditions where the Northerners decided to go to war against the Southern Confederacy in order to maintain the Union. It is not surprising, however, that the Civil War occurred; since the Industrial Revolution, the Industrial North had always been different than the Agricultural South. If each region paid more attention to resolving the issues that separated them, instead of trying to prove themselves right, they could have stopped the bloodiest battle in American history (even though this is using hindsight knowledge).
In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet struggles with the abrupt death of his father at the hands of his uncle. It is in the very beginning of the play that Hamlet voices his opinion that death would be a peaceful release. But as the play progresses his attitude begins to slowly doubt the serenity in death. Hamlet had been surrounded by death but had yet to come face to face with it, escaping the lessons the world was trying to teach him. It is within Act 5 scene 1 that Hamlet has a direct confrontation with death, manifested primarily through the discovery of Yorick’s skull, a dear friend from his green world childhood. It is through this experience that Hamlet realizes that death is the true equalizer, that all men are the same in death, stripped of all power and position, and that he too will crumble into dust.
Mrs. Sara Penn is a respectful mother of her kids and wife, but the word “mother” can have different symbolic meaning such as a mad woman, selfless wife and a mother for her kids. First, according the article, Mrs. Sara Penn is a mad because the writer says “she went into the pantry, and there was a clatter of dishes” where she can cook and wash the dishes (par. 44). Here only work is to fulfil her family’s needs as a mad to feed and clean such as “she laid out
The first woman we are introduced to is Mavis. Her relationship with her husband is an example of the type of subservience c...
Tragic death plays a really big role in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet often considers death in many different perspectives, and definitely obsesses with the idea more so after his fathers’ death. Hamlet’s soliloquy is one of the most famous in literature, “To be or not to be, that is the question…” Hamlet’s dilemma is the pain of life that he must endure or the uncertainty of death. From the beginning of the play to the very last scene, the fascination between life and death plays a role throughout. Hamlet is troubled through the play after realizing that his uncle was the one who murdered his father and is now married to his mother. He wants to avenge Hamlet Sr. death and kill Claudius but feels that killing himself would be an easier resolution. After the death of his murdered father and appearance at his funeral, Hamlet will not leave anywhere without making the statement of his all black attire on the inside and out. The turn of events throughout the play only help the reader understand the debt of each character and their specific role to Hamlet and to the story in regards to life and death.
Marjane’s mother was one of the most influential people in her life, her mother taught her to be strong and independent. By introducing her mother through the story of her
Mama is a powerful, strong witted person. She has a lot of control in this play and dominates as a woman character. This is unusual because this is usually a male’s position in life. She is a woman, “who has adjusted to many things in life and overcome many more, her face is full of strength”. In this play she is illustrated as taking over for the head of the family and controls the lives of everyone in her house. Rules are followed to Mama’s extent. She controls what is said and done in her house. After Walter yells, “WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE LISTEN TO ME TODAY!” (70). Mama responds in a strong tone of voice saying, “I don’t ‘low no yellin’ in this house, Walter Lee, a...