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The portrayal of women in literature
The portrayal of women in literature
The portrayal of women in literature
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The Theme of Girl Power in Joy Luck Club and Taste of Honey
Joy Luck Club and Taste of Honey
Women’s rights is an issue of serious interest in much of today’s
literature. As more women take the pen in hand more and more female
characters take center stage in the stories they write. The newest
term for this focus on the powerful heroine is called “Girl Power” and
this strength of persona can be seen in two pieces of literature in
particular. The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, and A Taste of Honey, by
Shelagh Delaney.
In the Joy Luck Club Amy Tan write about the lives of four mother’s
from China who pass their lives’ wisdom down to their daughters who
are growing up on the foreign shores of California, USA. Each of
these women have a story to tell about growing up in the patriarchal
society of china, how they overcame the stifling environment they grew
up in and how they survived and escaped to the “new world” as it
were.
The story of An Mei, Waverly Jong’s mother, is an excellent example of
how women can take control of the situations that are forced upon them
and make their lives better. In the novel An Mei is sold into a
marriage at the age of four. At fifteen, on her wedding day she
discovers she has been married to 13 year old boy, who no more wants
to be a husband than he does a father. An Mei is forced to sleep on
the floor and treated to the derisive comments and punishments of her
mother in law when she fails to produce a child. However, over
hearing a house servant who found herself pregnant, she devises a plan
to escape her ill-fated life and out-trick her lying child-groom. She
uses the superstitions of the traditional Chinese and her clever wit
to win a ticket out of the loveless marriage and back to Shanghai
with her family. This tale, re-told by An Mei, shows how woman, even
in dire situations, can take charge of their lives and make the most
of what they have.
Rose Hsu Jordan is another one of Tan’s Characters that really takes
charge of her life just when it seems she would be swallowed whole by
a man’s world. In this present day tale, a young woman find herself
married to man whose opinions she has grown to value above her own.
She has forgotten how to value herself and fallen prey to the pitfall
of pleasing her husband before taking care of her own needs.
In Pleasantville (Ross 1998), women have expectations of doing all the cooking, cleaning, and keeping their priorities focused on their husband. George Parker comes home from work expecting a warm greeting from his wife and food that is ready for him to eat. Betty Parker learns from Jennifer, David, and Mr. Johnson that women do not need to fulfill these roles and men do not need to have dominance over women in a relationship for it to be successful.
He is explaining how a wife’s life is that of her husband. No matter what condition or temperament her husband comes home in, she must tend to his every need no questions asked. This is a very unfair way for women to live their lives seeing as she has hardly anything in her life that is her own.
Mean Girls tells the story of Cady Heron’s transition from 12 years of home school in Africa to public high school in the United States when her mother gets offered tenure at a nearby college. Upon her arrival, Cady bonds with Janice and Damian who are considered apart of the “out crowd”. Janice and Damian give Cady the scoop on all of the social cues and how to navigate her new territory. When she is invited to join the most popular clique in the school, “The Plastics” Cady is placed in the middle of revenge and is encouraged to invade the lives of the girls to steal their secrets and eventually uproot their lives. Although this movie is primarily focused on revenge (which can be correlated with coercion, the least ideal form of leadership)
Throughout Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, the reader can see the difficulites in the mother-daughter relationships. The mothers came to America from China hoping to give their daughters better lives than what they had. In China, women were “to be obedient, to honor one’s parents, one’s husband, and to try to please him and his family,” (Chinese-American Women in American Culture). They were not expected to have their own will and to make their own way through life. These mothers did not want this for their children so they thought that in America “nobody [would] say her worth [was] measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch…nobody [would] look down on her…” (3). To represent everything that was hoped for in their daughters, the mothers wanted them to have a “swan- a creature that became more than what was hoped for,” (3). This swan was all of the mothers’ good intentions. However, when they got to America, the swan was taken away and all she had left was one feather.
In early America, women in the Paleolithic Era were looked upon as life's sustenance. They provided life by giving birth and were respected for that. They were valued greatly as well, and they were considered too delicate and worth too much to allow to do any type of manual labor. There was a great respect for the American women in this time period, and in China it was quite the opposite. In the story "The Lady Knight Errant," the subject of birthing children comes up. In China having an heir to carry on the name was a very important, and it was necessary for the men who wanted to be considered to be a man of honor and dignity. In order for Ku, who was an unmarried man, to have an heir, the lady knight errant chose to have a love affair with him, and he very much ap...
First, the movie demonstrates the unilateral understanding of filial piety from the female’s perspective of view in Chinese feudal society. In terms of the main protagonist of the movie, Qiuju is a representative of the majority female’s state in the Mid-20th century. “There was a striking continuity of ritual practice, especially an ancestor worship”(Zito, 336). In China, ancestor worship is very important to a Chinese family because Chinese people believe their ancestors can bless their family line can be inherited, and people hope their next generation is a son. At that time, because of the daughter, who had married with the son, does not belong to the original family but becomes a family member of her husband’s family, the only male can heir their family line. Therefore, people’s feudal thinking tends to be
Dakota Hoffman Changes and Choices Mrs. Srittmatter. Have you ever felt like you were socially awkward? Well in the book of the perks of being a wallflower a kid named Charlie has a hard time knowing what to do to socialize, in the movie Mean Girls a girl named Katy comes from Africa and also doesn’t know what to do socially, so they both have similar social skills, both causing them to be social outcasts. In the book Charlie starts his freshman year out friendless and he is not really sure on what he is to do to make a friend. But he meets Sam and Patrick and just goes with them because he feels comfortable around them.
Throughout the novel, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Luo and the narrator are often given obstacles in their daily lives due to their parent’s circumstances. Luo’s father is a famous dentist who worked on Chairman Mao’s teeth and the narrator’s parents are doctors. Due to their parent’s status as a medical professional, the boys were sent to the rural side for re-education during the Cultural Revolution. During this time, Luo’s father ran into a particular legal trouble after telling his students that he worked on Mao’s teeth. This was considered a serious crime since suggesting that Mao needed dental work was not allowed in the society during the Cultural Revolution. He was then publicly humiliated and this gave Luo the image of “son of a perpetrator”. Later in the novel, the narrator attempts to help out to Little Seamstress as she discovers she is pregnant. This situation is devastating because abortion is illegal. The narrator goes to the Yong Jing Hospital and asks for help. However, the gynecologist recognizes his father’s name and realizes that he does not have a daughter. In this case, if his parents weren’t doctors, it would have been possible for the narrator to help the Little Seamstress get an abortion without trouble. This condition is not as severe as the first two, however, we can see that parent’s can influence their child not only directly but also
and a woman to produce a child and to show that they belong to one
Before her father’s death, Hong had lived a comfortable life, as her father held a position of power. However, “After her father died of bone cancer, life was hard for the Chens. [...] By now, both the mother and daughter had experienced the difficulty and humiliation caused by lacking power in their own hands. (Jin 560)” Along with the hardships after her father’s death came the realization of Hong’s purpose in life―to elevate her family’s place and prestige in society. Blinded by her pursuit for power, Hong would eventually find herself at a standpoint, suddenly having to choose a husband and marry for power. Facing a deadline for her choice, Hong picked her husband through lots, as she did have love for any of her suitors. As did Hong, Hulga would also fail to properly set out her life due to the restraint of
The wife stayed devoted and loyal to her husband only, this allowed the husband to create more rightful heirs to take over his job in the household. Also, the wife stayed pure and loyal to her husband for her own happiness, because the husband took good care of her. Then, the wife also was the foundation of education for the household. The wife taught all the children as they grew up. And then the husband’s key role was being the provider, protector, and guider of wisdom for the
Patricia Ebrey has mentioned to the audience that in the very early times in China Society, the roles of men has been pointed as a patriarchy in a family. Women in early times in Chinese seemed to be a trouble in men’s eyes. The author also said that a basis of a family begins from a birth of son, and not the birth of a daughter. She also points out an interesting view that women are yin and men is yang. Throughout Ebrey explanation that yin will never control yang. In my thought, it will be soon a time for the old family structure to be disappeared in modern society as in today. The precursors to whom a Shang or Zhou tradition lord made penances were his patrilineal predecessors, that is, his predecessors connected only through men such as
An interpersonal element that is hugely represented in Mean Girls is culture, which is defined as the system of learned and shared symbols, language, values, and norms that distinguish one group of people from another. Cady Herron is forced to move from Africa to America, where society is extremely different. On her first day at an American public high school, Cady enters the lunchroom and notices a group of African American students sitting at a table together. Growing up around African people, she identifies with them and she assumes that they are her in-group, so she approaches them hoping that they will let her sit with them, but they are confused as to what she is doing. To them, she is part of the out-group because she is white. They do not identify with her, so one of the girls puts her purse in the empty seat next to her, communicating that Cady
Wang’s father tells him that he will get an ugly woman if he wants her to help him in the fields. Nevertheless, Wang Lung learns to love his wife, O-lan. After becoming the rich man everyone comes to know, Wang Lung becomes disinterested by the shops he had always visited as a poor man. He begins to explore and finds a teahouse where there are beautiful women he thought only existed in dreams. He goes home and realizes how dissatisfied he is with the way O-lan looks. Wang Lung thinks he deserves a more beautiful woman now that he is a rich man. O-lan is a great wife and both were happy and relied on each other. She is very dear to Wang Lung but this quickly changes as soon as Wang becomes wealthy and this, sadly, is not a
We often see a pattern where like attract like. People who have the same habit or values can easily find some common topics of conversation. They enjoy to communicate and stay together. Then group arises as time passes. The group runs like a microcosm of society. Every one play a different role in this group. Some people play as small roles in this group. Some people play are punching bags in the group. Some people are good at flattery in that group. However, there is one kind of person who act as a leader in the group. They are attractive, charming, popular and sought-after. They are the center in the group and lead the group with other following. This kind of people are born for social activities and always can get satisfaction of being the center of the group. Good