Annie Ernaux's Les Armoires Vides

Driss Chraïbi’s Mother Comes of Age is the journey a Moroccan woman into French enlightenment thought. The story is split into two parts; the first is from the point of her youngest son and illustrations the mother as naïve and childlike. The second part is told from the point of view of her older son and depicts the mother as an activist and critical of society. This story is set in Morocco during World War II. In this paper, I will discuss the “civilizing” mission of France during the Enlightenment Era, with regards to Driss Chraïbi’s Mother Comes of Age and it’s theme of modernity.

In this essay, female oppression in La Casa de Bernarda Alba will be discussed and analyzed. However, in order to be able to understand the importance of this theme and the impact it has had on the play, one must first understand the role of female oppression in the Spanish society in the 1930s.

Throughout history, women have constantly been objectified and forced into submission by the male dominated society. Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophical work, The Second Sex, echoes the intense oppression of women and reflects the first wave feminist movement. Her existentialist decoding of genders resulted in the idea of the Other, which explores the phenomenon of women forced into the role of an object, while men are the subject. In the second chapter, “The Girl”, Beauvoir further studies the idea of this oppression during one’s transition from a girl into a woman. Beauvoir states that no matter how much freedom and sense of self a girl holds, she is always forced into the role of the Other in society. Beauvoir 's idea of the Other held

Major Claim: The objectification and “currency” of a women’s body is the pivotal focus for the readings presented in class. It is discussed in the readings about how women are only considered for their looks, and not their personal depth or knowledge. Additionally, intersectionality is observed and how these objectifications effect marginalized groups. Finally, the term of enlightened sexism is introduced and how this concept is dangerous to and reverses feminism.

It takes a great amount of bravery to criticize one’s country. It takes an even greater amount to suggest that this criticism stems from gender inequality that one’s society so willingly accepts. Renowned French novelist Françoise de Graffigny took the initiative to point out the caustic gender inequality that was so pervasive throughout French society by use of her novel Letters From a Peruvian Woman. In this novel, Graffigny criticizes various aspects of gender inequality in French society through the lens of Zilia, a Peruvian woman and Other who found herself captured and forced into French society. Through Zilia’s encounters, Graffigny molds the opinion that the ills in French society are caused by the harsh treatment of its female citizens. Françoise de Graffigny uses Zilia from Letters from a Peruvian Woman to critique the inferior role of women in French society and the destruction it entailed in regards to the lack of education among women, the damaging restraints that marriage created for women, and the unjust, presumed behavior for women.

In her piece, “La güera,” Moraga takes the reader along on her journey to consciousness and explains why that consciousness is so vital. The essay explores the disconnect Moraga felt between her own experiences and those of her mother from childhood until she had the epiphany that prompted her to analyse her privilege and oppression. Upon analysis of both her privilege and oppression, Moraga found her true identity, gained an understanding of oppression, and confronted what she had abandoned. In this paper I will develop the concept of rejecting one’s identity in an effort to reap the ‘benefits’ of privilege, what that rejection means in terms of oppression and self identity, and the loss associated with this form of rejection.

Sexuality has an inherent connection to human nature. Yet, even in regards to something so natural, societies throughout times have imposed expectations and gender roles upon it. Ultimately, these come to oppress women, and confine them within the limits that the world has set for them. However, society is constantly evolving, and within the past 200 years, the role of women has changed. These changes in society can be seen within the intricacies of literature in each era. Specifically, through analyzing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, one can observe the dynamics of society in regards to the role of women through the lens of the theme of sexuality. In both novels, the confinement and oppression of women can be visibly seen as a result of these gender roles. Yet, from the time The Scarlet Letter was published to the time The Bell Jar was written, the place of women in society ultimately changed as well. Hence when evaluating the gender roles that are derived from sexuality, the difference between the portrayals of women’s oppression in each novel becomes apparent, and shows how the subjugation of women has evolved. The guiding question of this investigation is to what extent does the theme of sexuality reflect the expectations for women in society at the time each novel was written. The essay will explore how the literary elements that form each novel demonstrate each author’s independent vision which questions the

When many aspects of a woman life are controlled for her and she can no longer make decisions for herself, she becomes a slave to her oppressor. Throughout the class, the theme of women being controlled by other oppressing forces, can be seen in many texts. Women have their decisions made for them in terms of their, food intake, appearances, and lifestyle choices. These ideas are seen in Beyond the Lights, where Noni’s mother Macy both what Noni eats as well as how she looks. Again in “The Gilded Six Bits,” Missie May’s hunger and food intake are controlled and judged by Joe, who believes because he is a working man, his hunger is more important. In Color Stories: Black Women and Colorism in the 21st Century, society controls women’s appearances by pressuring them to look a certain way to be considered beautiful. In both Not That Kind of Girl and Borderlands: La Frontera, women’s decisions about their bodies in a sexual manner are controlled by the pressures of men. Oppressing forces play such a strong role in so many of the texts covered in class this semester, it makes one wonder if this oppression and forceful control is an accurate representation of our society today.

Women in the society have continued to face challenges since time memorial. For a long time now, women have been objectified and consequently, treated as if they were properties for the convenience of their male counterparts. This explains both the genesis and the essence of feminism, which preoccupies itself with the attainment of equal rights for the female folk. This offers believability to Harriet Jacob’s account of active female resistance to sexism as represented in her book, “The Life of a Slave Girl.” The story is purposed to outline the brutality of the sexual harassments that women, of yesteryears as of today, face. Notably, the story is a personal account of Harriet’s own experience of sexism, from the perspective of a slave girl. Harriet Jacob, in her narration, “The Life of a Slave a Girl’, shows many instances of resistance.

In the story the author portrays the protagonist differently from the other characters because she talks about the physical appearance of other characters and when it comes to the narrator we have no idea what she looks like but she is developed partially through her relationship with other characters, although we the readers do come the find out that the narrator is around the age of 15-17 years old and we can assume that she has a bad relationship with her parents because first of all she talks about them maybe once or twice in the whole story and second of all we know that they sent her to boarding school so that alone proves that her relationship with them is lacking. As readers we also know that she has trouble opening up in the story she say “To open your heart. You open your legs but can’t, or don’t dare anyone, to open your heart” (237). This is a prime example of how author characterizes the protagonist as broken and emotionally damaged. And as the story progress the author becomes more honest with us the readers and herself, she starts the reveal the pain she is in and how lonely she feels. The narrator gives us an example of how she feels after sex by saying “After sex, you curl up like a shrimp, something deep inside you ruined, slammed in a place that sickness at

American Literature has always been about men and for men. In this essay, we are going to analyze the women’s role in the book, as inferior and weaker gender.

The elegant image of a bourgeois society with its emphasis on wealth and property, is only a mirage. Underneath it all is a different world of oppression—specifically, for women in the bourgeois class. In Henrik Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler and Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, both works depict female characters in the bourgeois class who face the societal oppression and cope with it in their own way. These oppressions are often set off by the male characters, constructed by the bourgeois society.

All characters in the novel are living in a man’s world; nevertheless, the author has tried to change this world by the help of her characters. She shows a myriad of opportunities and different paths of life that woman can take, and more importantly she does not show a perfect world, where women get everything they want, she shows a world where woman do make mistakes, but at the same time they are the ones that pay for these mistakes and correct them.

Therefore, it is evident that literary techniques are utilised to exploit the Beauvoirian idea of women “denying [their] feminine weakness” in order to justify their strength, while the “militant male... she wish[es] to be” however, Marlene accepts femininity and only wears a skirt to work.

Lastly, “femininity” refers to behavioural activities or interests that are assigned to the female sex, such as cleaning and cooking (Beauvoir, 617). Although many critics have read her text and become confused due to her stylistic choice to fuse her voice with the voices of famous men, it can be said that the text ultimately leads the reader to begin to question what society sees as a woman (Zerilli, 1-2). Despite Beauvoir’s The Second Sex appearing to recognize the oppression of women throughout the world without giving an actual solution, I will argue that Beauvoir’s evaluation of each “natural” aspect of female oppression allows readers to recognize that the only thing holding themselves back as a woman is society’s unnatural definition of their body, relation to men, and personal freedoms. Of course, when it comes to one's freedom, it is difficult to obtain when your body feels like a