The Failure Of Women 's Consciousness

The 1950s was a time of constant advancements, which included shifts in ideals as well as the foundation of new societal norms. The ideologies involving this time were mainly focused on the extension of rights of different groups of people, particularly women. In Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road, the role of a woman is highlighted with one of the main characters, April Wheeler, who moves into the suburbs with her husband and children soon after their birth. The move has shown a large impact on the behaviors of the couple, and especially on April who holds a different mindset than the rest of the women at this time. Compared to other women in the 1950s, April Wheeler’s unique lifestyle allows for her to be seen as divergent mainly due to her tendencies to stray away from societal norms of both women and wives at this time.

In the 1920’s women in America had new freedom as the ways of life came around with the emergence of flappers and women were allowed to vote, but men still treated them with misogynist ways. The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the misogynist ways of men in America and how the ideas of women’s freedom was a dream instead of a reality. An analysis of the female characters reveals the misogyny of women in America during the 1920’s.

In the late nineteenth century, the New Woman time period emerged after World War I. Women began to cast away the domestic stereotypes and they became “independent [women] who [sought] achievement and self-fulfillment beyond the realm of marriage and family” (Miller 1). Straying away from the typical image of women staying and maintaining the home, women started attending universities, receiving professional jobs, and becoming involved in politics (1). The transition of women from the domestic sphere to the public sphere is a notion Zora Neale Hurston uses in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston’s use of dominant characters in society reveals her theme that experiences and relationships are the roots of finding independence and identity despite the obscurity caused by sexism.

The role of women in American history has evolved a great deal over the past few centuries. In less than a hundred years, the role of women has moved from housewife to highly paid corporate executive to political leader. As events in history have shaped the present world, one can find hidden in such moments, pivotal points that catapult destiny into an unforeseen direction. This paper will examine one such pivotal moment, fashioned from the fictitious character known as ‘Rosie the Riveter’ who represented the powerful working class women during World War II and how her personification has helped shape the future lives of women.

On the other side of the coin to Austen’s horrible men and just women is Hemingway’s The Sun Also rises, where Jake pours his heart out to Brett and gives her anything she wants and yet he isn't good enough. Brett even tells Jake that they can’t live together because “I’d just tromper you with everybody. You couldn't stand it." Showing that no matter what Jake does for Brett, no matter how much he cares, she doesn't. Brett is the “bad women” in the novel because she has various men in her life through out the novel, and yet whenever she needs help she runs back to Jake, for help. Jake even believes that because Brett doesn't love him back that all women are only good for friends. “Women made such swell friends. Awfully swell. In the first place, you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on.” Hemingway is also giving that because men love more than women they always come out paying with there pain, and hearts broken, but women do not pay. This again makes women horrible seductresses. Another man that Brett uses in Hemingway’s novel is Mike. Whom believes that

Women haven’t always had the freedom that they have today. Women were supposed to live a certain life even though sometimes they didn’t want to. They had to tend to their husbands at all time, stay home and do housework while still taking care of their children or being pregnant. Women were abused physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Although women were perceived to act and present themselves in a certain way, some young women went against the cult of the true woman hood not only to be different, but to escape he physical, emotional, and psychological abuse that they will or have encountered. In novels, The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Path and Lucy, by Jamaica Kincaid both young women have the similarity to rebel against the cult of true

Brett’s fiancé, Mike, reveals to their friends, although it is not much of a revelation, that “‘Brett’s had affairs with men before. She tells me all about everything. She gave me this chap Cohn’s letters to read’” (Hemingway 147). It is evident that Brett has slept with a multitude of different men, including during the times when she has been in relationships, like how she she has an affair with Cohn while being engaged to Mike. She mentions totells others herself about her sexual and romantic affairs, so it is clear that it is not something kept secret from others. Remorse, regret, and shame are not emotions that she feels knowing that she is unfaithful and unquestionably promiscuous. Anyhow, what is striking here is not necessarily her promiscuity, but rather the overall seemingly fine approval of her affairs. The tolerance of her actions is part of the rise of the new generation that breaks away from tradition, but is also due in grand part to the fact that she is treated as a masculine being. Instead of being repudiated, as women were traditionally, for her promiscuity, Brett manages to keep her social status. Moreover, Mike’s tolerance of her promiscuity demonstrates the sexual freedom that she has. Normally, this sexual freedom is attributed to men and shamed on women. Thus, one is forced to read Brett as a more masculinized character. The line

Ernest Hemingway once said, “Life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose” (Ernest Hemingway). Perhaps this is the reason 1920’s new woman Lady Brett Ashley was able to control her life with such ease. She had never been tied down to a man, therefore she had no real love to lose. She was free. As the novel progresses so does Brett’s outlook on love. Lady Brett Ashley is very much her own person. The character she depicts is placed in this story to strongly emphasize the hypermasculinity of women in the 1920’s. Brett was written by Hemingway as the complete opposite of Frances, married housewife, who was the ideal woman before the new era was brought upon by the 20’s.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is generally accredited for the quote: “Well-behaved women seldom make history”. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich quote perfectly captures the struggle of equality and the entrapment of “femininity” that all women face. In order for most women to protest the oppression traditional gender role place on women, they (women) would have to deviate against societal gender norms. The narrow framework of Victorian’s “true womanhood” did not allow women to challenge their treatment in a patriarchal society. It would have been impossible for a woman to assert her independence and rally for her civil rights and civil liberties in American society; while, still upholding the status of a “true woman”. Thatcher Ulrich quote embodies the public’s perception of women who differed from social gender norms. Their actions were not viewed as heroic or innovative; instead women were publicly ridiculed as deviants and inappropriate women. They were in the outgroup of American society.

In twenty-century, women become more independent in the society. According to A Century of Women, Deborah Felder analyzes the history of women have their own rights through history. The book talks about the suffrage and events in women history. The book divides each chapter decades-by-decades basis, which gives clear information to readers to understand the events from the history. I chose 1917 through 1920, because those are the time when women started to have their right to vote.

Lady Brett ,also, is the representation of a post-war woman. By the strength she brings in this novel, breaking the pre-war code of value and role of women, Brett holds a position in this novel which traditional ,at the time, only men held. While Jake is the narrator, it is clear that the main subject of interest is Brett. Her role as the catalyst of the actions defines this central role and mirrors the renew of women after the war. The participation of women in the war, having experienced the same atrocities, gave many of them the claims that led to the first-wave of feminism. Lady

Although set later, the idea of women’s political power and movement is continued in ‘No Country for Old Men’, with the first woman being appointed to the Supreme Court in 1981. This is extremely important and could have links to morality and Sherriff Bell and Nick being used as the moral compasses of the novels. The teenage hitchhiker in ‘No Country for Old Men’ could be McCarthy’s portrayal of new found female freedom and perhaps offers a feminist perspective. However the stereotyped, traditional female caring role is continued by Carla Jean who mothers Llewellyn, when she demands to “see that cut” on his head. However, conflicting again, the use of the imperative shows Carla Jean’s influence over her husband. Fitzgerald also draws attention to the way the Buchanans are addressed by Nick when he goes to “have dinner with the Tom Buchanans”. Here the couple are referred to as the “the (man’s first name) (man’s last name)s”. Women gained the vote only a few years earlier, and, the genders were still seen as being worlds apart, with males strongly dominating.

In the “Great Gatsby” F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the modern woman’s symbolic significance in an era of luxury and excess. Many of the female characters are seen enjoying the freedoms of the ‘flapper’ lifestyle during the Inter-War period. Fitzgerald offers the public an image of the ‘flappers’ who are modern young woman sexually liberated, self-centered, fun-loving, and magnetic. Fitzgerald uses the female characters in the novel, such as: daisy buchanan, Jordan baker and myrtle wilson as a way to convey the futures and the pasts of female traditions colliding with one another. There are both women that are “dependent” and women that are “independent” from male characters in the novel. I would argue that Myrtle and Daisy are both dependent on men to provide for them and take care of them. While Jordan, on the other hand, would be an example of a woman that does not need or want any man to provide for her. Fitzgerald experiments with narrative point of view and presents the female characters through a central male consciousness. It is through the eyes of Nick Carraway, we get our first glimpse of Daisy and Jordan. Set off by an elegant décor and airy nature images, the two women impress Nick as extraordinary embodiments of womanliness associated with an indicative combination of purity, grace, and beauty. From the beginning, Nick suspects that the two women are hiding their real natures behind scripted public facades.

Women of the 1920’s compared to women today are seen as very passive and were usually domestic wives whose main responsibility was to take care of the house and children. But throughout this decade, women were starting to slowly modernize and become more independent. In The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Lady Brett Ashley is somewhat portrayed as “the admirable new woman” of the 1920’s-the woman who openly flaunts accepted conventions of the passive, dependent female role in society and emerges as a positive, inspiring, and risk-taking figure in Paris, Pamplona, and Madrid among the male expatriate artists. In the novel, we see Brett as a modern and somewhat inspiring woman through characterization and the analysis of specific moments

Brett demonstrates her physical apperance to be a similar to the New Woman as Hemingway describes her both as a bit of a boy with “her hair! -brushed back like boys” and as a woman with curves like “hull of a racing yacht” (Hemingway 30). Here, it is Brett’s hair that most clearly suggests the masculine, especially considering the time frame of this period to the earlier Victorian era where long hair symbolized a woman. The novel itself is then mindful of the significance of Brett's hair style as an image of the New Woman going up against manly qualities through its note that “She [Brett] started all that” (Hemingway 30). This thought Brett began bobbed hair styles puts her