The Gentle Lena And Paul's Case

Throughout the chapter we can also read how Mildred Montag, Guys wife, is always truing to avoid personal topics including their relationship. They mostly talk about work and other useless stuff. So as a reader this makes you think, is it possible that in their society, marriage is sort of arranged? Marriage is a very serious topic that can sometime be taken for granted especially in todays present society, and that what I would like to talk about. To marry someone means to fully devote yourself to a partner that you chose to spend the rest of your life with.

In Judy Brady’s essay, “I Want a Wife,” she examines why she would like to have a wife. Brady believes that a wife performs all house chores and the husband does nothing, but to expect the wife to do everything for him. Brady tries to persuade the reader to look at a husband viewpoint of what a wife should be. The essay was written during the early 1960’s, during the second wave of the feminist movement in America. Brady is pushed by certain reasons to write, “I Want a Wife” to show the humanist humor.

He claims that the nation’s teachings of religion and industry encourage American women to rank business over pleasure. The women associate domestic duties with tranquility, honor, and societal acceptance. In general, reason, habit, and education influence the American wife’s commitment to her marriage and family. The writer argues that democratic wives also only marry once their reason has been exercised and matured, unlike aristocratic women (566). Aristocratic law, birth and fortune prevent husbands and wives from forming strong, permanent connections. Yet, the “equality of conditions” that exists in democratic societies reduces marital disorder and encourages women to believe that they are worthy enough to marry their desired partners (568). Moreover, the democratic public more openly accepts the imperfections of the women because they have been thoroughly educated to make choices that benefit the family and state. Democracy teaches and emphasizes the role of both women and men within a democratic marriage prior to the marriage. Aristocratic marriages seek to combine material interests instead of individuals. However, the desire for material goods fails to permanently unite the hearts of the aristocratic husband and wife. In contrast, the democratic husband and wife remain permanently united through mutual tastes and ideas (569). The free will that democratic

Lena enjoys dancing and kissing but is merely having fun. When Frances Harling teases Lena about a suitor who the town thinks Lena will marry, she responds, "I don't want to marry Nick, or any other man,' Lena murmured. 'I've seen a good deal of married life, and I don't care for it. I want to be so I can help my mother and the children at home, and not have to ask lief of anybody." (Cather 105). It seems impossible for the town to believe that a beautiful girl would consider working, but Lena goes against the conformity and shows that women can live self sufficiency.

In her essay, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller discusses the state of marriage in America during the 1800‘s. She is a victim of her own knowledge, and is literally considered ugly because of her wisdom. She feels that if certain stereotypes can be broken down, women can have the respect of men intellectually, physically, and emotionally. She explains why some of the inequalities exist in marriages around her. Fuller feels that once women are accepted as equals, men and women will be able achieve a true love not yet known to the people of the world.

Throughout the years, women have been seen as someone to have children, someone to cook, someone to clean, and someone who does not deserve rights. In the essay "I Want A Wife," Judy Brady points out the different roles of a "wife" according to society at that time. I believe that Brady is sarcastically describing the ideal wife every man dreams of. Even though, women have been fighting for their rights for a long time now, even today women are still not equal to men in many ways. In today's society women are more respected and are acceptable for many jobs as men are, but still they are not treated equally all the times. Brady is a wife herself, and in her essay she wishes she had a wife that she described. Brady brings out all the

Over the course of many years, women have struggled to expand their roles and rights in society, hoping to one day achieve complete equality with their male counterparts. Two women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Judy (Syfers) Brady, both recognized the patriarchal society in which women had to endure. They despised the way it heaped inequality and servitude upon women, and decided to assert their opinion on the issue in order to change the perceptions and imposed limitations on women. In Stanton’s speech, “Declaration of Sentiments”, and in Brady’s article, “I Want a Wife”, both women attempt to convince their audiences that females deserve complete equality with men by stating the submissive situations and obligations women find themselves immersed in. This is done to get their female audiences to reevaluate how they have been treated and give them a second chance at attaining equality. Both women employ various rhetorical techniques in their arguments to strengthen, as well as compel other women to oppose the ‘domesticated’ image of women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Judy (Syfers) Brady expressed their views in pursuance of forging a path to a revamped lifestyle for women.

“There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully” (Chopin 129). One can interpret this to mean that parents in the 1800s (and to some extent today) desired a higher marital status for their daughters, so they could be well positioned for a stable life. As discussed in class, social status still exists in modern America which can significantly attract many candidates who want to marry a person for social status but not necessarily for love. These attitudes that continue to dominate America today stem from the aristocratic Old South as a means to achieve control of wealth for the few at the expense of impoverishing the masses.

When Jane’s father had passed away in 1805, the three ladies of the family, Jane, her mother, and her sister, Cassandra, had moved to lived in a smaller house that was helped paid by the now wealthy brother, Edward. This house was located in the little village of Chawton. Later on Jane had been proposed to by one of her close friend’s brother, and she accepted only because she felt like it was the right thing to do because it was kind of an “in the moment” act. She had turned him down the next day and this was very painful for her because her father had always said that a good and sturdy marriage was the key to having a stable and secure life. Her father acknowledged the fact that single women would have a harder time getting to live in an estate and that they were most likely to be the ones to lean on wealthier family members and have some support from them; this is the root of the next novel she wrote, Sense and Sensibility (pbs.org). Jane Austen had eventually died unmarried, and so did her younger sister, Cassandra (express.co.uk).

Paul was a self-oriented boy, concerned with money, wealth, and glamour, raised in a Calvinist household that supported these ideals. Through my research I have decided that Paul's eventual fate was not any one person's fault. Paul was just as much to blame as his father and teachers for Paul's suicide.

But what is one to do? I did write for a while inspite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal – having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition”. (Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, 1898). Here one can see that the narrator wished to work and have a change in her domestic life, but the struggle to keep it a secret from her husband was too great because she knew he would not approve. Marriage, which is supposed to represent unity, love and the coming together of two equal partners was anything but that for the narrator. In the 19th century women were at the mercy of men, even though they marched forward for equality they were still very much dependent on their male counterparts. They were not allowed to have control over their assets and therefor marriage was the best solution to live a comfortable life seeing as their parents could not provide for their daughters forever. In The Yellow Wallpaper the prisonlike feeling that marriage causes the narrator, eventually leads to her insanity. Which for some was probably an actual occurrence in that era. More

Based on the poems “Gravy” by Corrie Lynn White and “She lives in a Pat of Butter” by Jade Ramsay, women are forced to be a role model in family life and domesticity. Although women generally need to give a great amount of effort to be the best mother or wife, the social expectations from both of the poems want women to be perfect especially in domestic life. In fact, there was even a time when female domesticity became the culture of some upper and middle class Americans back in the nineteenth century (The Cult of Domesticity). Their purpose was to limit woman’s influences only to family life or handling chores around the home. Both of the poems show that the expectations of seeing every woman must definitely have a happy life after marriage

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman was awarded the W.D. Howells medal for fiction by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1926. She had been writing for many decades prior to this and made a name for herself in the mid-1880s. She grew up in a home of orthodox Congregationalists and was expected to have very strict behavior. The roles in society for women during this time are key subjects in Freeman’s stories. In, “A New England Nun,” Freeman expresses the pressure and constraints of the obligation put on women to marry.

In Judy Brady’s article “I Want A Wife”, she uses repetition greatly in her essay to make her point, why wouldn’t anyone want a wife. Judy Brady was born in 1937 in San Francisco and got a B.A at the University of Iowa in 1962. Brady’s article first appeared in the feminist magazine Ms., which was in Arlington County, Virginia in 1972. The author’s main idea was to show the amount of work that a wife is expected to do. She does this by strategically listing out what she looks for in a wife. She constantly says, “I want a wife”, to signify that she wants someone to do these things for her as she has done for her husband. In today’s society, the wife is seen as the caretaker and doer of all businesses, while still catering to a

Brady uses strong word choice to create an ironic and sarcastic tone. The text contains a personal story that references the narrator’s newly divorced male friend who is already looking for a new wife. The narrator responds to the situation by saying “It suddenly occurred to me that I, too, would like to have a wife.” The narrator mocks her male friend by saying that after witnessing and analyzing his current situation, she all of a sudden realizes the advantages of having a wife, which makes her want one as well. This produces an almost uneasy feeling within the reader. As the mood and tone of the essay suddenly shift to sarcastic, any ideas previously discussed become invalid and cannot be taken seriously. The text ends with the statement “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?” By closing with this unanswered question, the reader is left to interpret the essay however they see best fit. The reader is left to contemplate whether or not to give in to society and continue to promote these impractical standards made for women, or stand up and work to make a change. The author, who is a women, freely mocks the