Touching Bottom ' And ' Chrysanthemums '

The authors of both stories wrote their stories, either accidentally or on purpose, with the undertones of feminism, hoping to expose the unequal treatment and expectations of females to males. Both stories challenged the stereotypical roles of females, and in both, the females ended up being the one in power of their own destinies and overcame the rule of their dominant male counterpart.

In the early 20th century, a male author, John Steinbeck, wrote about women’s oppression in the short story, “The Chrysanthemums”. It was different than other stories about women’s oppression because it was in the male point-of-view rather than a female’s point-of-view. This brilliant short story is narrated by a third-person narrator and has some interesting characters such as Elisa, Henry and the traveling salesperson. In John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”, the juxtaposition between female and male norms and the symbolism throughout the story illustrates how women were perceived as simplistic and weak people reflected by the gender expectations in the early 20th century.

as the weaker sex, both the woman find a way to cope with the situation, and both stories have a tragic and ironic ending.

Alice was a victim in the story of feminism to me. She was drugged and taken advantage of. Manipulated by her emotions to sell drugs. Alice was deep in drugs, but still have a concious about it and couldn’t live with herself selling to young kids. She ran away from her family in fear of a man she had turned into the cops. Alice was also in school during these times and was expected to be someone she wasn’t. Her family expected her to be a straight A student who came home and cooked with mom, and spent time with her perfect friends and she hid what she was doing very well. Her parents also had a very poor judgement when it came to Alice’s friends.

After she witnessed and the horrific injustices against women, and experienced the oppression and exploitation of women firsthand, she ultimately comes to realize the significance and importance of feminism in

Feminism is a women’s rights movement which originated during the 19th century to advocate for equality for both sexes. Women, as a whole, were oppressed by a patriarchal society where they had few opportunities to express themselves due to cultural roles and stereotypes surrounding their gender. Donald Hall claims, “... women have been denied social power and the right to various forms of self-expression...” in his Literary and Cultural Theory: Feminist Analysis to further prove the oppressed status of women. Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, two cultural feminist literary critics, allow their readers to view an oppressive, androcentric patriarchal society through the eyes of their characters in their stories. Chopin’s The Awakening and

Through out history many things have evolved when it comes to comprehending human interactions. From courtship traditions set by our ancestors to the way we express our independence, engage in partner preferences and selection process. Few things prevail the test of time, but the one thing that does not change is how quickly and unknowingly we let a relationship become mundane. “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck reflects a relationship that is no different. During the time the novel was written women were viewed as an accessory to the good life and had no real impact on society or the world that surrounded them.

In order to properly view a story from a feminist perspective, it is important that the reader fully understands what the feminist perspective entails. “There are many feminist perspectives, and each perspective uses different approaches to analyze and interpret texts. One is that gender is “socially constructed” and another is that power is distributed unequally on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, ability, sexuality, and economic class status” (South University Online, 2011, para. 1). The story “Girl” is an outline of the things young girls

The stories: Girl, Boys and Girls and The Chrysanthemums discuss the controversial issue of gender inequality, feminism and sexism. Through these stories the authors were able to prioritize the unfair treatment women had been submissive to since the early ages. These three stories contain similarities and differences.

Writer Ngozi Adichie says a feminist is a “person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes,” meaning both sexes are treated equally. “Cinderella” does not portray women as equal to men, rather it suggests that a woman’s value highly depends on a man and teaches girls to become patient victims. For instance, it places attention on a woman’s chastity, beauty, passiveness, as the story accepts abuse, discourages powerful women, and insists on a double standard.

Research Question: How is feminism revealed through the divergence of women’s roles in society and their own personal desires in the American short stories “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” “The Story of an Hour,” “The Storm,” and “Life in the Iron Mills”?

So this is how feminists’ work towards shaping the individuals particularly women as show in the case study and addresses the injustices of all kinds and other problems such as discrimination, racism and more that impacts the lives of individuals as well as that of

Feminism is the advocating for women’s rights based on the equality of the sexes. The feministic approach is one where the reader interprets how women are portrayed in the novel. For example, when the reader is using the feministic approach one might look at; the roles of women, how many women are in the story, how the women are treated, or what the names of the women are. In the short story “The Chrysanthemums” written by Steinbeck, there are many different views about how women are portrayed. Elise has no kids, and lives with her husband on a farm. Elise is portrayed as being vulnerable to men. Elise’s personality changes through the story. At first she is quiet and shy, then she becomes a woman who has extreme confidence. Steinbeck includes many details about Elise that one can correlate with past and present times.

Feminist perspective developed with the ideology that women face large amounts of inequalities in a patriarchal society. They aimed to address and rid the social world of this oppression of women by men. According to Bishop, (2015) “oppression occurs when one group of people use different forms of power to keep another group down in order to exploit them. The oppressor uses the power; the oppressed are exploited” (p. 133-134). Oppression must be by individual experience and not grouped into being the same for all. This includes understanding the original ideology of feminist theory being critiqued as only considering the experiences of middle class, white women. That black women, of lower class experienced oppression much different from the other women. Women are oppressed, thus has to be understood in a different construct that women are similar in some sources, experience of oppression but also experience oppression very differently from one individual to another. Feminist theories have further been expanded do its continuation throughout society and decades to encompass many more issues and arenas than just men and women relationships. Now it seeks to understand and address oppression based on culture, race, class, etc and not only for women but for all. Therefore, Bishop (2014) outlines five components that seem common to all forms of oppression and serve to maintain its presence in society.

Feminist theory analyzes the gender inequality that women have faced throughout the years due to a patriarchal society. Women were expected to fit the traditional female and conform to the gender norms that society has constructed. According to A Brief Introduction to Critical Theory, “Feminism embodies a way of reading that investigates the text’s investment in or reaction to the patriarchal power structures that have dominated Western culture” (227). Patriarchal power has oppressed women economically, socially, and politically. Women were associated more with domesticity than with politics and financial situations. They were not provided the same educational opportunities as men. These issues have been addressed by people, such as Mary