Plight of Women in Literature

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It has been said that the inner workings of a woman’s mind is truly an enigma, and I tend to agree. At any point, women’s hopes, dreams, silent sufferings, internal battles, and undisclosed desires may play a role in how they live their lives and do the things they do. In addition to those aspects of the complicated state of being a woman, becoming a mother can completely change a woman’s viewpoint on many things, as it has for me. Through the author’s use of setting, symbolism, and dynamic characters, the allegorical nature of certain stories in literature give insight on the plight of women - which may be interpreted differently by different people. Myself, as a woman and a mother can empathize with the fictional yet seemingly realistic,“round” female characters in the stories The Shawl, A Jury of Her Peers, The Worn Path and Two Kinds, whereas a woman who is not a mother, or a man might not form the same type of empathy.

In The Shawl, Rosa is driven by the undeniable force that is maternal love, and attempts to hide Magda for as long as she can, to protect her daughter from peril. Even though Rosa is aware she will suffer an inevitable grim fate, as it says in the story “Rosa knew Magda was going to die very soon” (267), she continues to try to shelter her child in the shawl. The shawl is symbol of the encompassing quality of a mother’s love and how the lack of it can have tragic consequences. The descriptive details of the setting, along with the established character traits, such as Magda’s silent suffering from lice

infestation, or how the characters learn to pacify their starvation with “drink(ing) the taste of a finger in one’s mouth” (267) make the story heart wrenching to imagine having to experience such horr...

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...ht I didn’t think she was a good player, but in my mind I was encouraging her to do her very best when I saw she may have been slacking off. Her viewpoint differed from mine, similar to the difference in view point between Jing Mei and her mother.

Had I read these stories before I became a mother, I probably would have interpreted the plight of the character’s differently. My heart might not have sunken in my chest the way it did when I read how Rosa had to watch her daughter die in such a horrible way, or have related to Phoenix’s struggle. What different people get from these stories can depend on their existing views on life in general, they might not relate or form the same type of empathy as I did for the story’s characters. Overall I am grateful, I believe being a woman and a mother helps me have better comprehension for stories such as these.

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