An Analysis Of 'Another Evening At The Club'

Formal Synthesis Essay #3: Women's Voice

Dakota

Block A

Unfortunately to this day, men view themselves superior to women. All the women in these stories find themselves in the hands of the men in their lives. Only a few of them are able to find happiness and create better lives for themselves.

In “Another Evening at the Club” Samia a young, poor, Egyptian girl is forced into an arranged marriage with a much older man and does not have much decision making power. In “The Story of an Hour” Mrs. Mallard is miserable with her marriage but is unable to secure it. Like Mrs. Mallard, Elizabeth in “The Leaving” is also unhappy with her marriage because she is not respected or treated fairly by her husband. Lastly, in the “Same story, different ending”

An example of this is when Elizabeth in “The Leaving”, is ordered around by her husband “get over her ‘n’ make my supper wom[a]n!”, (Wilson, 1990 p. 3). This is a strong example because she is not appreciated or respected. Even though she lives in a different culture and time frame, the same sort of situation can be observed in “Another Evening at the Club”. This occurs when Samia does not have a choice of who she marries “you're a lucky girl,... he’s a real find” (Rifaat, 1998, p. 255). Along with these two women Anilam, Aqsa has to overcome their families not approving who they want to marry or how they want to dress. Finally, Mrs. Mallard also experiences this while she does not really love her husband but cannot confess to him as he has more power over her, so she has to just put up with him. This is shown when she says “free, free, free!” (Chopin, 1894 p 2), and she is finally happy even though he had died. Since all of the women in the story live in a patriarchal society or a repression they face really similar

An example of this is Elizabeth because she is able to evoke change and does not experience many negative effects. This is shown when Wilson (1990) writes “so there were changes. One day, for no apparent reason, he started to call her Elizabeth… she fixed the up the attic storeroom as a workroom for herself.” (p. 4). She is able to get her husband to call her by her name and also she is able to make a room for herself, which she could not have before. This was made possible because she traveled and gsve herself time to think. She than stood up to her husband wisely by only telling him her name was Elizabeth, not by telling him how she does not deserve to be treated the way she was treated. Another example of the women being smart in order to escape repression is how Anila escaped. She is now living happily in Canada. Anila faces this when she meets a boy that her family thought would wreck their families holy bloodline “my family hated him. he was poor and non-Syed.” (Batool, 2010, p 1). Anila made a smart decision because she chooses to run away with the boy, and they went into hiding. Her family then tried to follow her and tried to convince her into coming back. But she is smart and does not fall for it “I knew it was a trap. This was a common ruse by disgraced families” (Batool, 2010, p 2). Even though all of the women face the same