Comparing Stories: The Astronomers Wife & The Chrysanthemums

Dove uses the word “lurched” to describe an unwanted force of contact and to i... ... middle of paper ... ...s to be more than a stay at home mother and wife but feels trapped by the role that she if forced to play. Similarly to the way people hold expectations for the daystar, or sun, to rise every day, mothers are expected to perform their duties like cleaning the house or taking care of the children. Both are taken advantage of and are not fully appreciated until they stop performing their duties. Throughout the poem, the woman’s daughter and husband are given names, “Liza” (line 12) and “Thomas” (line 17) respectively, but not her. The woman is only referred to as “she” or “her” which further highlights the lack of acknowledgement she receives.

A similar life lesson, with a much different approach can be examined in Jig from Hills like White Elephants short story. Jig is a woman with much more problems than just making an extreme decision that could change her life but a woman in an unhappy relationship. In the beginning of Astronomer’s wife, Mrs. Ames starts off with having her husband sleep in while she deals with the flood going on in her home. Having to call a plumber to come fix the problem, she was very impressed with the plumber’s manors, and he also had respect something she thought her husband was lacking on. Since the flood was caused by the toilet over flowing ... ... middle of paper ... ...nd Public Health Perspectives."

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.

He was ugly and lazy and didn’t even give a thought to Janie’s feelings. He forced her to do extra work and never treated her like the woman she was. When after hours of housework, and Logan asked her to chop wood for him one day, Janie finally felt that she needed to protest, saying "... ... middle of paper ... ...e is saying that you have to experience love to understand it, and that it would have done her no good to try to express verbally what she felt for Tea Cake. At the end of the novel, Janie walked away from the trial with both her voice that had been with her throughout her whole life, the emotional strength that she had gained through her love with Tea Cake (and which had continued even after his death), and something that she had not known before: experience. (Experience with death, love, marriage, and life in general.)

Ames are stuck in a marriage that is on repeat, day after day. The pair of wives are not living their best lives or to the fullest potential. The husbands of Mrs. Ames and Francesca do in fact offer the woman comfortable lives, but do not display any affection or let the woman experience what a real marriage should look like. In the film, Francesca goes day by day tending to her family and their every need. She makes breakfast, washes the dishes and clothes, and tends the garden.

The interested reader will already here discover that something is terribly wrong, since a word like comfortable is used. A newly widdowed woman would probably not look upon a chair as comfortable shortly after receiving the terri... ... middle of paper ... ...t she starts dreaming about it. That shows that she has an enormous respect for her husband, and doesn't dare to do anything that breaks or is in variance with his rights, restrictions and groundrules. Today we have procedures and laws regarding women's rights when it comes to feeling trapped in a marriage and urging to end it. Getting a divorce from one's husband is about as easy for women nowadays as opening a can of beer.

“Connie's mother kept picking at her until Connie wished her mother was dead and she herself was dead and it was all over.” (Oats pg.1) She doesn’t really want to die, she just wants to get out of the situation of her mother constantly picking at her. Connie wants to get out of her parents house. “This place you are now—inside your daddy's house—is nothing but a cardboard box I can knock down any time.” (Oats pg.9) Connie doesn't live in a cardboard box it is referring to how shabby and small it looks. Connie’s mother feels that Connie is a nuisance. “Sometimes, over coffee, they were almost friends, but something would come up—some vexation that was like a fly buzzing suddenly around their heads—and their faces went hard with contempt.” (Oats pg.2) Even when they are trying to be civil and friendly her mother doesn’t care for her.

”`We´ve never had it so good`, became the slogan of the time” (Birmingham Feminist history Group 80) Feeling infantile guilty, surrounded by a dozen of electrical devices in her new kitchen, and prone to the male opinion, a woman wouldn´t dare to complain about her unsatisfied feelings or to express her urge for a different life. Why were women of that decade forced into an unquestionable frame of attentive mother, loving wife, and organiser of the sacred institute “family”? Why did the majority of women feel the burden to meet these domestic expectations? The purpose of this paper is to appoint the reasons for this obsessive surveying of the role of women by the American society. In our search for motives w... ... middle of paper ... ...Press, 34:1(2008) 175-196.

As her children Ezra, Cody and Jenny grow up, they realize the relationship they had with their mother. Jenny regrets not standing up to Pearl and has grown up with an eating disorder. The eating disorder represents Jenny trying to make her own decisions, that of which she could not do when she was living with Pearl. Cody states, “You think we’re Family?” You think we’re some jolly, situation-comedy family when we’re in particles, torn apart, torn all over the place, and our mother was a witch,” (Tyler, 301). Pearl showed her family that love was not appropriate.

As a widow raising two children, her mother has to deal with family finances. Therefore, her mother emphasizes a practical standpoint in terms of ca... ... middle of paper ... ...sther enough due to the clouds of her life as a widow, stressing practicality in career and acceptance of the irregularities in the society. I have seen a dandelion in full bloom between the cracks of concrete. The spores of a dandelion look like a big one flower if seen from a distance, but a dandelion embraces numbers of spores. This makes me think a dandelion torturously breaks its body into numbers of pieces to survive.