Mildred Pierce
The protagonist of the film Mildred Pierce does everything in her power to help her children. Mildred dreams that one day her daughters will be prima donnas and concert pianists, and pursues these fantasies to the best of her abilities. By twenty-first century standards, she could be considered a good mothershe works as a waitress to make her single mother ends meet and starts her own business. The filmmakers, however, labor to portray her as the a bad mother according to standards in the 1940s: Mildred attempts to shoulder fatherly responsibilities, which makes her the worst kind of mother possible. The matriarchal coup ends in disaster, and reveals the filmmakers' message: a woman's place is in the household, and she cannot hope to thrive in a man's world.
Warner Brothers released the film in 1945, a year many American soldiers returned from World War II. It left millions dead, but the calamitous event also boosted women's place in society. During the WWII period, women became the main providers for their families while American men were at war, a situation that lead to increased independence for American women. Popular slogans and icons of the time, like Rosie the Riveter, encourage women to work and take charge of their lives. However, when men returned and re-entered the workforce, society expected women to step aside and rejoin the cult of domesticity. This background knowledge adds many layers of meaning to the movie and is vital to understanding the message of the movie.
Mildred Pierce is meant for an audience of women. It illustrates why economic independence is undesirable and reinforces why women must stay in the houseMildred's self-sufficiency only leads to catastrophe. The key to Mildred's failure unfolds in the early kitchen scene of the movie when she walks away from the Pierce marriage by kicking her husband Bert out of the house. Pressing financial problems arise as soon as he leaves because Mildred barely makes enough money to support her children. Much of her heartbreak could have been avoided if she had stayed with Bert, but a streak of independence makes it impossible for her to remain a docile housewife. She does not trust Bert to pull the family out of financial mire. Instead, Mildred decides to take provide and protect her children with her own strengths:
"You might as well get this straight right now, once and for all. Those kids come first in this house, before either one of us.
This interpretation of Rosie was firmly entrenched in the concept of women entering the workforce as their patriotic duty. In the painting you can see that Rosie is stomping on a copy of Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s 1925 autobiography and political manifesto. The message was clear; although men did the physical fighting on the frontlines, women were also doing their part to defeat the enemy (Hawkes). The war industry during WWII gave women the opportunity to earn their own living and contribute to the war effort. The imagery of “Riveters” we are accustomed to serve as an allegory; the war propaganda used “Rosie” as a metaphorical representation of the millions of women (of all colors and socio-economic classes) who took action during war time when patriarchal order was relaxed. These women joined the work force in order to help their country, to gain the benefits of employment, and to improve their quality of life
Mildred is a stereotypical character who only knows what the government and other people tell her. "And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios
Mildred depicts a conventional 1950s woman in the aspect of being completely naive and oversimplified as a character. According to ‘Essential
Mildred Pierce, by James M. Cain, begins in pre-Depression California, and ends during World War II times, also in California. The main character, Mildred Pierce, is a very attractive housewife of 29, raising two daughters, Ray and Veda. Although Mildred loves both her daughters, Veda is a particular obsession with Mildred. She constantly slaves away throughout the novel to do whatever she can to make Veda happy, despite the constant abuse and deception Veda inflicts upon Mildred. After a divorce from her first husband, Bert, in the opening pages of the novel, Mildred is forced to sacrifice her pride and become a waitress in order to support her family. If Veda were ever to find out, she would be appalled; a constantly recurring theme throughout this story is Veda’s pride and arrogance, and her condemnation of jobs she deems to be menial. Mildred’s main goal is to nurture Veda’s musical talents, and manages to pay for expensive music lessons from her meager salaries as a waitress and pie baker. However, Mildred’s luck is soon to change, as she takes up with an attorney and former partner of Bert, Wally. Mildred is able to use Wally’s business and real estate savvy to build a restaurant out of a deserted model home, and from there create a thriving chain of three food businesses. After becoming bored with Wally, however, Mildred craves a relationship with another man, a prestigious local man named Monty. Veda highly approves of her mother’s choice, as this makes her feel as if she too were more prestigious and affluent, despite having misgivings about her mother still being so low as to have an average, pedestrian job. All seems to be going well; even through Veda’s constant demands and tantrums, she still gets everything she wants, and Mildred and Monty are happy. Monty, however, falls on hard times with the coming of the Great Depression, and he constantly mooches off of Mildred’s affluence, making it a struggle for Mildred to cater to Veda’s every whim. Mildred soon dumps Monty to focus on making Veda a musical prodigy; this fails, however, when Veda is told that her piano is not up to par from a local famous music teacher. After Veda recovers from this shock, she explores the opportunities offered by an acting career, and begins to spin more webs of deception and selfishness. After Veda forces money out of a local rich family, lying and claiming their son got her pregnant, Mildred and Veda have a major argument, and Veda disowns her mother.
“Deborah Sampson, the daughter of a poor Massachusetts farmer, disguised herself as a man and in 1782, at age twenty-one, enlisted in the Continental army. Ultimately, her commanding officer discovered her secret but kept it to himself, and she was honorably discharged at the end of the war.” She was one of the few women who fought in the Revolution. This example pictured the figure of women fighting alongside men. This encouraged the expansion of wife’s opportunities. Deborah, after the Revolution along with other known female figures, reinforced the ideology of Republican Motherhood which saw the marriage as a “voluntary union held together by affection and mutual dependency rather than male authority.” (Foner, p. 190). This ideal of “companionate” marriage changed the structure of the whole family itself, the now called Modern Family in which workers, laborers and domestic servants are now not considered member of the family anymore. However even if women thought that after the war they would have been seen from the society in a different way it never happened. The revolution haven’t changed the perception of the woman and the emancipated ideal
First Mildred is self-centered because she doesn't care what happens to others. In this society books are dangerous because they make us think. This quote from the story mildred states “ what’s this? Asked Mildred, almost with delight. Montag heaved back against her arms. What’s this here?” This quote shows how Mildred wanted to get Montag in trouble. Mildred is hoping officer Beatty will look or hear what they are saying This shows how Mildred is only looking out for
For the first time women were working in the industries of America. As husbands and fathers, sons and brothers shipped out to fight in Europe and the Pacific, millions of women marched into factories, offices, and military bases to work in paying jobs and in roles reserved for men in peacetime. Women were making a living that was not comparable to anything they had seen before. They were dependent on themselves; for once they could support the household. Most of the work in industry was related to the war, such as radios for airplanes and shells for guns. Peggy Terry, a young woman who worked at a shell-loading plant in Kentucky, tells of the money that was to be made from industrial work (108). “We made a fabulous sum of thirty-two dollars a week. To us that was an absolute miracle. Before that, we made nothing (108)." Sarah Killingsworth worked in a defense plant. " All I wanted to do was get in the factory, because they were payin more than what I'd been makin. Which was forty dollars a week, which was pretty good considering I'd been makin about twenty dollars a week. When I left Tennessee I was only makin two-fifty a week, so that was quite a jump (114)." Terry had never been able to provide for herself as she was able to during the war. " Now we'd have money to buy shoes and a dress and pay rent and get some food on the table. We were just happy to have work (108).” These women exemplify the turn around from the peacetime to wartime atmosphere on the home front. The depression had repressed them to poverty like living conditions. The war had enabled them to have what would be luxury as compared to life before.
Bradbury uses Mildred's priority choice, and her emotions, or lack thereof, to illustrate her role in the book. Mildred is an example of the dystopia of what happens when someone becomes obsessed with the tv walls. The unfortunate dystopia that Fahrenheit 451 takes place in has a huge effect on Mildred and her everyday life. Mildred is no longer affected by regular upsetting things, but yet is prone to them and views them as a casual. Never being happy, lack of human qualities and human contact, and death all fall in the category of what Mildred is not affected
all she wanted to do was learn their ways and help them. Her reputation was that she isn’t supposed to be there because she is a girl and doesn’t really understand what she’s supposed to do, according to the men that already work there. Yank doesn’t even see her because he is so focused on his work. Evidence is, “She was all white. I tought she was a ghost. Sure.” (O’Neill, 1929, p. 20) When Yank saw Mildred she looked afraid and not sure of what she was supposed to be doing, and that’s why he said she looked like a ghost. He knew that she didn’t quite understand the ropes of the stockhole and he honestly didn’t care how he acted towards her. Yank’s attitude towards Mildred made her think that she wasn’t important enough to be in the stockhole. just because she wasn’t a man like everyone else. Yank believed that she shouldn’t be working down there because she’s a woman. He scared her away, with all his yelling and acting obnoxious. She was definitely not welcome in the stockhole.
The film focused on young women who were fighting for the right of future generations of womens to vote and run for political office. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were the two main women who started the Congressional Union; they put their lives in danger, sacrificing their health to help American women have the right to vote and take office. These two women held peaceful, nonviolent protests in order to revolutionize the women’s suffrage movement. Some of the women involved in the non-violent protests against Woodrow Wilson ended up being imprisoned. They were force-fed and treated poorly. In the end, most of the women were able to see the results of the hard work that they put into the women’s suffrage
These questions are still being studied and debated by historians today. Several books have been written on the subject, including "Rosie the Riveter Revisited" by Sherna Berger Gluck, "The Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 1940s" by Susan M. Hartmann, and "Creating Rosie the Riveter" by Maureen Honey. Additionally, scholarly articles such as "Working Class Rosies: Women Industrial Workers During World War II" by Sherrie A. Koussoudji and Laura J. Dresser and "Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946-1958" by Joanne Meyerowitz have contributed to the ongoing discussion.
Rosie the riveter was the face of recruiting women into the Armed Forces during WWII. The increasing demand for soldiers was not being filled fast enough by just males. As a result, between the years 1940 and 1945, the percentage of female service members increased from 27% to 37%. Even on the civilian side of things, the ratio of married working women outside of their homes increased to one out of every four. The population of women that did not join the war was prompted by Rosie the Riveter’s iconic image of working in one of the many munitions industries throughout the US.
Society has made Mildred self-centered, robotic, and unfeeling. An example of her being self-centered would be when she says “And i should think you’d consider me sometimes.- We could do without a few things.” Which Montag replies with “We’re already doing without a few things.” This shows that Mildred is self-centered because she isn’t thankful for what she has and she doesn’t care that Montag could barely afford what she wants.
...iety too, as seen in Mildred’s friends. Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles are similar to Mildred, they say they voted on the last president simply for his looks. They don’t care about any of the important qualities only the superficial ones. Montag is further shocked when they talk so nonchalant about the war and their family’s, saying “(Insert quote here” (Bradbury ). This in addition, proves that not only is television addictive but can desensitize you from earthly troubles. Television allows you to step into a different world, and when Mildred’s friends are forced to come back from it, they cry and are angry. Montag forced them to comfort their disgraceful dismal of family ethics, decline of the upcoming war, and neglect of the high rates of suicide in their society.
...es, in the eyes of the modern moviegoers, this position is no longer reasonable due to the strides already made by women in quest for equality. It is a reflection of how the past American society treated its women and draws to the traditional inclination of the Americans to achieve financial independence as seen in this post war film.