The Two Women

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Recommended: Gender roles of women in literature

Gender role is a form of a woman’s identity and if a woman doesn’t fit into that gender role of the society’s behaviours norms then she is rejected among others throughout her entire life. Both Maria from ‘Half-breed by Campbell’ and Anne Shirley from ‘Anne of Green Gables by L.M Montgomery’ represent characters that go through stages in their life of rejection not only by others but themselves as well, however they contrast in ways by their level of emotional strength and by the level of capability of fulfilling women responsibilities. Maria and Anne are both played as women who are considered as the outsiders in their society by means of their color, sex or just the way their personality is illustrated. However if compared Maria to Anne, Maria is much more gender oriented by not only being an emotionally strong women who can face problems but also with regards of filling the national border by having a high level of awareness of women oriented responsibilities.
Either through their own prospective or through the society’s overall views, Maria and Anne recognize that they’re not a part of the dominant community and are less considered compared by the other sex. When Maria was born she was not accepted by her father at first due to her being a girl “At last I arrived much to dad’s disappointment”(Campbell, 16). A girl cooked, cleaned and took care of children but Mr. Campbell needed less of a girl and more of a boy to help him with earning a couple of dollars for the family. However he overcame his disappointment and began considering Maria as a boy and therefore began teaching her what boys are taught “set traps, shoot a rifle, and fight like a boy” (Campbell, 16). Nevertheless, these teachings made Maria strong to face the corr...

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...ected own selves by assuming they were not good enough for the society. In both novels, the characters childhood was clearly shown by Maria and Anne doing foolishness and committing innocent crimes, which influences a reader to re-consider of what the characters personality really is. Even though the girls had similarities they were shown as completely different people when it regarded strength and responsibility. Being strong, facing all problems as they arise and completing given tasks are factors that was illustrated by Maria. However uncontrollable tears, scared to face any problems without being hurt, unclean and nonetheless irresponsible of duties given was illustrated by Anne. So to sum up, Maria and Anne are two characters that share similarities but due to their upbringings, teachings and the way their life has shifted causes them to have many differences.

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