What Does Marriage Mean? Term Paper

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Marriage and Marital Relationships according to Octavia Butler and Alejo Carpentier

Literature has functioned, over time, as the 'reflector' of the social realities that people experience in society. Works of literature chronicle, narrate, and illustrate to readers a particular social reality, as perceived and/or experienced by the writer. In literature, we as readers experience a subjective point-of-view of what life is like in a particular period or era. Indeed, literature allows society to appreciate and get to know the arduous, yet interesting, history of humanity.

In the works of Octavia Butler and Alejo Carpentier, readers witness the truth behind the assertion stated above: through Butler's "Kindred" and Carpentier's "The Lost Steps," the social issue of women subjugation or empowerment through marriage becomes the central theme. In this paper, a discussion is presented to show that both Butler's and Carpentier's portrayal of their female protagonists in their respective novels project the image of an empowered man, who gains wisdom about marriage.

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However, it also becomes evident that despite their empowerment and wisdom concerning marital relationships, Dana of "Kindred" has a positive view about marriage than that of Rosario in "The Lost Steps."

Carpentier's portrayal of Rosario's character in the novel shows the perceived subjugation that she feels once a woman subjects herself to become part of a legally-binding relationship such as marriage. According to her, "[M]arriage, the legal bond, deprived a woman of all her defenses against man. A legal wife. . . was one for whom the husband could send the police when she left the house where he was free to indulge his infidelity, his cruelty, or his drunkenness. To marry was to come under….....

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