Woman's Role Essay

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Women have, for a long time, been expected to fulfill certain roles. These roles varied through the ages but have remained rooted in their main objective, to have women raise children and assist and serve their husbands (Vishwanathan, 1994, p. 34). Women are seen as the ones who stay home, tend the hearth, and raise the young while men are the ones that earn the money, own the property, and control the household. In literature, women are depicted often as fulfilling these stereotypical roles and also rebelling against them. Karen Van Der Zee's "A Secret Sorrow" and Gail Godwin's "A Sorrowful Woman" are two works of literature that demonstrate the lives of women who belonged to a society that required them to conform to their selected role. Both narratives establish the anticipated place of women in society, but do so from dissimilar perspectives. "A Secret Sorrow" has a female character who wishes to conform the housewife stereotype, and is unable to. In, "A Sorrowful Woman" the story portrays the life of a mother who rebelled against her situation and role, which she, unlike the other woman in the story, effortlessly fit in to.

In the modern era, many cultures throughout the world still hold true to the antiquated roles of women and expect them to adhere to their roles (Foster, 1988, p. 122). Other cultures however have progressed and evolved, accepting women in vastly different roles such as the "bread winner" and even the head of household. If the women from the stories lived during the current era, they might have had more options instead of bearing children and staying at home. The era of the two stories placed society at a time where women's greatest gift to their loved ones and to society as whole was to bear and take care of their children.

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If a woman could not bear children, she was considered useless, much like the woman from "A Secret Sorrow." She, like other women of her time, had to conform to society's rules or face a life of inadequacy, harsh reality, and economic instability. Her desire to bear children and remaining barren, made her, no matter how hard she tried, seem like less than. Unlike the woman from "A Sorrowful Woman" who is a mother and fulfilled her role, she remained lacking her expected "basic" function. It is here another key difference can be made. While one fulfills the basic role of a woman, the other cannot. Because she cannot, she wants that much more to fit the norm and be the mother society wants her to be, while the other, already a mother, already fulfilled her role but wanted more.

Page 33 of "A Secret Sorrow" discusses just how important pregnancy is for a woman. "She can't give…children…can't get pregnant" (Meyer, 2002, p. 33). Without the role of mother, the role of woman is lost. And even if she received loving support from Kai, the man who wishes to marry her, as evidenced on page 35 with his willingness to deal with the dilemma, it doesn't fix or better the situation, but rather, worsens it because of the guilt and obligation she feels to her future husband. Fay stated to Kai he should not commit to her….....

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