Final Assignment
Throughout the course of the semester, we have read 10 books, all written by women. Coming into this class, I did not know what to expect. Truthfully, I chose this class just to fill English requirement credits, and thought that the books in a women’s literature course would be torture for any male who is forced to read them. However, my experience in this class far exceeded the skepticism I had coming into the class. The books were not the female supremacist guidelines that I expected them to be, and, honestly, they were very interesting for the most part.
I think that this course helped me understand women’s thought processes better, since the books that we read were either about real life experiences they went through, or, a fictional generalization of what women may experience, and how they react to it. I have learned that women put more emphasis on certain experiences that tend to stick with them throughout their lives. I have also inferred that these events mold a woman’s personality much more than it would have done to a man, potentially due to the maternal instincts of women.
One theme that has reoccurred throughout novels this semester was childhood. It seems that early childhood and adolescence have been the most pivotal points in the lives of the women we have read about. For example, in Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, Alison portrayed important parts of her childhood that would affect her for the remainder of her life. Her family was very dysfunctional, and her father always seemed to be more interested in the restoration of their home than his own children. Her father also took on most of the responsibilities that the matriarch is traditionally in charge of. This was definitely a factor in Alison becoming a lesbian. The gender role of her father caused her identity with herself to be questioned, as her father tried to make her as feminine as possible. This gave Alison a false sense of gender identity, only to later find out that her father has secretly had homosexual affairs both in the military and with his high school students. This is just one example of how a childhood with untraditional circumstances can lead to a permanent lifestyle in the books we have read. Another example of a distraught childhood affecting a character was in Push. Precious grew up in a broken home, where her mother verbally abused her, and when her father showed up, it was usually to molest Precious. Obviously, something so grave would affect anyone in that circumstance. However, many other things led to Precious’ troubled lifestlye. She grew up being looked at as an insignificant troublemaker by people who had no idea what she had went through. She gave birth to her first child, a product of her father, who had been born with a mental disease. She went on to name him, “Lil Mongo.” This is evidence that her troubled childhood had eliminated any amount of self-worth that she had. She remained troubled, and supposedly worthless, until she met Ms. Rain, who was the first person who truly wanted to help her, and intervened on her own. She eventually got precious to open up to her, and Precious would begin her journey to being a more confident, valuable woman. When Precious gave birth to her second child, she was old enough, and mature enough, to understand what being a mother really meant. She gave her child a real name, and the author left the reader with a sense that she would go on to give him the childhood that Precious could never experience.
A final theme that seemed to be evident in many of the books we read was sexuality. This was an aspect of almost all of the books we have read, and many of the times, it was tied into the character’s childhood, such as in, Fun Home, and, Push. Not all of them, however, are a result of a troubled childhood. In, The Vagina Monologues, by Eve Ensler, an incredible amount of emotion is portrayed through her fictional monologues. She “asks her interviewee,” to ask what their vagina would wear if it had to wear clothes. The answers ranged from dirty, ripped jeans to pink boas. Since Ensler is a woman, I think that the fact that her book has been so critically acclaimed proves that she is just one of woman out of the entire population who has a strong, both physical and emotional relationship with her vagina.
A Second theme portrayed by novels we have read this semester is motherhood, or lack thereof. Motherhood is important to both the child and the mother. In many cases, a child who grows up without the traditional mother figure can be vulnerable to many mental and physical problems. However, the act of being a mother is equally important. In, The Shawl, Rosa is faced with the option of attempting to save her daughter from being killed by a Nazi. She opts to not save her daughter, and is forever haunted of robbing her child of a childhood, and herself of motherhood. Being alive after watching the death of her daughter made Rosa feel as though she were living only because of Magda’s sacrifice. I think that this shows how important being a mother and caring for a child is to any woman, whether they have already had children or not.
Throughout this women’s literature class, I have read books that have opened me up to a new set of theories and emotions. Some of the reoccurring themes we have read about include childhood sexual identity, and motherhood. All of these, in my opinion, are looked at in a different light by women than it would have been from a man’s point of view. Overall, I think these novels tried to expose those differences, and bring many things that are often concealed, and seldom spoken of, into the light of the public to provide knowledge to those who are ignorant, or misinformed, about the troubles and triumphs of being, and becoming, a woman.
