In Home of Mercy How Does Harwood Highlight the Repression of Females Within Society?

In the girls’ home, Mary has to make a decision on whether she wants to clear her charges or live as a murderer. Stereotypically, girls like Mary face prejudice for actions they may or may not have committed, controversially, Mary acts unlike the other teenagers in her girls’ home trying

Gwen Harwood poems such as The Glass Jar and Prize-Giving illuminate concerns fundamental to human experience including life, death, spirituality and human fall from innocence explored abstractly through the prism of childhood experience. The use of binary opposites, metaphors, similes, musical motifs and biblical allusions allow for a multiplicity of responses and readings highlighting mythological, psychological, Freudian and feminist interpretation.

The biblical allusions Gwynn makes are used to expose the problem of societal pressures women face as a result of biblical teachings. When unhappy and doubtful of such teachings, the church “instantly referred [her] to text in Romans/ And Peter’s First Epistle, chapter III.” (7-8), a biblical reading that preaches the act of suffering for God’s will and the obedience of a woman to her husband as she is the “feebler vessel”. However, Gwynn points out the flaw of this instruction when he portrays what a sinner her husband is as he “grabbed [his] pitchforks, donned [his] horns, / and sped to the contravene the hopes of heaven, / Sowing the neighbors’ lawns with tares and thorns.” (10-12).

Gwen Harwood was an Australian poet immersed in music, language and philosophy. Her poems often reflect ideas about society's beliefs. The dominant attitudes of Australian culture in the mid nineteen hundreds towards gender was that women should be a housewife and mother while the man worked hard to provide for the family. Men were associated with science and women with art. Australian culture at this time favoured patriarchy and science.

The Puritans were a religious group who left the Church of England because they wanted to have more freedom with their religion. They thought the Church of England was “too Catholic”. They believed the Bible and its rules were the number one thing to go by and that all humans were evil and had to overcome their sin. Women had to cover their whole bodies in clothing. They couldn’t show their ankles or wrists. They also had to wear their hair up and out of their face at all times, except if they were in a room alone with only their husband. They always were on one side of the church away from the men or in the back on the church. These women in the society that will be talked about have broken laws and have been misjudged.

There is significant evidence throughout both 'The Long Queen ' and The Map Women ' to indicate that suffering is a central element of female experience. Both of these poems are present in the 'Feminine Gospels ' written by Carol Ann Duffy. The collection of poetry is seen to be teachings of feminism aiming to provide the reader visions of female identity. One feature of this identity that is examined within these two poems is the theme of mental and physical suffering that women universally endure.

Gwen Harwood’s poetry is very powerful for its ability to question the social conventions of its time, positioning the reader to see things in new ways. During the 1960’s, a wave of feminism swept across Australian society, challenging the dominant patriarchal ideologies of the time. Gwen Harwood’s poems ‘Burning Sappho’ and ‘Suburban Sonnet’ are two texts that challenge the dominant image of the happy, gentle, but ultimately subservient housewife. Instead, ‘Burning Sappho’ is powerful in constructing the mother as violent to reject the restraints placed on her by society, whilst Suburban Sonnet addresses the mental impact of the female gender’s confinement to the maternal and domestic sphere. Harwood employs a range of language and

Gwen Harwood’s work frequently focuses on woman being demoralised by society’s practices that reduce her to a lesser being. A common worldwide value that Harwood rejects as the normality in life with her poems. Harwood battles against the traditions that she believes support this downgrading by continually returning to the issue. Due to Harwood’s existence in a time where women of Australia still fought to vote and for a pay check to match a man’s, Harwood too displays her support. “The Lions Bride” is centred on the subject of marriage and entails the ugliness of the situations that are specific to women. This remains relevant to the modern world because of the ongoing struggle for equality. By using a wedding as a

Feminist Laura Mulvey asserts, “woman is traditionally a use-value for man… a commodity,” which, according to Hélène Cixous, censors the “relation of woman to her sexuality… [that] gives her access to her native strength” (262; 246). In Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, Rachel “is reduced to being the servant of the militant male” in her obedient childhood and unfaithful marriages where she appears “in a familiar state of dependency upon man” (Cixous 246; Mulvey 259). However, she embraces her role as an objectified woman to subvert the authoritative masculine dictation of her life. Rachel methodically uses her physical femininity to acquire ownership of her future, prideful empowerment in her sense of self, and independence from man’s provisions on her pursuit of liberation fueled by man’s inability to control his sexual desires.

Woman and family roles are considerably different today than they were back in Puritan times. Puritans thought that the public’s foundation rested on the “little commonwealth”, and not merely on the individual. The “little commonwealth” meant that a father’s rule over his family mirrored God’s rule over creation or a king over his subjects. John Winthrop believed that a “true wife” thought of herself “in [weakness] to her husband’s authority.” As ludicrous as this idea may appeal to women and others in today’s society, this idea was truly necessary for colonies to be able to thrive and maintain social order.

Shirley Jackson’s novel, The Haunting of Hill House, explores the cultural anxieties in the mid 20th century. Specifically, men use womanhood (societal norms) as purposely infantilizing women in order to confine the female mind. Jackson utilizes symbolism, metaphor, and anaphora in her novel in order to convey the message for men to stop infantilizing women. Moreover, Jackson spreads awareness that women are being confined by a system that men developed: womanhood. Hence, in effect, the novel serves as an informal protest against male repression through a medium that can be read by a wider audience —more importantly an indirect challenge to male readers. According to Krolokke, Second Wave Feminism became prominent due to cultural discontent with patriarchy during the mid 20th century. Moreover, Krolokke informs the readers that Second Wave Feminism influenced women to challenge traditional family roles and male ideologies about women not belonging in the workplace (11-12). Mid 20th century is also when Jackson published The Haunting of Hill House. So, with these historical and cultural contexts in mind, Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House ends the novel with Eleanor killing herself because she wants women to challenge the ideas of patriarchy into effect. Hence, Second Wave Feminism has a connection to Eleanor having a childlike personality (can not think for herself) because she wants women (especially young and single women) to explore their rights (their choices) and

Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel written in 1985, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, depicts Serena Joy as a rather complex being. She is revealed to be extremely bitter of her life and rather jealous of Offred. Ironically, Serena becomes trapped by the very ideals which she preached in the time before as a media personality. Moreover, she displays mixed attitudes towards Offred, being both generous and horrible.

The female characters in Frankenstein represent the treatment of women in the early 1800’s. Women who are deprived of their female roles and are enclosed in a feminine sphere of domesticity. In the novel, Frankenstein, the women characters are treated as property and have little privileges in relationship to the male characters, the women suffer and are eventually destroyed showing how unimportant they are in the book’s society, and when it comes to reproduction of human’s, man thinks it pointless to have women play that role. These attacks on the innocent prove that women are second-rate in the novel.

puberty bring with it a complex tradition of restrictions and behavioral guidelines. Kincaid’s poem reveals the rigidity and complexity of the social confines the girl is expected to operate underl. A girl is an induction into the women community as well as an orientation into the act of womanhood (Walkerdine et. al.). The lectured instructions given to the silent girl child vary from the housekeeping, “this is how you sweep a whole house”, to dealing with intimate relationships, “this is how a man bullies you; …how to bully a man” to medicine, “this is how to make good medicine (to abort)” (Kincaid).The inane patriarchal society expects gender stereotypes to prevail. The mother is tasked to give her daughter instructions on how to be a good woman in the stereotyped society. The advice the mother gives to the daughter cements the gender stereotype and portrays limitations on a woman (Bailey and Carol 107).

The first part of the poem is light and happy, filled with bright images of “holy light” and “sunny beams” (8, 9). However, the maiden and her mate agree to meet the following night, a foredooming of their fateful friendship, as when the girl approaches her father his “loving look, / Like the holy book, / All her tender limbs with terror shook” (27-29). Suddenly the poem shifts to dark imagery, “when the silent sleep / Waves o’er heavens deep” (22-23). The innocent maiden who was earlier “bright” and happy is described as “pale and weak” after her father’s reprimand (7, 30). The earlier word “bright” described her blissful innocence, while “pale” denotes the fear imbued in her and the wickedness associated with her earlier innocent play. Blake accuses Christian society as the “assassin of innocence” in the young couple (Trowbridge, 140). The church, in the form of a father figure, is being critically attacked by Blake via the children’s harmless affair.