Lives of Girls and Women

The short story “Girl” takes place on a island in the Caribbean. The female role was very important to the culture they were raised in. Each female had to prove to the people that they well worthy on becoming a women. The female are easily judge for their boys, the why they dressed, people were aware of all certain behaviors the women will show. The short story clearly warns on how a women should be, warns her how to behave, and dress like a women because its the role they were meant to carry.

To begin, important theme that runs through the novel is the idea strong female characters like Taylor and Lou Ann. Furthermore, Taylor does not care about a man in her life and tries her best to do everything in her

After reading the stories: “Boys” by Rick Moody, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and “Lust” by Susan Minot, I definitely became more open-minded. I began to analyze each story individually and noticed that they are all told from different points of view, but in each story a female was the narrator. “Lust”, “Boy”, and “Girl”, while all three stories are told by a female narrator; each narrator’s voice concerns different stages of life.

Historically, women were “born” to be weak, helpless, open-minded and to depend on men who would save them in any type of danger. Societal norms and stereotypes regarding how women should be are still present in today's times. A book by Steve Harvey ”Act like a Lady, Think Like a Man” shows that women can break that stereotype by expressing their needs and fulfilling a mutual relationship with the opposite gender. In Gods of Jade and Shadows, author Silvia Moreno-Garcia The main character Casiopea breaks this stereotype, she is a hopeless girl from Uukumil who lives with her grandfather Cirilio and his spoiled cousin Martin.

The author once again shows Delia’s goodness and devotion to her marriage in Clarke’s market. Sykes began to order many items for Bertha, his mistress, knowing Delia was riding by and would see him doing this. Delia avoids talking to villagers in an attempt to blind herself from the truth that her husband had been cheating on her for many months now. However, Bertha forces her to face the evil truth by showing up at her doorstep and calling out for Sykes. Sykes and Delia began to consistently fight. Delia tries to be friendly with her husband, but loses all hope when he rejects

When lounge singer, Delores Van Cartier, began a love affair with a married casino owner, Vince LaRocca, she did not know what she got herself into until she finds Vince has killed another man. Delores is part of a women’s singing trio, hired by her love interest. She arranges and choreographs all of their performances, illustrating her passion for music. When she realizes that her lover has no desire to leave his wife, Delores decides enough is enough, and wishes to return her final gift from Vince, as well as resign from her occupation. When she angrily walks in on him, she catches him shooting a man, realizing his mob efforts. She panics and runs to the police station as Vince’s men try to chase after her, failing miserably, and turns Vince in. The detectives, who have been long watching Vince, place her undercover at a Catholic convent to guard her life until they can set a court date to arrest Vince. This is the start of Delores’ captivating adventure in the Catholic Church.

Near the beginning of the text Delia is shown to be enduring and magnanimous towards Sykes’ belittling and offensive behavior.He frightens her for his own delight and disrupts her work at his slightest whim. She believes that it is her role as wife, to not cause problems or

Her job is physically demanding and pays very little, as she must work long hours to make ends meet. While her white clients do not have to worry about economic hardships, Delia, as an African American, is at a disadvantage due to the systemic racism that pervaded society at that time. Furthermore, Delia's husband, Sykes, is a character who embodies the impacts of oppression on African American men. He seeks control but finds it difficult to assert himself in a society that oppresses him. His abuse of Delia can thus be seen as his way of exerting control over someone he sees as weaker than himself.

     At the same time, the readings of the women's masculinity and androgyny must be similarly reconsidered. While Irving reads Lena as one who "conforms more readily than Ántonia" and assimilates in a manner "too complete" in that "she, like Jim, is lethargic" (100), I would argue that Lena's refusal to marry and her achievement of the independent, successful life she sought belie any ready categorization of reinforced hegemony, undermining standard patriarchal demands; and her success can be contrasted with Jim's loveless marriage and the vague reference to the "disappointments" that have failed to quell his "naturally romantic and ardent disposition" (4). Similarly, as Gilbert and Gubar highlight, the happiness of the "masculine" hired girls stands in stark contrast with the emotional restriction to which town wives are subjected: "Energetic and jolly, Mrs. Harling must stop all the activities of her household so as to devote herself entirely to her husband" (197). While it may be true that "their disturbing androgynous qualities, and their unwillingness to accept traditional female roles" position the hired girls as "outsiders" (Wussow 52) and that these facts can be read as critical of the feminine, it seems more

In order to properly view a story from a feminist perspective, it is important that the reader fully understands what the feminist perspective entails. “There are many feminist perspectives, and each perspective uses different approaches to analyze and interpret texts. One is that gender is “socially constructed” and another is that power is distributed unequally on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, ability, sexuality, and economic class status” (South University Online, 2011, para. 1). The story “Girl” is an outline of the things young girls

Finally, Del believes he is a selfish and deplorable person, because he betrays Donny and her troubled son, John, when he not only allows Robert to use his house to cheat on Donny, but also, covers for Robert and lies to Donny about her husband’s actions and whereabouts, telling her that he and Robert went camping when he was cheating on her. He selfishly committed crimes against his friend, for the possibility of friendship and

The movie gives the message that women must do acknowledge their responsibilities towards themselves, which can and should never be neglected or postponed for the sake of anyone or anything. Nothing in this world is worth sacrificing your own aspirations for. A person’s greatest assets are self-respect, dignity and individuality. Woman should safeguard her identity by not letting her individuality get submerged and by keeping her priorities intact all her life and creating a place for herself.

In the end, each character has played a role based on the expectations society creates. The men and women all have their own ways of manipulating one another. “The woman is judged by society under the man’s law (Rosefeldt).” Society’s expectations of woman back

In Lives of Girls and Women, people grow out of reading. As the protagonist Del says, reading “persisted mostly in unmarried ladies, would have been shameful in a man” (Munro, 117). As in The Bell Jar, women in Lives of Girls and Women who are educated and who are professionals are seen as masculine and immature. Mature and marriageable women learn to use make-up and to flaunt their physical beauty. Del overturns this rule by memorizing poetry and doing well academically. Both Esther and Del feel that academic achievements best define and express their sexuality, though not necessarily enhancing their sexual lives. While the bored, rich girls in The Bell Jar spend most of their time painting their nails and getting a tan, Esther feels out of place among the idle and the fashion-conscious. Her friend Doreen admits that at her college, all the girls “had pocket-book covers made out of the same material as their dresses”(Plath, 5). The night that Doreen returns drunken from the apartment of a stranger named Lenny, Esther closes her door on her friend but does not have the heart to lock it. Thus, Esther successfully shuts out the false societal values of female sexuality for a while, but acknowledges that her form of sexuality must co-exist with that of Doreen and of other females in her society.

The film version of Diary of a Teenage Girl, rather than condemning patriarchal privilege and its attendant exploitations as the book does, is instead a very careful take on a young 's girl 's exploration of her sexuality. The film and the book share the same premise but ultimately differ on delivery due to their inherently different approaches to capturing Minnie’s life as her and the other characters are portrayed differently, so much so that is a cautious take on an otherwise un-barred novel. Rather than touching upon patriarchal privilege and its exploitations, the film smooths over many of the more intense aspects in order to create a happy ending for itself, which is fundamentally different than what the book intended.