Choose ONE of the extracts and, by means of close reading, analyse the way in which its content is informed by one of the theoretical models discussed in weeks 1-5.
I have chosen extract 3 (The Women's Room), and will be applying Betty Freidan's Feminine Mystique to it.
According to Betty Freidan's Feminine Mystique (1963), Adele's character in extract 3 conforms to the traditional American housewife role; a role that Freidan believed created damaged women rather than the idealised image of femininity represented in the media. She famously labelled this image the feminine mystique, stressing that women were aspiring to the 1950's family wife figure, and passively returning back to the domestic sphere to live monotonous, unfulfilled lives. Adele is a fitting illustration of this in extract 3 since she displays several behavioural patterns associated with the "unhappy housewife," such as excessive drinking, child beating, and bad mothering. From Freidan's perspective, Adele becomes another victim of the false belief system which conditions her to accept a life of motherhood as her destiny. Consequently children growing up around her activity pick up on these societal gender roles; in Linda's case, she literally re-enacts Adele's housewife duties with a Barbie doll. Adele is not yet conscious of the "women's problem," much in the same way Freidan herself lived several years in the embrace of the feminine mystique. As noticed in Paul's stringent domineering ways over Adele, the housewife lifestyle places men at the centre of the household, enabling them to control, manipulate, and make "mothers of their wives."
A fundamental point Freidan expresses in her theory is that post World War II women who willingly pursue family life and domesticity, are successors of their own oppression. This view is represented in extract 3 where Adele becomes "the 'new breed' who is more interested by the housewife dream rather than employment: "She had always known that a career was not really what she wanted. She wanted to get married and have kids." Adele reflects the same readiness of the college students questioned by Freidan who also desire to be "perfect wives and mothers." One of the engaged smith seniors whom Freidan questions, lives a similar life to Adele in that she only attains a "job as a secretary, while [her] husband finishes school." Like many of the discontent housewives Freidan addresses, Adele is also shown to suffer the "problem with no name." Although Adele displays no conclusive indications of unhappiness in the extract as is seen later in the novel, there is much evidence in the form of her short temper and excessive drinking to relate her suffering to "the housewife's syndrome." She sternly mothers Linda by petulantly shrieking and ordering her around: "What are you looking at me for! Adele shrieked. Are you just going to stand there looking at me all day?" Adele's capacity to get livid and raise her voice in these trivial matters proves her to be a disturbed mother, living a strenuous dissatisfied life. Her excessive drinking later on can be seen as a form of escapism from dreary housewife obligations.
Tying in with Freidan's theory, Adele's bad mothering and rash behaviour are the consequences of experiencing a "role crisis." Having obtained an education and experienced the working environment as a legal secretary, Adele has formerly spent the majority of her life feeling equal to boys. Thus, making the drastic adjustment from the public sphere to full time domesticity comes as quite a shock to her psyche; she is not prepared for her role as a competent housewife. Without realising, a high level of emotional distress and anger reside in her unconscious mind, and it starts to surface the longer she lives according to the feminine mystique. The adjustors in Freidan's theory explain that if women were educated for their role as housewives, they would channel their emotions positively rather than suffering this crisis.
However since Adele is not educated for this family wife role, her anger just deepens throughout the extract, and she struggles to control her spiralling emotions. She goes from being overemotional and clingy, to angrily hitting Linda: "Adele swiftly reached out and swatted her on the rear, sending the child into screams of agony." Whereas previously Adele's "heart was full of emotion" towards her weeping daughter, she quickly looses her temper with Linda again, rather than understanding Linda's needs. Adele's character fits the child battering mother, which according to the feminine mystique, is a maternal behavioural type arising from "post war increase in early marriage" and women's continuous confinement within a home.
Although one may argue that Adele only reacts violently to Linda's disobeying, ill-mannered nature, it is possible that these very character traits in Linda are caused by Adele's controlling, defective mothering. From Freidan's viewpoint, mother's who had no function in life, caused problems in their children by being overprotective and persistently worrying about them. Linking in with David Levy's study of "maternal overprotection" discussed in The Feminine Mystique, the "suburban housewife mother makes her child conditioned to a slavish emotional independence." This is seen when a weepy Linda buries "her head in her mother's side." By being clingy, and attending to all of her daughter's needs, Adele does not allow her to mature. This way she breeds immaturity in Linda, who as a result displays early signs of individual and social insufficiency. This underdevelopment is evident as Linda comes across as rash and uncontrollable; at one point she protests and refuses to listen to Adele: "I hate spaghetti…I don't want it! I won't eat it! This is followed by more disobedient behaviour when Linda jumps "up and down on the kitchen floor." Along with her child battering, Adele's over mothering become a liable cause for the potential neurosis in Linda.
Moreover, by experiencing child abuse and growing up around Adele's housewife role, Linda starts to replica her mother's behaviour; a simulation which according to Freidan's feminine mystique, highlights how "progressive dehumanisation is passed through generations." Somewhat disturbingly, Linda impersonates her mother's child hitting actions with Barbie dolls: "Now you're a bad girl, a bad, bad girl, she was saying as she slapped the doll on its bottom several times…You did so and you're so bad!' she said in her Mommy voice, and threw the baby doll on the floor on its face." From the perspective of Freidan's feminine mystique, this highlights that women's oppression at home caused them to pass their violent ways onto their children. Later in the role-play with her dolls, Linda demonstrates a mother catering for her husband's meal requirements. Therefore through her experiences and only by repetition, Linda starts to learn that women and men have diverse roles in society. It is this conformist behaviour that "carries the feminine mystique from generation to generation."
Additionally it is significant that Linda uses a smaller doll for the mother; the image metaphorically fits Freud's theory of housewives being likened to childlike dolls, and it symbolically belittles Adele's housewife position in the extract. Freidan explains in her theory that by accepting housewife lifestyles, women continually become defined as objects, whereas men maintain their powerful position of the absolute by keeping their wives financially dependant. As evident in the extract, Paul works from his position of power to treat Adele like a slave: "Did you get my suit…'For God's sake Adele, why didn't you hang it in the bedroom. On one occasion he crudely interrupts by making further demands: "Can I at least get a drink around here?" Through his rude self-centred remarks to Adele, he manipulates her into the subject he wills: dependant, complaint housewife that obeys his orders.
Nevertheless, it can be argued that Paul's verbally hostile, overbearing attitude towards Adele comes as a result of suffering from his role in the feminine mystique. He reflects the disgruntled voice of several male employees who worked at a time where "purposeless work in the big organisation kept many men from feeling like men." His opening remark in the extract illustrates his strong dislike for his profession; a dislike that manifests itself into anger: "For God's sake…can't I ever come home to peace and quiet? All day I long I listen to shit." Looking at this from the lens of the feminine mystique, Paul takes out his aggravation on Adele rather than recognising the sacred way of American living or the failure in his own life. The demands placed on American men to pursue certain types of employment in the 1950's left several of them unsettled. As Paul's occupation does not appear to satisfy his capacities, it leaves in "him a vacant empty need for escape," which Freidan explains is met with alcohol, television and sex. By observing Paul's entrance, it is noticeable that his forms of escapism include having a martini and reading the paper instead of giving initial attention to his family. From Paul's short dialogue, he heatedly begins three of his sentences with "For God's sake," and talks down at Adele. As Freidan would say in her theory, Paul "recreates his own childhood in suburbia, making a mother of his wife." Through his childish demands, he becomes another dependant child.
Thus, overall men also fell for the feminine mystique without any disapproval; it guaranteed them mothers for their entire lives, both as a motive of their being, and as an excuse for their cynicism with working life. Hence it can be stated that Adele and Paul are both living the pretty lie of the feminine mystique. They have fallen victims to ingrained cultural attitudes as neither party seems to be fully satisfied within their separate sphere. This proves to be the grounds for unremitting chaos in their home. As Freidan would argue, Adele's makes her own hell by being affected by society and fully embracing the feminine mystique. The fact she falls in love with Paul "in a hopeless way" symbolically sums up how women became indoctrinated in a society which told them to promptly marry professional qualified men and conform to the feminine ideal; a lifestyle which promised complete contentment for a woman, but merely ended up breeding discontented housewives.
Word Count: 1634
Linda has fallen victim of penis envy? Linda playing with the dolls can also been seen as her "masculinity complex," in which she refuses to give up phallic activity. "eighteen foot long Barbie doll" Through the discovery of her castration, her mother and all women are depreciated in her own eyes, as they are depreciated for the same reason in the eyes of the man. This level of depreciation can be seen when Linda uses a smaller doll for her mother. This smaller doll symbolically portrays
the responsibility of five children
women to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husband's and children
Like Locating the feminine mystique through post World War II middle class suburban communities, Freidan suggests that men returning from war, turned to their wives for mothering. In the extract,
