Prejudice and discrimination against women in american literature.The Essay

Prejudice and discrimination against women in american literature.The prejudice against women and the injustice practiced agains - Essay Example A critical observation of the sufferings and unfair treatment to women as a result of prejudices and discrimination is the focus of this paper. A brief survey of the female characters in the early American fiction can serve as a background to the picture of womanhood today in American society. Mark Twain never looked at his wife as an equal in his life. His attitude to womanhood can be traced through his female characters. Miss Watson can be taken here as an example here. She is shown in Huckleberry Finn as a lonely woman, or living with her widowed sister, a societal outcast living in the shadow of others. Her presence only makes others uncomfortable, including Huck and Jim. An unmarried woman in Twain’s days got the role of a caretaker and as she stayed at home, she was expected to take care of the sick or the elderly relatives. She must be selfless, and must devote her life for others. Twain depicts Miss Watson as a typical old maid of his time from which the prejudices and discrimination towards women in his society can easily be studied by the readers. William Faulkner, on the other hand, depicts the actual situation of a woman and creates repulsion in the readers to the prevailing prejudices and discrimination. ... In Scarlet Letter Hawthorne gives not only the dark reality of the prejudices and discriminations against woman, but also exposes the snobbishness in society regarding sexual matters. A priest seduces a woman, does not own up his role and responsibility, and, he continues to preach from the pulpit. However, Hawthorne turns his female character charged with adultery into an angel through her stern commitments and devotions. The signs of resistance and determinations to establish true womanhood are seen in his novel. All these honest intentions could not find result in twentieth century as a result of wars and depressions. Hemingway’s novels reveal such situations in which women are seen as mere objects of pleasure. Prostitution becomes rampant as the soldiers fighting on the borders were to be supplied with female flesh. How the male characters become incapable of extending emotions of love towards women is a common theme in his novels. When sex is seen synonymous with pleasure the focus becomes woman’s body and not the person. Lust replaces love. Henry Millers novels can be taken as an example of this. They carry endless images of woman as cunt, whore, and bitch. The difference between the sexual intercourses in Miller’s pages and the pages of Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover reveal the actual differences between lust and love. By the middle of the twentieth century, after sixties to be precise, women writers came to the forefront as the custodians of true female experiences. Two women writers, Erica Jong and Tony Morison are taken here to show the changes seen in literature regarding the depiction of prejudices and discrimination towards women. In Fear of Flying Isadora becomes a writer who