Literature And The Role Of Women In Literature Essay

Women in Literature and the Effect Men Have on Them Men have a negative effect on women in literature in terms of oppressing their sexuality and leaving them devastated at the end of the story. For instance, Addie Bundren from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, was an unhappily married woman whose sexuality was oppressed, by the constraints of a male dominated society and husband, despite her affair. In comparison, Blanche DuBois from Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, was a widow who had lost everything and was shunned for her sexual promiscuity, unable to form positive relations in the end. Both Addie and Blanche had tragic endings, one dying in a home she had little love for and the other institutionalized after mentally breaking due to a series of events, including the loss of her job and home as well as being raped. While the men in Addie and Blanche’s lives do negatively affect them, it is not just these characters because they are stand ins for society, such as the standard treatment women were given during the time period and so on. The recognition that men have a negative effect on women in literature is important because, not only is it a reflection of how …show more content…
Notably, Addie’s sexuality is referenced during Addie’s point of view when she describes her affair as “I would think of the sin as garments which we would remove […] I merely took the precautions that he thought necessary for his sake” (Faulkner 761). Addie, while thinking the act is a sin, is not overly worried about it. Addie takes the precautions that the minister feels necessary, but Addie is striving to take a stand, get a hold of her sexuality because it is something solely hers. She is fully aware of her sexuality and embraces it; however, she is unable to act on it aside from this one affair due to her marriage and role in