Literary Analysis Of Irony In Judy Brady's I Want A Wife

Throughout the piece of satire, “I Want a Wife,” Judy Brady expresses the outrageous social role of women during the 1970’s. Society has created an endless list of tasks that women should be completing everyday by themselves. Most men during this time period only saw their wives as someone who would complete hundreds of tasks within their relationship. Brady wants to show how this role should be reversed onto a husband’s position by using word choice, absurdity, and sarcasm. The author’s purpose of “I Want a Wife” is to not only show the ridiculousness of what women had to do within this time period, but as well, to show the expectations of a man’s vision of what a wife was like. Men believed that in their relationship, the women were demanded to take care of the tasks within the household. There is a great inequality between the role of a husband and the role of a wife. Brady wanted to inform …show more content…
Her style of writing is more so directed towards adult men that are in a relationship. She wants to prove the insanity of all of the tasks women are expected to complete. Throughout the passage she states phrases such as, “I want a wife who will keep my clothes cleaned and ironed,” and “I want a wife who will take care of the babysitting arrangements.” A great portion of this passage is stated with repetitive phrases of the varying tasks women have to complete on a daily basis. Brady wants to prove to men how ridiculous it is of their views on their wives. Women were just trying to fight for the equal rights that men have. If women did not complete all of these different duties within their shared household, men would have no clue what to do. Men would also realize how much they had to handle and how they balanced it all. It is disrespectful that men believed that the women should be in charge to support their entire family. In this sense, men should split the work and take on helping the