Throughout history, women have faced constant obstacles of oppression, humiliation, and insecurity. These obstacles were created due to how society viewed and treated women in specific time periods. For example, in the 17th century, jobs for women were limited. Women were expected to be either a maid or someone's wife. Scholarly education was unthinkable for a woman at the time. On the other hand, in the 18th and 19th century, education was promoted for women and girls. The subjects taught, however, were not mathematics or science, but domestic skills. Their main goal in life, just like in the previous centuries, was to find a man of good wealth to marry. Clearly, women were taught to be dependent and voiceless throughout time. The obstacles
…show more content…
One example is the young maid Griet, from Girl with a Pearl Earring, who bravely rebels against her employers and finally chooses the next path her life will take. Throughout the novel, Griet is obedient to her master Vermeer and his family. She endures hard work, humiliation, and even physical pain to please the Vermeers. Griet rarely complains, since she is a maid and possesses little power. Yet, when Vermeer’s wife accuses Griet of stealing her earrings and drops a knife, Griet “was meant to pick it up. That was what maids were meant to do—pick up their master’s and mistress’s things and put them back in their place. . . . I did not pick up the knife. I turned and walked from the room” (Chevalier, 215). Griet actually did not steal the earrings, and while Vermeer and his mother are aware of this, they refuse to defend Griet. Griet is tired of living and working in a house where no one respects her. Griet understands she is a maid, but wants to be treated with common decency at the same time. Outside of the Vermeer house “I made my choice, the choice I knew I had to make, I set my feet carefully along the edge of the point and went the way it told me, walking steadily” (216). After leaving, Griet could return to the Vermeers and beg for forgiveness to earn her job back. Instead, Griet chooses to accept a young butcher's marriage proposal. …show more content…
Like Griet, Nora also rebels against the person she is most dependent on. Nora, from A Doll's House, realizes her relationship with her husband is not a happy one and rebels, becoming empowered to go and find herself. Nora is blindly infatuated with her husband, who treats her like a child. Yet Nora realizes at the end of the play, "our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll wife . . . That is what our marriage has been, Torvald" (Ibsen, 67). Nora realizes she never truly lived under her controlling husband. She feels she is like a child, uneducated of the world. Nora then reasons she can never be a real wife or mother to her own children since “I am not fit for the task. There is
One example is the young maid Griet, from Girl with a Pearl Earring, who bravely rebels against her employers and finally chooses the next path her life will take. Throughout the novel, Griet is obedient to her master Vermeer and his family. She endures hard work, humiliation, and even physical pain to please the Vermeers. Griet rarely complains, since she is a maid and possesses little power. Yet, when Vermeer’s wife accuses Griet of stealing her earrings and drops a knife, Griet “was meant to pick it up. That was what maids were meant to do—pick up their master’s and mistress’s things and put them back in their place. . . . I did not pick up the knife. I turned and walked from the room” (Chevalier, 215). Griet actually did not steal the earrings, and while Vermeer and his mother are aware of this, they refuse to defend Griet. Griet is tired of living and working in a house where no one respects her. Griet understands she is a maid, but wants to be treated with common decency at the same time. Outside of the Vermeer house “I made my choice, the choice I knew I had to make, I set my feet carefully along the edge of the point and went the way it told me, walking steadily” (216). After leaving, Griet could return to the Vermeers and beg for forgiveness to earn her job back. Instead, Griet chooses to accept a young butcher's marriage proposal. …show more content…
Like Griet, Nora also rebels against the person she is most dependent on. Nora, from A Doll's House, realizes her relationship with her husband is not a happy one and rebels, becoming empowered to go and find herself. Nora is blindly infatuated with her husband, who treats her like a child. Yet Nora realizes at the end of the play, "our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll wife . . . That is what our marriage has been, Torvald" (Ibsen, 67). Nora realizes she never truly lived under her controlling husband. She feels she is like a child, uneducated of the world. Nora then reasons she can never be a real wife or mother to her own children since “I am not fit for the task. There is