The Summer My Grandmother Was Supposed To Die Analysis

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The short story “The Summer my Grandmother Was Supposed to Die” by Mordecai Richler illustrates the overwhelming, unjust pressure imposed on women in the 1950s. The media pushes an impossible, unrealistic body in today’s modern society which is hotly debated; however, in the 1950s, women were expected to be more than a perfect body. They were expected to be a perfect wife who takes care of an inordinate amount of work at home and does not express herself. The short story centres around the grandmother of a family who is said to have a month left to live but who ends up living for seven years. During this whole time, the daughter of the grandmother must take care of her as well as do all the regular housewife chores, which becomes an inordinate amount of work. …show more content…
A prominent example of the treatment of the mother is towards the end of the story at the grandmother’s funeral where the mother (of the children in the story) is, evidently, crying. Her husband asks the doctor to “come in” as “she [the mother] just doesn’t stop crying” that she is “like a tap” (p.46). He is asking the doctor to inject his wife as the previous injection he gave “wasn’t strong enough” (p.46). It is perfectly normal for her to cry at her funeral. Yet, the men in the story cannot fathom that and assume that there is something wrong with her and so their solution is to silence her with some sort of drug. This shows that although our society has advanced past ridiculous injections to silence women, women still do not have the respect they deserve. Women are humans and humans cry. Much like not all humans are perfect, which is what was expected of women then: perfection. Not crying “like a tap” at the funeral of their mother was just part of this

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