Women's writing in English

Many authors work impact the culture and society around them. The author Sylvia Plath definitely impacted American culture by writing about her battle with mental illness, like depression and her views on women's role in society. The roles for women in America at that time were not what Plath wanted. In novel, The Bell Jar, Plath shows her troubles with conflicting identities. Between trying to please her mother, trying to become successful, relationships, and mental illness. She also was…

beginning of the medieval period, which lasted from approximately 500-1500 A.D., not a lot of books were written, but literature was passed by word of mouth. During this period a lot of different languages were spoken in Britain, for example Celtic, Old English, Latina and a certain dialect of French called Anglo-Norman. During the medieval period the language of the upper class was French, which meant that French was the language of worldly education and literature in Britain. The language of…

form of suicide. I want to consider in how much suicide is employed as a means to criticise women’s restrictions in patriarchal society. How can the most passive state of death be employed as a means of rebellion or liberation? Can the employment of suicide in the writings of female authors be considered a form of subversion on their parts or on the parts of their characters? Are factors like art and writing, mythical conceptions of the role of a woman and the male gaze playing a part in this…

Like Water for Chocolate: Feminism’s Fire In 1989, Mexican author Laura Esqiuvel wrote Como Agua Para Chocolate, or Like Water for Chocolate in english. The piece follows a young woman living and working on her family’s ranch in Mexico. Tita, as she is called, falls in love with a man whom she is forbidden to marry as per an old familial tradition, which her mother enforces harshly. Pedro, her love, agrees to marry Tita’s sister, so he can remain close to her. Her love and opinions suppressed,…

Feminists believe that women’s rights should be completely equal to those of men. Lois Tyson defines feminism as “...the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women”, In most modern day situations, women are capable and encouraged to make their own decisions. However, in past decades women have had to overcome many hardships in order to gain the same privileges as men. Nobel Prize winner…

I earned a 70-hour Teaching English as a Second Language Certificate from Gonzaga’s TESL program, and I also participated in the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) survey. This survey evaluates intercultural competency and it determined that my perspectives are classified as…

My Story: Writing about Mental Illness Heals Me I find it hard to contain my story in just one thousand-odd words. It seems that there could be a whole tome the size of the DSM to chronicle all the mental illness-tinged happenings in the life of Mary L. Sukala. Out of 19 years of existence, I had a few short years at the beginning that weren’t touched by some extent of personal issues. But there is one sunny side to the unpleasantness: the thousands of pieces of writing that have butterflied out…

expected to not conform to American society; If they do conform to the new society, it is seen as betrayal to their home country (Naber). Naber describes how Arab women must avoid being sexualized and stay pure, unlike Americans. According to these writings, when an Arab woman, named Lulu, identifies as queer to her family, it only heightens her gender oppression. Lulu, then, faces criticism and betrayal from her family. The influence of cultural identity, race, and sexual identity effects…

Women in Colonial America Colonial America was the basis of the American melting pot we now know so well. America was experiment in a new land. People from all over Europe and parts of Africa coming together and bringing their different cultures with them. One commonality in their cultures were roles women were expected to fill and their place in society. Women wore many hats; she should be a proper wife, a nurse to her family, a midwife to her community, faithful, obedient, a helpmate to her…

I am writing this final Letter of Reflection to discuss my background in reading and writing about literature, my strengths and weaknesses in writing, changes I have noticed in my writing style, process, and abilities this semester, and why I have chosen to revise my Initiation Story, poem research paper, and essay on Death of a Salesman for my final portfolio. While in high school, I took College Prep English courses as a freshman, sophomore, and junior. In those classes, I was required to…