Death in Women's Literature

In the beginning of this course on women’s literature, I predicted we would see trends of various themes throughout the works we read, including: violence, discrimination, body images, and gender equality. But after reading various novels, one of the themes that stick out most for me is death. It isn’t that death is thought of as being the same concept in everything. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Instead, the pieces analyze death in completely different ways, whether it is a way of communication, to do with reincarnation, or due to a mental illness, they all connect to death. I would never have thought that women’s literature could include an emphasis on death, but it truly does.

Firstly, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, portrays death to be something completely different from its common meaning. After news of the death of Septimus, Woolf writes, “Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded; one was alone. There was an embrace in death” (163). The way Woolf writes, she makes it seem that death is not a sad and solemn time for someone. Instead, it is a way of escaping; of escaping a life in which you feel alone. I can see how this connects to Mrs. Dalloway, and all women for that matter. Mrs. Dalloway goes through a realization of how trivial her life is. Going to buy flowers, throwing parties, they are all trivial things. Her life lacks meaning and purpose. And death is an escape. But Clarissa sees her escape not as death, but as Richard. “Even now, quite often if Richard had not been there reading the Times, so that she could crouch like a bird and gradually revive…she must have perished. She had escaped. But that young man had killed himself” (164). This dependency on men, in my opinion can be even worse than death. From what I have already written about for Jasmine, you need to be yourself. Individuality does not come from others and your choices in life should be your own. What is very interesting is how Clarissa claims that she feels like Septimus: “She felt somehow very like him- the young man who had killed himself” (165). He had shown defiance in his choice. His final choice was his own. Death in Mrs. Dalloway is an escape, but not the only escape in life. Clarissa is content with her life, she loves Richard, and he is good for her. Clarissa does not need death, but I think she needed to see it so that she could come to that realization.

Secondly, in Jasmine, we see death as a series of reincarnations throughout Jasmine’s journey of men. Each time she moves, she is with a new man, and she gains a new name or identity. “I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmime, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane. Half-Face for Kali” (197). I don’t think it is her identity, though, that dies every time she moves. I believe that Bharati Mukherjee is trying to emphasize the death of places, and the continuation of an identity. When we leave a place forever, we keep memories for as long as we can. But that is all we have left. In our minds, these places have vanished, never to be seen in person again. But I don’t think this should be a sad occasion. For Jasmine, the death of one place just means the birth of another. Another step on her journey. Another man to love. The memory of her life in Hasnapur stays with Jasmine throughout the story. In a recollection of bathrobes, Mukherjee writes, “I want to tell him that when I was a girl in Hasnapur only playboys in Bombay movies wore bathrobes. That meant, in short-hand, they had a bathroom, they had modesty, and they had air conditioning… I have triumphed” (231). But Jasmine keeps these memories to herself. Mainly because Bud does not fully understand, but partly, in my opinion, because Hasnapur is her own, the one thing that has stayed with her through everything.

Lastly, The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf explores the end result of intense mental illnesses like anorexia and bulimia. Both of these are extremely harmful to the bodies of women, a majority of which are very young. Wolf states that, “The disease is a deadly one. Brumberg reports that 5 to 15 percent of hospitalized anorexics die in treatment, giving the disease one of the highest fatality rates for a mental illness” (182). Being suicidal is a mental illness, just like anorexia. We don’t normally think about eating disorders in that way, but it is a form of suicide. But I find it horrible that we have come to this point, where teenage girls are starving themselves just so they can look like the models in magazines. And it is all thanks to the path that society has taken. Every year, the models have become thinner and the pressure has increased on young girls to be pretty. Appearances are so important in every sphere of life, including the office, your social life, and school. First impressions are important, and what do you first notice about a person? What they look like. But what is worse is that society does nothing to bring awareness about these problems. “When they fall, there are no memorial services, no intervention through awareness programs, no formal message from their schools and colleges that the society prefers its young women to eat and thrive rather than sicken and die” (181). We hide these illnesses, but it is only harming those of us who are healthy. Death for these women is an escape from pressure. Their desire to be skinny overshadows their logical thinking. And this is what leads them to their deaths. Naomi Wolf brings in a very interesting point when she refers to Virginia Woolf. 

“Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own had a vision that someday young women would have access to the rich forbidden libraries of the men’s colleges, their sunken lawns, their vellum, the claret light… Now young women have pushed pas the staff that barred Woolf’s way… they are halted by an immaterial barrier she did not foresee. Their minds are proving well able; their bodies self-destruct” (181). 

As women have become more equal in society, society has pushed right back and sickened the minds of millions.

Death is a choice. Death is an escape. Death is reincarnation. Death is the birth of a new place. Death is the continuation of a journey. Death is an illness. Death is what society wants. I have thoroughly gained a new perspective on death through women’s literature. It has been connected to so many different things, that I can see in my own life. Something that I think every piece of literature should achieve.

Double Standards for Men and Women

This past week, I was having lunch with a group of my friends, which included four girls and one guy. During the lunch, though, I could tell that the boy was uncomfortable being the only guy there. I later talked to him about it and he confessed that he felt that he couldn't enjoy himself, or he would consider himself to be "gay". But I feel completely comfortable being the only girl in a group of all guys. It just shocked me that one gender can do something, while the other feels that it is unacceptable for them to do so in our society. And not only are there double standards for men, but there are even more, in my opinion, for women. For example, if a guy "hooks up" with four girls in one night, his friends label him as a legend or a player. Good labels in the eyes of men. But if a girl ends up "hooking up" with four guys, her peers label her as a slut or a whore. He is upgraded while she is degraded.

Why does there need to be a difference when men and women do the exact same thing? If we are supposed to be equals, the consequences to our actions should be equal. But they aren’t. And I don’t think we should try and hide these double standards. Awareness is the first step towards a solution. But in my opinion, the solution to these double standards is time. Gender issues have become so engrained in our society that they won’t be easily fixed. I was recently having a discussion in my history class about gay rights. We addressed how people have just started to become comfortable with homosexuals in the past few decades. It took women centuries to get the vote. It took African Americans centuries to gain some equality. All minorities fight their fights with time. Gay rights will be fought with time, and I believe that time will hopefully solve our double standards. 


Andrea Dorkin, a firm feminist once said, "We have a double standard, which is to say, a man can show how much he cares by being violent -- see, he's jealous, he cares -- a woman shows how much she cares by how much she's willing to be hurt; by how much she will take ; how much she will endure." (Dorkin). I find it to be almost humorous if you think about how many things occur in our daily lives that include a double standard. Just by watching a movie, and seeing the drama that arises between a girl and a guy because he is jealous or because she isn't willing to "open her heart" to him. As Dorkin explains, men are allowed this violent approach, while women take a victim stance. Men and women are different. We all know that. But I do not believe that society should have different expectations for both sexes. We should and need to be equals.

Dependency on Men

In the novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, I found myself to feel frustrated with the main character due to her dependency on men throughout her journey. Every time Jasmine went to a new place, she found a new man to be with. From Prakash to Taylor to Bud. She was never on her own. Jasmine even realises it: "I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmine, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane. Half-Face for Kali" (197). It makes me think that she didn't truly know who she was, so she didn't feel comfortable alone. And I can trace this back to when Jasmine was raped, the last time where she felt truly alone. "No one to call to, no one to disturb us. Just me and the man who had raped me, the man I had murdered" (119). Jasmine went through such a terrible thing when she was raped, that it stuck with her throughout the rest of her journey. Being alone, she was vulnerable. This vulnerability is again seen when Jase spies the man who murdered Prakash. "I can't come out and challenge him. I'm very exposed, I'm alone all day, I'm out in the park-'" (189). This frightens Jase, enough for her man at the time to notice. But with a man, it wouldn't happen to her again, she wouldn't be scared. Although this may be the reason that Jasmine was so dependent on the men in her life, I feel that over time she was becoming comfortable with herself, and could have been on her own. But instead, in the end, she again ended up with a man. Mukherjee makes it seem that Jasmine goes off with Taylor for herself, but really Taylor is the one wanting her, and she gives herself up, yet again. Mukherjee writes: "I am not choosing between men. I am caught between the promise of America and old-world dutifulness. A caregiver's life is a good life, a worthy life. What am I to do?" (240). But she is choosing between men. Taylor is the one who came to Iowa to get her, she didn't go to him. And she isn't giving up her life of being a caregiver, because she is just going to be one with Taylor and Duff. The last sentence of the novel is false in my opinion: "I am out the door and in the potholed and rutted driveway, scrambling ahead of Taylor, greedy with wants and reckless from hope" (241). Jasmine is not being greedy because she isn't truly leaving for herself. I was very frustrated with the end not only because Jasmine leaves, but with the way she leaves. Jasmine claims that she wants to be a good person, "I can't leave. How can I?' I want to do the right thing. I don't mean to be a terrible person"' (239). But how is leaving a man with his unborn child to be with another man doing the right thing? To me, the ending really wasn't an ending because it was just another step to Jasmine's journey, her journey of men.

Not only do I see the dependency on men in the novel Jasmine, but I find it to be very prevalent in the lives of women today. Maybe not so obvious today, but a few decades ago, women would go to college so they could meet a husband. They needed that man in their lives that they could depend on. In our community, there are numerous wives who do not work and depend financially on the husband. When we get married, most change their last names to that of the husband. In movies we see little girls who dream about the perfect life, which includes the perfect husband. Fortunately, there has been much change in the independence of women. Women now want a career and a family. The divorce rate has risen and there are a lot more single mothers out there now than there were a few decades ago. Even though there has been some progress today, I know that I still want that perfect life that we see in the movies. I'm not ashamed to say that when I am older, I would love to have a husband is is financially strong enough so that I don't have to work and I can be a stay at home mother, a housewife. But I would still have my independence and freedom. I would maintain my individuality and not be like Jasmine, who is dependent on men for her own character.

Can You Be Yourself in Different Environments?

We are all exposed to many different environments throughout our lives. Whether it be with your best friends, at your parents' dinner party, at summer camp, or alone in your room; your surroundings are always changing. What intrigues me about this, though, is the question of whether or not you stay the same person in every environment you are in? I truly believe that you ultimately stay the same person, but due to who you are with and the type of people you are interacting with, your behavior can definitely change. To provide quite an obvious example, you act differently around your friends than you would around the friends of your parents. You know what is appropriate around adults, and therefore you probably wouldn't be seen in hysterics over a silly joke. But with your friends, you would probably laugh about the silliest things. And thats how it should be. You should be able to act weird or make immature jokes around your friends. I realize that behavior changes according to the age of people that you are with, but I have also realized that behavior can change with respect to the place you are in. The more comfortable you feel, the more yourself you can be. 

In the novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, the main character goes on a journey throughout America, in which her environment is constantly changing. But does her identity change for each surrounding she is in? Mukherjee explores the theme of identity through Jasmine's changing names and husband. "I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmine, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane. Half-Face or Kali" (197). Whether it be Jasmine, Jase, or Jane, you would think that the main character changes identity every time she moves. But, in my opinion, she brings her true identity with her along the entire journey. The one aspect that I found to shine through in every situation was her generosity and desire to be a caretaker for someone. With Prakash, she tries her best to be a good wife, with Taylor, she takes care of Duff and helps mend his broken heart, and finally with Bud, she is his full time caretaker due to his situation. Not only this, but I feel that Jasmine always has a trace of old traditions from her culture in India with her. Although some of the people she encounters in America may not agree with those traditions, she accepts their opinions, but doesn't change hers. When talking about Bud, Mukherjee writes: "He's always uneasy with tales of Hasnapur, just like Mother Ripplemeyer. It's as though Hasnapur is an old husband or lover. Even memories are a sign of disloyalty" (231). With Du, Jane has an understanding with him that she doesn't have with anyone else. They are both from similar backgrounds, and they understand the old traditions and the culture that they both come from. Overall, Jasmine proves that your true identity stays with you, no matter who you are with or where you are. Behaviors may change, but nobody and no place can take your individuality away from you.

The Girl Problem

In the most recent issue of The Standard, an opinions article was written about a "girl problem" that we seem to have in our community. The author of the article, Benjy Mercer-Golden, definitely makes some bold statements and argues that "Being academically competitive is in many ways harmful to your social life" (13). And what I took from this is: "Girls don't want to be academically successful because we care too much about our social lives. So we basically have no drive, no ambition, to succeed academically." Well I can tell you first hand, that this is completely false. Not only do I believe that girls in our community have academic drive, but I believe that sometimes they have more drive than the boys. Girls care so much about their academic lives, and it is much more apparent in them than in the boys. For example, I will most always walk down the hallways of school and hear a group of girls talking about grades they had just received, projects they had been assigned, or just interesting classes or teachers in general. But if I walk by a group of boys, I may hear something about school, but usually the rumblings of the most recent football match are creeping from them. Now this is not to say that boys in our community don't care about school, because they do. I do hear groups of boys talking about school, and I know that they worry about school probably just as much as the girls do. But the fact that Mercer-Golden has claimed that girls don't care, causes me to take a step back, and really look at the situation. New students at this school are often astonished at the amount of drive that my fellow peers and I have. We know that to get into a good school now-a-days, you need to work hard in high school. If that means missing one party in order to finish an essay, than so be it.

In the last paragraph of his article, Mercer-Golden states that: "Girls need to stop thinking of themselves as objects of desire for their male classmates and start taking themselves seriously" (13). When reading this article, I was astonished at what he thought about the girls in our school. And what angered me the most is how he blamed it on the girls, with no reference or acknowledgment of the fact that this issue has been engrained in our society for decades. I know that I don't see myself as an object of desire. I like to dress up, or put make up on to make myself feel good. Yes, there is a part of me that addresses the fact that people in our society judge others based on looks, especially if meeting for the first time. But I don't make myself look good just for others. It gives me confidence and energy. The way we dress can say a lot about a person. And a lot of girls at our school care about themselves and about what other people think. So of course they are going to make an attempt to look good. But we don't think of ourselves as "objects of desire" and we do take ourselves seriously. Our lives don't revolve around the thoughts or our male peers. We have our own goals in life, that don't have to do with the guys in our community. And when Mercer-Golden mentions that, "Almost without exception, if you are a good-looking girl you are popular; if you're not, you're not" (13). Our community does not revolve around looks. We value so much more in our fellow peers. And for someone to claim that if you are pretty, you automatically slip into the "popular" crowd is outrageous in my opinion.

In light of this article and the issues that have been brought up because of it, our school held a meeting where a panel of students discussed the issues in front of us and we had the opportunity to ask the panel some questions. I found this to be helpful in the fact that my peers were taking control, addressing the issues, and showing a desire to change them. We won't see change right away, but hopefully by creating awareness in our community, change will start to happen. But this doesn't just apply to our community, it applies to every community and society in the world. Small steps lead to big change. Even though I didn't agree with Mercer-Golden's article, I am almost glad that he had the courage to publish it. It raised so many apparent issues that we have in our community and without raising awareness, nothing can change.

Prom Season is Here

Every year, the shops are flooded with girls looking for the perfect dress and the perfect shoes to aid her on the perfect night. When this happens, you know prom is just around the corner. Every girl grows up watching movies and hearing stories about junior and senior prom. It has now become a right of passage, in more ways than one. Stereotypically, the girls look forward to dressing up, while the guys have one thing on their mind- sex. But I really don't think that this is an accurate picture of teenagers and prom. I truly believe it is a celebration of what we have accomplished so far in high school.

Even though prom is a great thing and can be a great night for so many people, I have some issues with it. Firstly, teenage girls put so much stress on themselves to look good. They search for weeks, sometimes months, for the perfect dress. They get their hair, nails, and make-up done. If you think about how much money girls spend on prom, its astounding! And it's just for one single night. In addition, I also think that prom can bring up issues with bullying, especially related with clothing. Every teenage girl is different; their body shapes are different and their taste in clothing is different. But with prom, some people don't recognize this and bullying occurs between girls. It may not be an apparent trend but it certainly exists. Every girl should get the opportunity to feel special on prom night. They shouldn't have to worry about what other people think about them. Just be comfortable and feel great. It's one thing that's great about prom, how it truly shows that clothes reflect who you are. Fashion is art. It involved creativity and imagination. And at prom, this is definitely made apparent. There are the girls who love the glitter and glam, or the girls who might want to show a little bit too much skin (in my opinion), or the girls who like the classic and elegant look. Either way, the point is that prom night is an event at which girls and express who they are in a different way than normal and feel special. We all need to feel special every once in a while.

Mothers Day

Yesterday, millions of people in America and many ex-Patriots living overseas celebrated Mother's Day. The day where we get to fully show our appreciation to our mothers for all the sacrifices that they make for us. I certainly know from experience that mothers give up a huge part of their lives for their children. I am a very competitive equestrian rider, which much of my time is devoted to. But I couldn't have gotten to where I am today without the help of my mother. Not only does she do the major organizational parts of my sport including planning my competitions and talking to trainers etc., but she also drove me an hour and a half round trip five days a week for eight years (until I got my licence). She sacrificed her whole entire afternoon, from 3:30 pm until 6:30-7:00 pm, five days a week. And this doesn't include the numerous day-long or weekend-long competitions that I travel to, which can be extremely exhausting. I feel truly blessed to have a mother who is so devoted to her children's lives, and so devoted to giving them the opportunity and the means to achieve whatever they desire. Theodore Roosevelt once said, "No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard or as responsible as the work of a woman who is bringing up a family of small children; for upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the day but often every hour of the night." And he is absolutely right. A mother's job never stops. And I honestly think it is the hardest, but the most gratifying job you can have in this world.


Of course the stereotype is that a mother and daughter constantly argue over trivial things such as curfews or punishments, and this does happen, a lot. But it is overshadowed by the love and support that a mother offers to her daughter. Whether it be about friends, boys, or more serious issues like sex, a mother never judges and loves her daughter unconditionally. The relationship that is built between a mother and a daughter is so special and necessary in a girls life, that it saddens me to know that there are so many girls out there without a mom. I honestly don't know and do not want to imagine what I would do without my mom. She is my rock to fall back on, always. The guidance from your mother is irreplaceable and I think that we should stop arguing about so many meaningless things. Being completely corny, life is short. We don't know what will happen in the future. And you don't want to look back a few years down the line and regret the things you missed out on with your mother. Abraham Lincoln once said, "I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me.  They have clung to me all my life." The things that our mothers do stay with us for life. My main point is, take the time to appreciate your mother, build on your relationship, and maybe thank her for just being her every once in a while.