Comparison of Literature with a Female Protagonist

When a woman is not reliant by a man

 Culture determines our gender and biology determines our sex (Anonymous). The feminist literary movement is the product of the authors’ unique opinion about how they see women in society. The representation of a woman in literature is associated with their social roles as portrayed most of the time in traditional stereotypes, such as her ability to do anything in the house as a mother, wife, or as a girlfriend or companion. On the other hand, we find male characters with more complex masculine roles and is not undermined by oppressive views. From the view of the society, the feminine is beauty has norms and expectation. The feminist literature criticism prostrates a woman as embody patriarchal attitudes, a beautiful being which looks resplendent in front of a man; furthermore, women are presented as subjects perceived from a male perspective.

 The authors of literature where a woman is a protagonist have different points of view from a woman to man and vice versa. These differences are described in different ways. The feminist view attempts to be more balanced by reexamining the nature of women; however, the typical male viewpoint explores more bias in favor of the male. We have an example from Hemingway in the story of the “Cat in the Rain”. The author is narrating the frustration of a wife that the husband does not express affection and does not pay attention when she is trying to share something with him. In contrast, the story of “Good Country People”by Flannery O’Connor Joy represents a strong woman that is willing to stand up without the figure of a man with her disabilities. Although the stories have different narratives, the authors are reflecting Freudian concepts, such as actions and emotions. Together, they differ by seeing a woman from her feminine nature from the eyes of a male and a female author.

 The stories of “The Girl with Bangs,”by Zadie Smith and “Cat in the Rain” by Ernest Hemingway are short stories in which the reflection of the characters’ inner voice is illustrated. In Smith’s story, the narrator’s voice, while the unknown as to whom exactly it belongs to, sounds masculine. It is interesting how Charlotte, in contrast with the dominant male voice set forth by the narrator, is a feminist. Likewise, Hemingway wrote his story from the male point of view. He uses his characters and devices to illustrate his viewpoints, such as the cat to represent of what typical American housewife wants in her marriage while George, the husband, does not pay attention to his wife. Thus, both stories have been narrated from the point of view of a man while illustrating the lives of women, all of which exemplifies how Freudian principles affect these characters. 

According to Freud, the mind is structured by the conscious. Like an iceberg, in the depths below the surface is where the real depth of a person is as opposed to the minimal amount we see at face value. These areas tend to be the more primitive areas that include the id that obeys pleasure. An unconscious is a place where the intellectual biological impulses exist. “The ego negotiates with the id and with the superego. Thus, the ego deals with conscious thoughts and regulates the id and superego” (Coleman p. 236-238). This means that the ego is controlled by our internal voice to trying to find the rational ways to help an individual to get what it wants.

 The short story was written by Zadie Smith, “The Girl with Bangs,”is a fantastic story of a girl that does whatever she wants. The typical image of a woman is not showing in this story. According to Annis Pratt, a feminist critic exemplifies contrapuntal irony “while novels of male identity-formation can include traditional paths of erotic love and marriage, novels of female identity-formation must entail social rebellion, particularly against accepted patterns of sex and marriage” (Kitch pp. 14) The author of this story showed a girl that lacks morals and is not worried about what others thinks about her. Charlotte Greaves is a girl that has bangs in her life and Maurice became fascinated with her bangs. Maurice knew that she was not intelligent. She is unkempt and would have sex with anybody. “While all the time allowing that kid to sleep with other kids and that this could be done… dullness was easy to spot (clothes, hair) and impossible to avoid, running right through them like watermark” (Kirszner p. 263). However, Maurice has focused on Charlotte’s bangs, and he thinks that had fixed on him. We do not understand why he likes her because according to the narrator Maurice is well dressed, charming and handsome. “He had this great accent, Maurice, elaborately, French… a jawline that seemed fashion at the time… Maurice was an impressive kind of a guy” (Kirszner p. 263). In all practical aspects, Charlotte has all the bad traits, while Maurice has all the good ones. The character of this girl exemplifies the feminist viewpoint because Charlotte is not a kind of girl who meets the expectations of society. Having considered the stereotype of the story, it is also reasonable to look at, the ego predominant in Charlotte. “Charlotte’s bangs kept Charlotte in the world of Charlotte” (Kirszner p. 265). In reality, Smith talks about Charlotte that she is free to do what she wants, she dressed, and she looks because for that reason she made her bangs. The author does not explain why to make Charlotte acts like that without think in consequences of her ego because she knew Maurice loves her for how she and no for how she looks and acts.

 A regular couple fall in love, have a romance for a while and then live as a happy couple. Smith created the idea that in a short time you can forget, trust a person, fall in love unconditionally, broke a heart, and then move on. So, maybe she is trying to say that we only need to live our lives without stereotypes from society. In comparison with “Cat In The Rain” by Ernest Hemingway, the story showed the ego of George making his wife unhappy in her marriage.

In the story of “Cat in the Rain” is a short story in somehow appears a cat as a representation of a kindness an affection to express the needs of a woman. An American couple goes to the beach to spend time together. Nevertheless, the writer does not specify it is a new marriage or is an old couple. From the view of feminist criticism, the “Traditional gender roles cast men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive; they cast women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing, and submissive” (4 Feminist Criticism p.85). Hemingway stereotypes a woman as a property where a male can do anything and a woman should respect the males willing. This is why gender roles can be successful in the stories. The stories give us a justification of such as a part of the female from equal leadership and making decisions, and the male pay a higher role in society. We believe that a woman has an inborn inferiority. The writer focuses the attention in one cat where the stories begin. The cat can be the baby that she is looking or a thing that she is looking for because the husband is not kind to her. George is a bored man reading a book. The wife tries to take his attention, but any time that she tries so, she is ignored. After she had not got the attention of her husband, she went to look for the cat outside of the hotel and she met the hotel owner. She liked him because of the attention that is giving to her but she knows that she cannot cross that line looking for something else. Obviously, every woman likes attention, in this case, the narrator does not explain if the hotel owner is given her too much attention because he likes her or is because being an owner taking care of his company. However, she feels the difference of how George is treating her, so she is thinking to looks pretty, change her haircut and buy new clothes. It is an indicator that she is going to find a way to look pretty for other that is not the husband. I believe she freedom her mind and look that George is changing her essence. “She went over and sat in front of the mirror of the dressing table looking at herself with the hand glass” (Hemingway p.130). She asked George that maybe she needs to grow her hair and buy more clothes, but George sounds like he likes her short hair. This is telling us that she needs to obey him. The voice and the tone that George is talking his wife is not the proper way to refer a loved one. He is unresentful with his wife. More of once refers to her in bad mood “you look pretty darn nice”, “oh shut up and get something to read” (Hemingway p.131). Hemingway is giving to the reader that male is capable to dominate a woman with her emotions, feelings and how she needs to act. We feel the pain that this woman is suffering. At the end of the story, she is looking outside of the window trying to find anything to get away or release her frustration.

The personage of George is predominant the Ego. Multiple times George show his ego, first, he does not care about the wife because of his reading. Second, he answered in a bad tone to his wife and finally, he likes how the wife looks so, we assume that she should not do change her look. We can feel the pain of the wife because the writer expresses “His wife looked out of the window where the light had come on in the square” (Hemingway p.131). In contrast with the stories of Steinbeck and O’Connor, the woman experiences the internal sadness and seems that the personages have a difficult time trying to find happiness.

In the stories of “Chrysanthemums” and the “Good Country People” are describing a woman with a characteristic of ugly appearance for the eyes of a male and with internal reasons to do it. Likewise, the adaptation of Freudian psychoanalysis into the social background of these stories and the narrator’s experiences provides us with a new perception to analyses the inner nature of the personages of Elisa Allen by John Steinbeck and Joy/ Hulga by Flannery O’Connor.

 Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” is a short story in where the main character has an appearance between ugly and grotesque. Those perspectives are out of the regular expectation of the feminine gender. According to Pratt, in female novels of development, “some grails may symbolize a loss of the feminine and the sacred vessels of the vestal virgin. These grails empower a female protagonist with a subliminal authority that permits her to defy social expectations that thwart her growth” (Kitch p.14) From the beginning of the story O’Connor explains that is a dysfunctional family, and the protagonist had been shot in one leg when she was a little girl, the role of a father is missing and the mother understands why the protagonist acts with bad mood until she feels in love. Joy/Holga is a thirty-two-year-old single woman, with Ph.D. in philosophy, with a prosthetic leg, and is living with her mother, Mrs. Hopewell. According to Mrs. Hopewell a woman should be primarily Christian, caregiver for the family, and dress feminine for a male. However, Hulga is exactly the opposite. She is making herself unattractive and finds a way to do not fit in her mother’s expectations. Mrs. Hopewell all the time encourages her daughter to look pretty, she tells Hulga “a smile never hurt anyone” (O’Connor p. 174). However, she smiles Pointer once he takes her attention.

 In this story, we find with the support of such Freudian concepts of libido in Hulga. According to Freud, “libido gives to the human mental energy of the sexual drive, fundamentally of those instincts which have to do with all that may be comprised under the world love” (Colman p. 442). It means, that all human being be plentiful with and is influenced by the sexual impulse. The revival of Hulga’s libido is noticeable by the evident change in her attitudes after Pointer’s kiss and in the defense of her wooden leg. When Pointer kisses Hulga for the first time, she is holding herself in the sky “Even before he released her, her mind, clear and detached and ironic anyway, was regarding him from a great distance, with amusement but with pity” (O’Connor p. 187). She has never experienced this before, gradually, he touched her by luring and tenderness. So, Hulga begins to trust in Pointer and enjoy their kisses. Thus, in this process, the libido in Hulga is getting awake slowly. When Pointer asks Hulga to demonstrate her love by showing where her prosthetic leg joins on, because the wooden leg was something intimate for her, she hesitates his proposition for a while. However, she likes the attention that Pointer is giving to her, so after all, she yields his request and she does not deny taking off her wooden leg after she agrees, she surrenders totally to him, “it was like losing her own life and finding it again, miraculously, in his” (O’Connor). At this moment, Hulga’s libido is completely activated and her emotion ultimately vanquishes her reason.

 In the feminist literature, we find the Pointer taking advantage of how Hulga feels in the moment. He is trying to involve feeling to get what he is looking for, showing his cynicism is totally dishonest, and is only looking for the wooden leg. For Hulga her leg is sacred, and a male is only looking in her the most sacred thing that she has. It may be because he is a fetishist and likes to collect certain things or is because he found in Hulga this is her most precious thing. In literature is often common to find that male walks a way after he gets what he is looking for in a woman. In contrast with the “chrysanthemums”, a woman gave a male her sacred thing and then he does not pay attention her anymore.

 The “chrysanthemums” by Steinbeck are in the Salinas Valley where the protagonist, Elisa Allen appears as a proud and strong woman that feels frustrated with her life. Steinbeck initial description of Elisa is of a woman covered by the farming clothes of a man, which de-feminizes her as a woman. She tends a small garden near the house and grows amazing chrysanthemums. Henry, her husband, is a dominant male that is taking care of a ranch and things that a garden is a small and easy work for her. Elisa looks to deal with a narcissist male and seems to have an ordinary life, a woman that helps her husband in the ranch. However, at the begging of the story, it becomes to look that her skills and her potential are being suffocated by Henry. According to Jehlen “most fictional situations perpetuate the sexual division of characteristics through a formula that ultimately implicates all characters in the dilemmas of maleness and, therefore, in the delusional male universal model of human experience” (Kitch p.10). The protagonist of the Steinbeck’s story claims to have a planter’s hand, a feel for when flowers need to be trimmed and budded. It is because a woman is delicate and she is taking care of her. In the meanwhile, a traveler drives up the road and identifies himself as a repairman of sorts. He asks Elisa if she needs anything to be fixed, but she says no. Then, he sees that she has a garden and asks about it. Elisa gets excited that the man is interested in her flowers and explains that she has planter’s hands. She becomes welcoming when he acts interested in growing the chrysanthemums, apparently, she likes the attention that he is given to her. In a moment looks like she is flirting. At this moment we see that the libido of Elisa is awake.

 Eventually, the man leaves and her husband returns. As they head down the road, she sees the chrysanthemum sprouts that she had given to the traveler on the side of the road. Thus, he took advantage of her enthusiasm and what she has given him and regards Elisa’s feelings. He took her most precious thing that is the flower and it can be represented as part of her sexuality. It shows how phony his intentions were. Maybe for a moment, he helped to fix whatever was missing in Elisa’s life, but like he is sharpening and fixing of appliances, those fixes were only fake or temporary. He gave Elisa the attention that she so craved.

  Henry returned of work, she gets dressed up and the husband notices how pretty she looks. She takes it as an offense, claiming that she has always been strong. The gender roles are a very important part of the story. She looks a male for how she looks in her clothes and at the same time, she is not quite man either, as she can only look on as her husband makes the cattle sale with the other businessmen. Thus, the chrysanthemums represent Elisa’s role as a female model.

The feminist literature critic approaches the woman’s role in society. The feminist view attempts to be more balanced by reexamining the nature of women. Psychologists are agreed that the way that societies around the world share certain striking similarities. Gender development occasionally has unwanted conceptual, where society provides the children understand themselves as gendered beings, and at the same time has itself to lead in the reaction from the children into adulthood where parents and later teachers change the public opinion about accepted gender roles. However, in the society, the woman has been marked to be attractive to her husband, loving with the couple, wearing feminine clothes, and etc.

The compare and contrast of a woman in a story between authors seem them from her natures, such as proud, strong, or beauty. By applying Freudian psychoanalysis in the stories described before, we identified some aspects, such as the concepts of libido and defense mechanism in each of the novels, such as the ego. The author’s experience offers the readers a new perspective of human nature, such actions, and emotions.

In the stories of the “good country people” and “the chrysanthemums,” the narrators portray a woman as physically unattractive to the eyes of a male. It can be possible that the author of each story is trying to demonstrate the reader that a woman is not pretty for how she looks, she is pretty for what is inside of the heart. According to the feminism criticism, the physical appearance limits the woman’s values and portrays a feminine aspect as a metaphor. On the other hand, the libido is awake in both stories; the most precious possession thing that they had and it was given away to a male, someone that they barely knew. In the story of “good country people”, Hulga was tricked by Pointer, and she was thinking to reconsider change her life after meeting him. He was only another male for the expectation of Hulga, because he only wants her for her wooden leg. Same happens in the story of “the chrysanthemums” Elisa awoke her libido when the traveler gave the attention that she was looking for. So, she gave him a piece of her garden. In the garden was planted a flower, the most treasurable thing that she had been thrown away in the road for a stranger. The protagonist of both stories, despite the feminism literature criticism, says only perpetuates society’s stereotyping females. Both stories described a woman that takes no responsibility for their unfortunate situations and are weak and strong at the same time. What controls Hulga and Elisa are not society, it is the fear of their circumstances of life. It is that Elisa is afraid to stop with her role in the house and take responsibility for her life. In contrast with Hulga, she seems strong, however, when Pointer tricked her with the wooden leg is showing us that she is weak, vulnerable and was not as cynical as she thought she was.

Furthermore, in the stories of the “cat in the rain” and “the girl with the bangs” the authors agree on one thing. The protagonist in the stories is egocentrics. Allowing the reader to understand the behavior of a human being from the point of view of the feminism literature criticism is not easy. It is because the role gender in society sat up the model of a person, such as act, look and obey.

 “The cat in the rain” is given the audience the aspect that a woman should obey a male.  George badly treats his wife. He is taking that she is part of his position and most the time is dominating her personality. She is trying to change her appearance because is looking for more attention. The American wife is thinking to look pretty; it can be because her husband does not pay attention. She shows a displacement of affection by attachment to the cat. The cat can symbolize the desire as a married woman; the affection and compassion that she does not have. In this case, Hemingway demonstrated the American wife submissive under the ego of George. The story ‘the girl with the bangs” described a strong girl without morals. Charlotte is not a smart girl. She seeks pleasure making bangs for her convenience and is not worried to follow the rules that society imposes to a female. Society has the expectations that a woman respects a male word and be loyal to him. She should look pretty and have a sexual relationship with only one male. Despite the description before Charlotte is not this woman that a mother wants for her son but Maurice showed interest for her because she is different. He does not care about her physical aspect; he loves her because the bangs are fixed for him too. In addition to the story, the narrator shows that the ego dominates Charlotte doing wherever she wants to do.

Overall, the feminist literature criticism showed in different ways, that a woman’s appearances should change over the time, however, society draws a woman and their positions compared to marriage and motherhood. I believe the society limited a woman conducting themselves to get married, have kids and spending their time principally as caregivers for their families. Having considered the gender role in society, portrays a male as strong, cynic, dishonest and no vulnerable to differ with a woman. To me, is difficult to understand why a woman needs to have requirements to live. I mention it because a girl is trained from the house to raise a kid, cook, do laundry, and etc. Sounds crazy but a little girl you buy baby dolls to play, little kitchens, and a little house to play the mother role and nothing to rich a dream, while a boy you buy things to dream like a balloon to be playing games in the NBA, or a car to rise in the NASCAR. Nobody tells a girl that when their get married they can chooses enjoy the life that they want to have without taboos. My final thought is that the beauty of a woman is not physical, and society should be worried to teach a male to make a woman feels unique and pretty for who she is.

Works Cited

• Colman, Andrew M. “Dictionary of Psychology”. fourth ed., Oxford University Press, 2015.
• Hemingway, Ernest. “The Complete Stories of Ernest Hemingway.” The Finca Vegia Edition. Simon Schuster Inc, 1987, pp.
• Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. “Compact Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing.” ninth ed., Cengage Learning, 2017, pp.
• Kitch, Sally L. “Feminist Literary Criticism as Irony.” Rocky Mountain Review, vol. 41, no. 1-2, 1987, pp. 7–19.
• O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories.” Franklin Center, 1981, pp.
• Research document, “4 Feminist Criticism.” Unknown Author, October 23, 2018.
• Steinbeck, John. “The Chrysanthemums and Other Stories.” Harper’s Magazine, 1937.