Heroic Women

The women that our class has read about recently are all victims of an oppressive life when comparing their lives to the lives that women lead today. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century women were often subjected to marriages for social reasons such as to advance in money or because that what was proper for a woman of her station to do. As many of the girls as well as boys stated in our class, that if we were put in the same situations that these women were subjected to we would fight with our all, and escape the lives that they faced. However, in that time period or cultures, a woman could not easily escape the life she lead. Edna, from The Awakening, and Nora, from A Doll House, wish to leave their families to become independent to lead their own lives, one is successful in leaving and the other not. Both of these women struggled from the social pressures of being a good wife and mother in their culture. Though we do not necessarily view either women as heroines today, they truly were in the sense that they fought just by thinking that wanted more, wanted better. They wished to escape the livelihood they were forced into, they wished to escape the mold of women in their socities. Another example of a woman in a marriage that she did not wish for is Mariam in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Mariam is forced into an arranged marriage by her father and his wives. Rasheed is an abusive husband both physically and mentally. Besides never wishing to marry Rasheed, Mariam leads a pitiful and hard life. Compared to today and in the American culture, we view her plight horrific. A woman today in a marriage as abusive as Mariam's would be pressured to leave her husband, not to stay with him and obey. Women have an escape route from their marriages if need be, though it does not necessarily mean that they can always easily get out, but it is possible. It is and was much more difficult for a woman to leave her husband in Afghanistan. All of these women I view as heroes because they dared to be different, to think they have the power to be independent, to escape. Even if they did not succeed or did, they still battled against the pressures of their societies. They proved that women can be strong and be who they want to be.