Feminine Mystique and Black boy Comparison Essay -- essays papers

Feminine Mystique and Black boy Comparison Fighting for survival and status within the world has been in affect since the Stone Age. It starts with man against beast battling for survival. As time goes on, so does the type of battle, from beast to man against man. When conquerors from Europe come over to North America they push the Indians west because they, the Indians, do not fit into the society the white man creates and there are differences that are noticeable. Later on there becomes discrimination against blacks with the Jim Crow Laws and the silencing of women. Throughout history there are more examples where people do not fit into the â€Å"norm† of society. Betty Friedan and Richard Wright in their novels The Feminine Mystique and Black Boy both experience different forms of oppression. As Betty Friedan discusses a problem that has no name, but mainly how a woman is enslaved in a man’s society, while Richard Wright tries to overcome the Jim Crow south by attacking racial identity. â€Å"But forbidden to join man in the world, can women be people† (Friedan 50)? Friedan illustrates this point throughout her book. The fore-sisters of Friedan fought for the passage of the nineteenth amendment which was passed in August of 1920. The passage of this amendment was largely due to the women’s contribution to the war effort, the goal was declared about seventy-two years before, during the Seneca Falls convention in 1848. Throughout this time, women became immersed in their education and their own self-worth. Searching for jobs and not husbands is the focus. During this period the national birth rate declines since the women are not home at the man’s beck and call. As the ti... ...pirit to gain that knowledge will fall deep within the cracks and will not be able to survive. But Richard Wright fights to fulfill his hunger of education that is denied to him. The roles of the African Americans are mapped out for them, making them follow to the set aspirations society has for them. Just as society does for the women in Friedan’s novel were to aspire to be a housewife. Overall, Friedan and Wright though coming from two different times and places both focus on oppression of the mind. The oppression that brings this world against one another is destroying each person. With education being told as being for the â€Å"white man† only and our roles outlined by society, we try not to go against them. But we should not let our culture hold us back if we feel a void by not achieving what we as a person and equal in this world want.