Oppression to Strength

The novel A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf gave me insight to what life was like as a woman growing up in the 20th century. I've always known women were oppressed to an extreme degree centuries ago, but actually reading an account, albeit a fictional one, truly gave me insight. The novel portrayed women's disadvantages through examples of simple ideas such as what food was served to a specific gender. The fact that collegiate men were served a feast and the women left with a simple broth said a lot.

In class this week we discussed if it was possible for a man or a women to right a strong character of the opposite sex. Upon first thought, I believed 'sure why not,' however as I contemplated further an example formed in my mind. Of Mice and Men is one of my favorite books and it happens to be written by a man named John Steinbeck. The novel contains hardly any female characters and the only notable one happens to be the antagonists, Curley's, wife. She's a promiscuous woman who flirts with any man that comes in contact with her. She's portrayed as weak and lonely and has no redeeming qualities. Her character is so incompetent that she's not even given a name, she's just always referred to as "Curley's wife."

I have read other Steinbeck novels, such as The Grapes of Wrath, and in that novel he does manage to write several well represented female characters. Perhaps since the novel was written two years later than the one previously mentioned Steinbeck simply was able to write women in a better light. Maybe he realized that women were of greater value than he originally thought two years before, or maybe he simply just thought that stronger women fit this story better. Whatever thought process he went through  I'm happy that he eventually had the integrity to create female characters that provided for their families and stuck up for themselves and their loved ones when times became tough.