Dutton

1 Drew Dutton Analysis Essay #1 29 January,2013 Ms. Stephens An Analysis of I Want a Wife By Judy Brady Judy Bradys short story, I Want a Wife, is a fine product of the feminist movement that occurred in the late 60s and early 70s. Brady cleverly demonstrates the hard work that a wife has to submit herself to while sacrificing her own dreams. Through the use of explanative rhetoric and satire, Brady demonstrates the things that a woman, specifically a wife, was expected to be ok with before the feminist movement and why women were not okay with the borderline oppression they were feeling. Brady uses literary devices to communicate the strife of women and was trying to provide propaganda for the feminist movement. From the third paragraph of her short story, Brady has already started using explanative rhetoric. It is apparent that the author wants a wife and deeply expresses this from the beginning but on the surface it may not make sense. When the reader begins to look past the surface of the text it is evident that Brady has begun employing this explanative rhetoric to showcase what it is that wives have to sacrifice for their families. Also evident is what wives have to submit themselves to because of their husbands. This list includes: being faithful while their husbands are not, having to be ready when their husbands are and they are not, and having to give up dreams of a career and higher education to raise a family. Everything that the narrator states here lands another punch

Dutton 2 to the gut of those who are against the feminist movement. This story in itself is intended to open the eyes of its readers to the realities of being a wife through the use of explanative rhetoric. Also used by Brady to promote the life of wives across the country, is satirical humor. Part of the humor in this story lies in the fact that there is a woman who wants a wife. On a surface level, one might think, Oh! The narrator is a lesbian! but that couldnt be farther from the truth. The authors intention was not to promote the idea of lesbianism or to present the idea of wanting to marry another woman. While that might be the picture the reader sees while reading the words, I want a wife it isnt the intention of the author to convey this meaning. The meaning was to have someone in the narrators life to be everything to her that she was to her husband. For example, on the second page, the narrator is really worked up and she starts saying things like, I want a wife who will satisfy my physical needs. The satirical part of this is the confusion of the woman wanting to have a wife and the image that comes to mind when one thinks of a wife. Also on the second page, the narrator talks about how frustrating it is to not be able to vent about her days work or her awful hardships. The narrator says, I want a wife who will not bother me with rambling complaints about a wifes duties. (191) Also satirical, is the almost venting nature of the narrator. With every word the narrator says, the story gets a little more uncomfortable and a little more into her own personal life. As the story progresses, it becomes evident that the narrator is venting the frustrations of her own life, her own job as a wife, and the way she lives her day to day

Dutton 3 life to the reader. For example, the narrator simply starts by saying, Why do I want a wife?(190) and progresses all the way to My god who wouldnt want a wife? (192) The satire here lies in the fact that the narrator is using what can be inferred as her own life to say why she wants a wife. The closing line, My God who wouldnt want a wife? (192) depicts how the narrator had been running through this list of things and venting her frustrations. The image of a woman furiously and vigorously running the iron over a shirt comes to mind by the end of this story. Judy Brady wrote, I Want a Wife not to express her own latent homosexual tendencies, but to express the state of oppression felt by the average housewife during the feminist movement. The importance of this short story was to further the feminist movement by providing the thoughts of the everyday housewife, and prove that women had a voice and dreams too. The main reason this was important was to show that women had a desire to break out and live outside of the mold that they were conformed to! Using the techniques of explanative rhetoric and satire, I Want a Wife was written as a form of propaganda to reveal to the world the average day to day duties of a housewife and the exasperations that went along with the job.

Dutton 4 Reflective Letter 1. The process of writing this piece was very similar to the writing of the pieces that I wrote in high school. For the most part I had to develop my own ideas and back them up with ideas from the text. Honestly, this is a lot like the process of writing an exegetical paper in the College of Christian Studies. I wrote the paper, revised it myself and then checked it with my brother to see if he thought anything else needed to be changed. I did kind of mess up on this one because I wasnt 100% solid on the rough draft turn in dates but I think my end product is ok anyways. 2. In this piece, I hope for the reader to see the thought process that I put behind it. I would like for the reader to see that it wasnt a spur of the moment paper that I wrote on the fly and that I did work hard on figuring out what part of the paper I wanted to analyze and how I thought it would be best to go about analyzing it. I would like for the reader to be able to follow my train of thought and see the sense of flow that I do from paragraph to paragraph. 3. I made the decisions in analysis that I made simply because the things I chose to analyze were the most obvious aspects of the short story. For the most part, these were things that I remember doing in high school and the skills just transferred over from my senior year. 4. The only other thing I have to say is that it was very difficult for me to even come close to the 3 page minimum. I feel like I got everything out of the way that I needed to say in about two and a fifth pages but I had to go in and fluff up some stuff because of the minimum requirement. This short story was not complex nor was it difficult to read into. Because of this, I was able to say what needed to be

Dutton 5 said well before the three page minimum. I do understand the need for the minimum however, I feel like this paper can be an exception to this rule.