Jamiya Crosby Term paper Due: 11/17/11 The expected role of a woman, is to take care of the children, clean

the house, and be the average housewife. I think not. History has been mainly written by men and about men's activities Women are usually excluded, and when mentioned, are commonly portrayed in sex stereotypical roles, such as wives, mothers, daughters and mistresses. This needs to change, and many female writers are helping break this stereotype. Regarding the works we have read throughout this semester, the gender of the writer has greatly influenced the role of women in their works. This is demonstrated through; the journey motif in Jasmine and The Ballad of Mulan, the ability for women to make their own choices in The Woman Warrior: No name woman and Balzac and The Little Seamstress, and the reversal of the gender role in A Temporary Matter and The Wind Up Bird.

The journey motif is a symbol for a physical journey, that in turn is a mental journey to a place of higher understanding. It is demonstrated through the novel Jasmine, through its main character Jasmine. It is also demonstrated through the Chinese Ballad of Mulan,through Mulan. They both go through a journey, but each has a different result. The reason why there journeys differ can be argued to be a result of the authorial voice.

We are first introduced Jasmine as Jane.When the book opens, Jasmine now known as Jane is living with a teenaged Vietnamese boy and a wheelchair-bound man twice her age. At age twenty-four, Jane is struggling to fit in and adjust to life in Baden, Iowa. Having suffered poverty, the death of her father and husband in India, plus rape and near starvation on the ship to America, adjusting to a new life and culture isn't that easy. Jasmine is about a young woman forced to keep reinventing herself to survive and adjust to changing circumstances. Even her name changes from Jyoti, to Jasmine, to Jane as she tries to figure out who she wants to become.

In Jasmine her physical journey is parallel to, and coincides with her mental one. She starts out as a young bride dependent on her husband, doing what he tells her. After he dies she goes to america changing her name and starting her journey. In America she meets half face who is almost a catalyst to embracing her feminism, and becoming stronger as a woman. Shes constantly going somewhere though arbitrary moments lead to her departure. Her journey can be seen literally as finding her idea of the american dream. Finding where she belongs going from place to place. In her journey she always had a lover, and with each lover, she gets more independent as an individual. She seemed to get stronger as a woman with each part of her journey. She explores throughout her journey what it means to exist, whether or not we have control over that existence, and in what ways and to what extent we determine how we exist.

The Ballad of Mulan tells the tale of a brave warrior that pretends to be a man to go war in place of her father. When Mulan first comes home she takes off her soldier armor and puts on a dress. Her family is cooking her a congratulatory meal, while she. This reinforces the role of women in society as a homemaker. In the Chinese culture Mulan is seen as the epitome of the ideal woman, a combination of strength and beauty. As a woman pretending to be a man to fight in the war, her physical journey takes her all over, but she still ends up home. Where she originally started. In Mulan's journey there seems to be a circular tone, in which everything is restored to the way once was.

The concept of the journey is different in The Ballad of Mulan and Jasmine. Jasmine goes thorough a more feminist journey, in search of her own happiness and meaning of her existence. Her journey helps her grow as a person and takes her to a place of greater understanding. Mulan's journey isn't really a journey somewhere, but a journey back. She ends up back where she starts. Jasmine is written by a female writer, while The Ballad of Mulan has an unknown author, but one can assume that

the author is male due the time period its written. This affects how woman are portrayed. The journey itself demonstrates this theory. This shows that the journey a woman thinks a woman should go through, is different from the journey a man thinks a woman should go through.

Jasmine goes on a journey to better herself with men as an independent variable. Every time she chooses to leave its of her own free will, and she is not afraid to leave a man behind. Mulan goes through a purely physical journey that is dependent on men in every aspect. She left to go to war in place of her father. She seems to have a choice, but she has no true free will. Her life doesn't seem to matter, her getting married, having a family, having children. The story makes it seem as though sacrificing herself for a man is the honorable thing. This could make one argue that if she choose not to go in place of her father would she be dishonorable? What about her life? Then at the end of the story she goes back home to assume her homemaker role, reestablishing the status quo. Her character is used as a role model on how women should be. Willing to sacrifice themselves for a man. This idea, though still practiced is very primitive.

How a woman is portrayed is completely up to the author, and as a reader one can only agree or disagree with their portrayal. Though it sometimes seems that a woman is free to make her own choices, through Balzac and The Little Seamstress one can see that at first glance the little seamstress has her own freedom and choices, but her choices and so called freedom can be interpreted in another way. In The Woman Warrior, the no name woman can be understood as submissive and a demonstration on how a woman should be punished and reflective of her misdoings upon going against society. However, this too can also be interpenetrated in another way.

The Little Seamstress tells a tale of two childhood friends during their teen years, who have been sent to a small Chinese village for "re-education" during Mao's Cultural Revolution. They are sons of

doctors and dentists. They are seemingly more educated than the villagers having been exposed to western literature and culture. Their present days are spent carrying buckets of waste up the mountainside and mining coal. But when the villagers discover their talents as storytellers; they are sent on monthly treks to town, tasked with watching a movie and relating it in detail on their return. It is here that they encounter the little seamstress, whom Lou falls for instantly. The boys steal a suitcase full of forbidden Western literature, prompting Lou to "re-educate" the ignorant girl whom he hopes will in turn can match him on an intellectual level.

Throughout this story there was something lacking, and that was the female presence. In the story we only get to know the girl as the little seamstress, not by her name. However the males in the story are not called something like re-educated young men, but by their names, Lou and Ma. There is no strong female characters, just the little seamstress who is very submissive. When Lou decides to re-educate her she doesn't question his authority and just does as he tells her. The fact that she is female can be considered a factor to why she is re-educated. No woman in this story is seen as educated, and there are no tales of a woman being sent away to be re-educated either. Even the person Lou and Ma stole the banned books from is a male. When the little seamstress becomes pregnant, she doesn't wait until Lou comes back to make a decision, but hurriedly has an abortion while he is still away. This can be taken as the little seamstress being afraid of whatever Lou would say, because she would have to abide by it. As to say she didn't want to hear him tell her to get rid of the child, but grasped at her false sense of free will to have an abortion, which is most likely what Lou would have told her to do anyway. At the end of the story, the little seamstress leaves to venture on her own, but her escape itself is a false freedom because getting her to gain knowledge was Lou's intention all along, so her leaving just makes her his pawn.

The first chapter in The Woman Warrior is the story of "No Name Woman." Kingston's mother, Brave Orchid, tells her daughter about an aunt on Kingston's father's side of the family. This aunt, whom

Kingston names No Name Woman because her real name is never spoken by the family since she is to be forgotten, becomes pregnant while her husband goes to work in America. When no name woman no longer can hide her pregnancy from her family and her village, the villagers destroy the family home as punishment for her adultery. After giving birth in a pigsty, she kills herself and the baby by drowning in the family well.

On the surface the story tells a tale of the consequences of adultery, and atonement for those sins, but there is more than what meets the eye. Throughout the story the no named aunt is talked about in the community and is seen as a disgrace to the family. Although even when her house is ransacked she never opens her mouth to tell who the father of her child is, which is a testament to her strength. To maybe shift the focus of the towns anger away from her and onto someone else. At the end of the story she kills herself and her child. This can seen as a submissive act to follow tradition and atone for her sins. But in actuality it is out of spite, she kills herself in the families well, during a drought where water is scarce. She could of easily jumped off a cliff, or hung herself. But drowning herself in the well shows her freewill in accepting her punishment, but at the same time punishes the village for the way they treated her by contaminating their water supply.

The little seamstress and the no name aunt can be seen as having opposite roles that tie together. The little seamstress seems to have her own sense of freedom but actually doesn't. Her freewill is dependent upon what a man feels she should do.The no name aunt seems to have no freedom and blindly follows societies rules, but in the end makes her own decisions.With this, one can see that Balzac and The Little Seamstress was written by a male writer. And in turn, The Woman Warrior is written by a female writer. A man has aways been seen as head of the household, strong, and leads a woman. The men in the next stories portray a different type of man. A stay at home husband taking on the woman's role in the

family. In The Wind Up Bird, and A Temporary Matter we see the reversal of the gender role and how it plays out. Each story ending unhappily.

The Wind Up Bird is about a husband that can't go to work. He is psychologically maimed and yearns for something that is missing, he's in search of himself. The story itself has no plot and is full of arbitrary moments. His wife works to support their family. The cat is lost and his wife orders him to go find it, the cat itself signifying the loss of his freedom. Since he doesn't work the story revolves around the concept that there is something wrong with him. And he has no freedom, just searching for himself. This itself sets the tone that the reversal of the gender role is only possible in a broken male character. The story ends with the phone ringing signifying that the marriage is going nowhere. This unhappy ending can be seen as reversing the gender roles does not end well.

A Temporary Matter further validates this point with its similar storyline. The husband stays at home and is a graduate student while the wife works. Due to a power outage they play a game telling each other something they've never told anyone before. The game starts out seemingly innocent but turns nasty with each story personally attacking hurting the other spouse. In the end the wife leaves for them to lead separate lives, yet another unhappy ending in a story with gender role reversal.

The gender of the writer greatly influences the role of women in their works. In Jasmine, and The Woman Warrior one can see women being uplifted and free to make their own decisions. These works having been written by female writers. In The Ballad of Mulan, and Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress, the woman has no freewill and is dependent upon the male for direction. These works having been written by male writers. The Wind Up Bird and A Temporary Matter demonstrate how when the gender role is reversed it seems absurd and ends unfortunately. With both of these works written by men, it brings into question, how a gender role reversal story would play out if it had a female author? Would it

end so wretchedly, with the couple being dysfunctional and breaking up? Or would it shed light onto the possibility of a healthy relationship with the gender roles reversed?