“The Wife” by Emily Dickinson and “Another Evening at the Club” by Alifa Rifaat explore the constraints and societal expectations placed upon women within different centuries. While Emily Dickinson’s poem was written in the 19th century and Alifa Rifaat’s story was written in the 20th century, they both shed light on the limited roles and sense of entrapment experienced by women. In the poem “The Wife”, Emily Dickinson writes: “She rose to his requirement, dropped. The playthings of her life. To take the honorable work. Of woman and of wife.” In this quote, Emily Dickinson was speaking of a woman who willingly sacrificed her own personal desires to fulfill the societal expectations of being a wife and a woman. This theme was echoed in “Another Evening at the Club” through the character of Samia, who was expected to conform to traditional gender roles and societal expectations. In “Another Evening at The Club,” Samia is portrayed as a woman who is required to abide by her husband’s every need and desire, for example in the story mentions the following quote “The gesture told her more eloquently than any words that he was the man, she the woman, he the one who carried the responsibilities, made the decisions, she the one whose roles it was to be beautiful, happy, carefree.”, based of this quote you can deduce how much control her husband has over her, causing her to retain in the traditional gender role and social norms where men makes the decisions as to woman needs to listen and support the decision that was made by him.
2 thoughts on “Kevin Lam Discussion 2”
I liked that you noted the importance of these two stories. You definitely emphasized the roles and expectations of women in society during these times! You also pointed out the realization of Samia in “Another Evening at the Club” that no matter how she feels or think she must abide by her husband rules. There are pros and cons involved ,but it was definitely great to see the truth of this society ‘s times.
Do you think that the woman in Dickinson’s poem willingly sacrificed her own personal desires? Or is it really the case that she felt compelled by societal expectations to fulfill stereotypical gender roles? Not that there isn’t nobility in sacrificing your own desires to start a family with someone you love (if that was indeed the case). However I’m struck by the possibility that her meaning was more on the negative side of things when speaking about conforming to this role. This rings true as you read further into the poem and it speaks of the things she may have done or hoped to do (If ought she missed in her new day, of amplitude, or awe, or first prospective or the gold, in using wear away) and how she buried them under the waves of her emotion and and hid them metaphorically as a pearl (It lay unmentioned as the sea, develop pearl and weed, but only to himself be be known, the fathoms they abide).