20th Century Gender Roles

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In today’s society, we generally view upon everyone as equal being who deserves equal rights. At the turn of the 20th century, this particular view didn’t exist. Men clearly dominated almost every aspect of life and women were often left with little importance. Throughout the history the gendered roles place the woman in the kitchen, serving meals, baking bread, and canning fruits and jellies. She was also expected to be a good mother to her children and a caretaker to her husband. As time went on, the expectations of women changed. They were no longer required to do things only in the kitchen; they could go to school, marry who they wanted, travel the world if they wanted to. “Trifles” and “The Ice Palace” examples of the change that happened…show more content…
She is humbled by the sacrifice of the many men who died, but also creates an image of a woman who also sacrificed for the South: Margery Lee, who died, unmarried, aged 29. She recognizes their sacrifices and is ardent that their bravery should not be forgotten. In this way, she is also keeping the dispute between North and South alive. “The Ice Palace” is kind of the opposite of “Trifles.” In “The Ice Palace,” one of the main characters, Sally Carrol Happer is from the south and is engaged to Harry Bellamy, a northern. Clark Darrow, a friend of Sally Carrol who lives in Tarleton, Georgia, seems fine, not pained or strained, and says he’s “mighty fine.” The pained and strained part isn’t until later, when he confronts Sally Carrol about her relationship with the Northerner: “Don’t marry a Yankee, Sally Carrol. We need you round here.” Sally Carrol has made up her mind, though, because Southern men are “ineffectual and sad,” “failures,” “living in the past.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, page…show more content…
Scott Fitzgerald portray relationships between men and woman completely opposite. In Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles”, the men have all dominance in the relationship. The women have no say in anything and the men choose what goes on at their house. When all the characters are at the Wright’s house the men are trying to find clues for the murder of Mr. Wright but they are not finding any. While they are doing that, the woman are in the kitchen and are finding all the clues that say Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. The men do not even ask what the women found because they think women are not capable of doing things like this and should only do their kitchen duties. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Ice Palace”, the relationship between man and woman is different. Sally Carrol, from the South, is engaged to a Northern. She says that the men from the South are incapable of making money and providing for her. She travels up North to see her fiancé and meet all of his family. She soon realizes that people form the North are not what she expected them to be and that the Southern people are just like her and she enjoys them better. Women are able to do what they want and what makes them happy, unlike in “Trifles” where woman had no say in
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