Women are mostly neglected in the society. The position of women remains unrecognized in most areas of the world. In early days, women were seen as wives whose obligations were to look after kids, cook and do cleaning and laundry The Landscape for a Good Woman tells the story of Carolyn’s childhood and her mother's refusal to mother. This implies how Edna, Carolyn’s mother ran away from the responsibilities of taking care of her two children as she even frankly tells them that were it, not for them; she would be somewhere else.
Carolyn greatly challenges theory of class, especially the relationship between gender and class, throughout the text. This implies that though her mother was a working class; her position was not as pleasant as she would wish. This reflects how patriarchy the society was as women are being sidelined and oppressed when it comes to occupational fields. Women are given the bottom positions and are not promoted thus implying oppression. What Carolyn really wanted were real entities, real things, things that the culture, customs and social systems withheld from her, things she materially lacked since she held the world to blame when the world did not deliver the goods to her. (Gilmore, 1994). With all what she wants, Carolyn is fighting for the position of the women. She wants their identity to be more specific in terms of being provided with the materials they deem appropriate for their survival. Materials that are held back by the world instead of delivering them, with the world holding back the materials necessary for her, it implies that there is still vaguely distribution of resources from the higher positions that oppress the marginalized people.
According to the novel Landscape for a Good Woman, Carolyn is not mentioning about her father. This implies that women identity is not well recognized. This has the evidence that there is men chauvinism as we find out despite the fact that Edna was a working class her position was not pleasant. Also, she was left with the responsibility to look after her children. Patriarchal is also evidenced by the fact that Edna is the breadwinner of her family as Carolyn’s father is nowhere to be seen, and Carolyn’s mother is left behind with all responsibilities of her children.
Also, we find that woman's identity is not recognized as we see that when Carolyn grows up and reflects back about her and her mother’s lives in past, literature and theory, she discover that the tradition of cultural condemnation that has employed blue collar lives, and their infrequent expression in literature has made concrete and solid the absence of psychological individuality of subjectivity. This shows that women did not have a voice in the working class sectors, schools as well having no voice in the society that would be influential in the society which can advance more transformative programs and policies. Through a thorough comparison of prevailing political and social science and personal experience theory on the psychology and attitudes of working class people, Landscape for a Good Woman challenge an intellectual tradition that denies its subjects a personal history, a particular story, except when that story illustrates a general idea.
“Landscape for a good woman” set out the review of the ancient persistent tradition of cultural criticism that risked (Smith,1998), excluding considerable organizations from their historic landscape. Women’s Agency seems to be neglected as they are not being allowed to take advantage of the available opportunities for advancement of their objectivity and subjectivity. One’s sex should not determine what kind of job a person should have or type of obligations one should carry out. It should be up to a person’s will and not the decision of the society.
According to the novel Landscape for a Good Woman, Carolyn examines the agencies of class consciousness a technique she disputed to be learned, rather than simply being inherited. She puts emphasis on politicized and historicized the existence of women inassociation with reproduction and child nurturing as well as their social legality. This also tries to show the obligations that were specific for women. That is their roles were to reproduce and nurture their children. In such societies, patriarchy system of ruling outweighs the voice of women and oppresses women as they are not given an opportunity to have a voice in the formulation of policies governing the society. Also, women are not empowered to have similar obligations in the society with the men. Carolyn realistically shows us that the working-class’s unique familiarities and their difficult impending particularly that of women and children were prototypical for understanding history and the politics of the society at particular historical instants.
Changes in the society begin when women start becoming to their realization. That is start studying and having women movements to demonstrate against any action oppressing women. In the start of the novel, Carolyn verifies the significance of acknowledging the histories of lower class individuals, working class, families or people that are overlooked due to an array of economic, political and social and psychological confines that dominate the discussion and these particular areas. This show how majority marginalized people, women included, are neglected and not given an opportunity to have good blue color jobs and also to have political powers. In such societies, women are denied the opportunity to vote or stand for parliamentary sits still emphasizing on the patriarchal system of ruling.
Memories/ history
Memories focus mostly on history. Carolyn repeatedly points out that childhood memories are useful for various purposes rather than objective recollections dominated by facts; she proposes that memories are more subjective n nature likely to alter as circumstances dictates or alter with time. We find her focusing on the past helping the poor and marginalized people to have their rights. The history is the crucial sense of hope. Aimed to alter and change discriminative nature of the past to a fair society for all Through her novel, she offers a model of historical writings ones that were taking a peculiar approach employing extensive personal accounts and narratives to investigate thoroughly the complexity of political representations and social relationships.
Carolyn aims at changing the traditions and customs that were persistent during her mother’s eras and allow a society that will be fair and considerable for all regardless of their positions. Her mother's unmet requirements are incarnated in her aspiration for adequate fabric to sew her own dresses in the fabric exhaustive "New Look. This implies how determined Carolyn was. For women’s voice to be listened and heard, women should be determined to accomplish their mission.
Plot and setting
Landscape for a Good Woman is about the crucial marginality of others and the centrality which portrays patriarchal system of ruling where women and poor people are marginalised due to the persistent customs and normative. She emphasizes on the difference between her and her mother who was not a role model of mother child relationship according to the traditions. It is set on modernized era that reflects on two live histories of Carolyn and her mother Edna. The comparison of their lives facilitates changes in terms of identity patriarchy and women’s position in the society.
The Women’s Agency and Identity is expressed by Carolyn as she explains the main difference between reality and sexual identity. She says that she primarily do not believe in the power of males, somehow the iron of patriarchy did not fairly go through into her soul though intellectually she accept the idea of male power. Carolyn aims at bridging the gap between the class and sexual identity. (Steedman, 1987) She aims to show that the certainty of working class life is unnoticed whichever way, whether our theories are based on middle-class experience or we idealize working-class traditions and hence miss its internal power vibrant in particular those of gender, the different struggles facing working class men versus working-class women.
References
Couser, G T. True Relations: Essays on Autobiography and the Postmodern. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Greenwood Press, 1998. Print.
Gilmore, Leigh. Autobiographics: A Feminist Theory of Women's Self-Representation. Ithaca u.a: Cornell Univ. Press, 1994. Print.
Smith, Sidonie, and Julia Watson. Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. Print.
Steedman, Carolyn. Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1987. Print.
