ipl-logo

War Made Us Equal In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

1953 Words8 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Women in the 20th century america

War Made Us Equal It is the 1950s, post-war America, a young woman is lost between two worlds. Anyone who has ever read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar will know, and pity this girl, because much like the author herself, Esther Greenwood descends deeper into madness and depression, the longer she is left tangled between life paths. A traditional life, being a good wife and mother, or a modern life where she can follow her passion for poetry? For some readers, it can be hard at times to understand why she even has to make this choice. For others, they have long decided which way they would choose, and it took them about a minute. Why would anyone ever attempt to suicide over this, why is it so hard for her and not for us? The truth is, Sylvia lived …show more content…

Luckily, the post-war boom in the economy aided the all classes in the community, and this actually points to the start of how America became known as ‘classless’ for the growing economic equality between its classes. The first cause of this equality was the closing pay-gap (Hoberek 3), and as a result the middle class grew at a remarkable rate with the addition of worker class citizens, becoming the largest class in America. Jack Beatty believes that this is what put a temporary stop to the class conflict, the idea of a country where classes do not exist (qtd. in Hoberek 5). If the middle class of a nation includes the most people, the number of the comparatively rich or poor become less. From this theory, the middle class branched out to change the social experience of classes in the United States. This class was allowed to control the culture of post-war America because they represented all the classes, and they used this power to identify their issues and interests with those of the whole society (Hoberek 5), making sure those problems were put in front of everyone and eventually solved. After the post-war influence ended in the 1970s, the equality between the classes slowly slipped away. But even so, it left its effect on America by making sure all sections of society knew what it was like to be

Show More
Related

American Middle-Class In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

335 Words | 2 Pages

According to an article published the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History titled, “The Fifties”, the American middle-class grew rapidly during the 1950’s and by this time 60 percent of Americans were considered “middle-class”. Truman Capote’s book, In Cold Blood, chronicles the murder of a well-to-do middle-class family known as, the Clutter family. Capote uses the Clutter family to represent the rising middle-class in the 1950’s by showing a lifestyle that is comfortable yet modest. The middle-class consists of well-educated business workers who are neither rich nor poor.

Read More

Why The Federal Theatre Project Shouldn T Have Been Shut Down

927 Words | 4 Pages

The middle class consisted of people who worked 9 to 5 jobs, and were able to afford entertainment. Meaning that this was the first time children were able to start actually living what we consider today as childhood, now that they don’t have to work in factories (“Impact of the Great Depression on Family and Home”1). However, during the great depression many middle class workers lost their jobs or had to work more hours for less money. Robbing these children of the freedoms they were previously given. Unfortunately, many children were pulled from school so they could get jobs to help provide for the family, some were sent away to live with other relatives, and many ran away (“What Were the Effects on the Children of the Great Depression?” 1).

Read More

Rhetorical Analysis Of Serving In Florida By Gregory Mantsios

1318 Words | 6 Pages

The American dream is a dream of a land in which one can prosper with ambition and hard work. This idea has created many illusions for some because in reality the American dream is proven to be something that is rarely achieved. No individual is guaranteed success or destined for failure, but it is apparent that women, people of color, and those born into poverty will face greater obstacles than others, despite being a greater part of the American population. An author that tackles the issue of class in the United States is Gregory Mantsios. In his essay, “Class in America-2009”, Mantsios aims to prove that class affects people’s lives in drastic ways.

Read More

John Porter Vertical Mosaic Summary

1072 Words | 5 Pages

Born in Vancouver 1921, John Porter shattered the conventional image of Canada as a classless society and demonstrated the ethical inequality within our culture. In his research book The Vertical Mosaic, he proved Canada to be a highly stratified society. Important to the development of Canadian sociology, The Vertical Mosaic, provided Canadians with a reality check, unveiling the fact that our projected image is opposite to factuality and revealed the discrimination within power in our society. Within our current capitalistic society, people tend to disregard class and Canada is still viewed as a middle class society with ethnic inequality still as a ruling issue.

Read More

The Working Class Majority America's Best Kept Secret Summary

703 Words | 3 Pages

Journal Entry #6 After reading Michael Zweig's “The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret”, I read and was able to determine his own perspective of class. Zweig states that he wouldn’t consider the United States to be a middle class society and that he thinks that the majority of Americans today are part of the working class. He defines class as power, whether it is power in the workplace, cultural, economic, or political and in the larger society and not so much it depending income. I think he defines class as power due to the fact that we as the people have the power to experience class in many ways. We are all born and raised differently and all come from cultural backgrounds.

Read More

Edward Mcclelland Roll The Middle Class Analysis

441 Words | 2 Pages

“RIP, The Middle Class: 1946-2013” by Edward McClelland is a heated piece on America’s past and current events happening regarding the middle class on how it has influenced our country as it sits today. There are many fallacies detected intended to affect people and what they do, but the question stands is if they accomplished this? The writer of this piece is trying to get across the value of the middle class and how it is not okay for “them to be one of the losers” (McClelland, 989). From the 1940’s to the 1970’s life was easier regarding school and jobs as states McCelland, “I grew up in an automaking town in the 1970’s, when it was still possible for a high school graduate-or even a high school dropout- to get a job on an assembly line and earn more money than a high school teacher”(979). He has experienced this life first hand which would lead him to have a biased opinion on the

Read More

Edward Mcclelland Middle Class Summary

748 Words | 3 Pages

Reading through RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013, it became fairly obvious that the author, Edward McClelland, was presenting a thesis idea that consisted of promoting the middle class through examples of its prime time when middle class thrived. McClelland made the point clearly as he repeatedly provided examples ranging from the glory days of the assembly line industry that had provided high paying jobs for many people, to presidents who attempted to keep business within the United States to promote home grown jobs. He was especially focused on the point that the middle class was shrinking due to a large discrepancy between the wealthy and the rest of society as capitalism achieves its goal of padding the wealthiest and keeping the middle

Read More

Summary Of The Class America By Mantisos

851 Words | 4 Pages

Mantisos in his article, The Class America, talks about how people avoid speaking about social class, describes the economic spectrum, the lifestyles of Americans, and power and oppression. The only class America likes to talk about is the middle class and whether they think it exists or not. People avoid the subject of class because they like to think it does not matter. The trust is it most definitely does and there are so many advantages to being in a higher class than others. The economic spectrum in which we live in is described in depth by Mantisos.

Read More

Affluence Of The United States During The 1950s And 1960s

1551 Words | 7 Pages

The United States during the 1950s and 1960s was an era of general consensus for the average middle class American. This was an era that saw the nation’s affluence grow tremendously. The middle class grew so much that the middle class had the ability to buy homes, buy cars, and live comfortably with their families. Cities began to sprawl throughout the nation, and suburbanization increased as well .

Read More

Idealism In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

400 Words | 2 Pages

In John Steinbeck’s rather infamous novel, there was a heavy handed message that classism creates problems and a false consciousness caused by the American Dream, that one can eventually achieve success with sheer determination and hard work, does more harm than good. This is due to the fact that it leads to competition between citizens in the same class (mostly proletariat) who all want to climb to the top of the metaphorical food chain. Some attempt to achieve their goal through shady means, like commodification- or some may try to go at it alone, believing in the ideology of rugged individualism, thinking that they can reach their goal without any help. This impacts society by enforcing the idea that we’ll stay in the class system that we were born into unless we’re willing to sacrifice our morals and the things we care about.

Read More

Classical Liberal Ideas Of Changes To The Class System

209 Words | 1 Pages

The classical liberal ideas of changes to the class system impacted the 19th century society because it gave the owners of factories/mines more power to pursue economic freedom, private property, and self interest. With little government involvement stopping them. Before the Industrial Revolution the upper class were the nobles, the middle were the merchants, lawyers, and the clergy, then the lowest class were the peasant farmers. The class system changed with the Industrial Revolution, with the new working class and the nouveau riche. The nouveau riche was made up of wealthy factory/mine owners, bankers, and merchants.

Read More

1984 George Orwell Income Inequality Analysis

475 Words | 2 Pages

The middle class want to become rich and the low class only wants equality.” Orwell’s predictions of the party, the government in modern society, rises to power and the poor stay poor. In LA Times “Income Inequality makes the rich more scrooge-like, study finds”, “Since the 1980’s -- the end of a 30-year period… wealth has grown increasingly concentrated at the top of the economic ladder, while low-income Americans have commanded a smaller and smaller share of the nation’s wealth.” *add where quote is from* ”... top 5 percent of American families saw their real income increase 74.9 percent… the lowest-income fifth saw a decrease in real income of 12.1 percent… Sharply contrasting with the 1947-79 period… with the lowest income group actually seeing the largest gains.”

Read More

Class In America Gregory Mantsios Summary

977 Words | 4 Pages

There is lower, middle, and upper class, but there are also subcategories that fill the gaps in between, like the impoverished and the top one percenters. “Class in America”, written by Gregory Mantsios, addresses the myths and realities about socioeconomic class in America and how they affect American lives. His article highlights the unequal divide that has persisted over the course of history and will continue to manifest in the future. To introduce the existence of this issue, Mantsios states that this country’s citizens “don’t like to talk about class...or class privileges, or class oppression, or the class nature of society” (Mantsios 378). This is the case in America today because people are neglecting to acknowledge the existence of these elusive

Read More

Marxism In 1984

1115 Words | 5 Pages

In the book the Inner Party is able to momentarily turn off the telescreens Big Brother uses to spy on the population with demonstrating the differentiation in social classes. One way this significance of classes is shown in the U.S is how the country is a capitalist society which has always run on people advancing themselves as much as they can. Perhaps inadvertently the American Dream has become a “get rich

Read More

Comparing Marx And Weber's Theories Of Social Class

1883 Words | 8 Pages

“The reason we have classes is due to a group sharing a common interest and economic position” (McIntosh, 1997:133). Class is determined on possession of wealth; together with the occupation are the principal bases for class difference. The main classes in Western societies are the upper class who was the wealthy, employers and factory owner, the middle class who were white collar workers and professionals and the lower class who were the ones in the blue-collar or manual jobs. In the developed countries there was also a fourth class, the peasants who were occupied in traditional types of agricultural production. The most well-known and important theories of class are those developed by Karl Marx and Max Weber.

Read More

More about War Made Us Equal In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

Related Topics

Open Document