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Essay Comparing Ruth And Hagar In Song Of Solomon

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Despite their significant differences, such as class, age, and lifestyle, Ruth and Hagar share a similar, selfish need for male, a need that prohibits them from focusing their energy on themselves and suppresses their development as human beings.
Something about Pilate being different

By depicting those female characters that spend their lives vying for male love and attention in a negative light, Song of Solomon emphasizes the...

Ruth and Hagar-both weak
• Lives driven by a sexist society
• Feel a constant need to cater to the men, specifically Milkman, in their lives
• They are both selfish o Hagar needs Milkman’s love to survive and is willing to go as far as attempting to kill him in order to keep him in her life
• She just wants his …show more content…

• He tried to abort Milkman but Ruth was successful in her pregnancy
• Milkman is a tiny victory in her life and therefore she needs him on her side
• Both women are powerless to and dependent upon men o Ruth cannot leave her husband despite all that he has put her through
• Before she met Macon, she relied on her father
• She does not work, she relies on him for money and status o Ruth never really developed a personality of her own, she was always just someone’s daughter, wife, or mother
• Hagar describes a list of chores that she is jealous that Ruth gets to do for Milkman o She hates that Ruth has been involved in his life for longer, watched him grown up, knows the intimate details of his body and his life o She does not say she is jealous of the bond between mother and son but rather that Ruth got to clean up after Milkman’s messes o Ruth has served Milkman more than Hagar has and that makes her jealous with rage o Hagar is so blinded by her devotion she admits she is willing to kill Ruth
• Hagar loves nothing in the world but Milkman o She does not love Reba or Pilate (both coincidentally women) o She feels she is not a human but just a fungus on the side of the tree that is Milkman
• She feeds off of him
• She cannot survive on her

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