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House On Mango Street Patriarchy Analysis

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In the history of the world patriarchy has always been present in people’s lives. Patriarchy by definition is a system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line. It can also be classified as a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. In the novels The House on Mango Street, Catcher in the Rye and White Girl female characters experience patriarchy in a few different ways. While the characters Sally (House on Mango Street) and Sunny (Catcher in the Rye) live their lives controlled by men to impress and to satisfy them, Martin’s mother (Grandma) changes the frequent patriarchal role to a matriarchal role in the novel White Girl and she shows who is in charge and does not let any man or anyone take control of her. In the House on Mango Street, Sally is a beautiful bombshell and …show more content…

In one scene, Holden is very exhausted from his day and that night he gets offered a prostitute from the elevator operator at the hotel he is staying in. To summarize, Holden gets beat up because he decides to not have any sexual relations with her and he did not pay her the price she wanted. Prostitution and Patriarchy are definitely connected. At a young age Sunny is making a living out of needing to impress and satisfy men. If Sunny needs a job and this is the only job available for Sunny then she is almost forced by men to impress and satisfy them. This is why prostitution is linked with the patriarchy because it makes males in charge, controlling her. Below the surface, Sunny’s experiences as a prostitute at such a young age may result for her mind to be set that males have control over her not only for her work, but in daily life. As mentioned, this will result in a fixed mindset of males are superior to

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