Martha Bernard In A Streetcar Named Desire

Both of these women are comfortable using their power, which is shown when neither of them consult their children when they are arranging for them to begin a courting ritual between them. Martha worries only about the process, ensuring that Blanche would see Bernard’s potential for her daughter. Bernard, who was not informed of the courtship until it is already in place, is frustrated and likely angry that his opinion was not asked, though his protests are quickly quieted by his mother’s glare and tone. He is unsuccessful in deterring her, and soon finds, throughout this courtship, that women will not be deterred, and they will not care of his opinions or ideas. Blanche does her best to ensure that Bernard is aware of how she intends to run

His journey often finds himself unwilling to follow through with the courting process, only doing so because of his mother’s wishes and the opportunity he finds to make her proud and prove himself as a man. He values his time in his mother’s home, however, and is, in the beginning, unwilling to leave the comfort and freedom he found there. One of these freedoms was the ability for Bernard to practice art, despite that his enjoyment of it is disregarded by his family. When Martha finds her son drawing with charcoal, she often burns his work and considers it useless. She ridicules the idea that her son could be passionate about something, and instead attempts to destroy the romantic seed in his head. While this goes on, though, he still finds the opportunity to draw and express what he is feeling inside, which was often a sort of adoration for the community cougar. Dorris, who was another freedom, is suddenly unattainable under his mother’s disapproving supervision, though his thoughts draw back to her often as he considers the ease of their relations, and the lack of effort required to earn attention and affection. The idea of a courtship worries him, because he does not wish to work for anything he does not truly want, if anything at all. His laziness was yet another freedom he was able to indulge

Girls being told from a very young age that if they do not dress, look, or behave a certain way, they will never find a husband, and therefore never have value in our society. The idea that even if a woman has found fame because of her talent, it will be her beauty that is extorted, and then manipulated in photographs to twist her appearance to better suit society’s imposed standards of physical attractiveness. The fact that despite the innumerable gains that we have achieved over the past years for women’s rights, women are still being trafficked, raped, harassed, and discriminated against. It can be difficult to recognize intolerance and inequity when one grows up in a society that does not offer the opportunity to see how things could be different. Michael Dorris draws attention to the systematic oppression of women, putting men in the shoes of those who are being oppressed, and women in the position of power. This work is significant in how it can offer a small insight into how society could have been different, and just how drastically lives would have changed, for better or for worse. This work allows one to envision how harmful unintentional prejudice in the forms of microaggressions can truly be to those who are being oppressed in their daily lives. It allows one to see into the lives of the opposite gender, and consider the challenges they face or the opportunities they are