The Women’s Room and The Radiant Way are 2 novels that reflect certain ideologies of the time they are written. The Women’s Room is written by American author Marilyn French. The main protagonist of the novel is a woman named Mira who represents her generation and all the young women in her society in the 1950s and 1960s. The novel portrays the unhappy, oppressive and unsatisfying relationship between men and women. The Radiant Way is a novel that is written by British novelist Margaret Drabble. The novel portrays the lives and careers of three women who have met during that time when they study at Cambridge University. In The Radiant Way, Drabble also comments on political framework of Britain in the 1980s. This essay tries to examine the role of ideologies such as feminism and politics as they appear in The Women’s Room and The Radiant Way. It also tries to explain the elements that are similar and dissimilar in terms of time, setting, characters and the narrator.
To begin with, it is important to note the time when these novels are written. The Women’s Room is published in 1977 but the story begins at an earlier time and goes backward in time. French’s novel is set in a very particular time period when the Second Wave Feminism becomes evident. Whereas, The Radiant Way is published in 1987. Unlike French’s novel, The Radiant Way is set in England in the 1980s when many social and political changes take place in Britain. While The Radiant Way examines the lives of three