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The Housewife In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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During WWll, men were drafted and they had to leave their jobs behind, this gave women an opportunity to pick up the slack (Gourley 3). This also left women to juggle being a housewife and the work they did in the men’s absence, resulting in 1 out of 4 women having a job as well as being a housewife during WWll (3). However, after the war men went back to work and some women went back to just being a housewife. Not all women, however, went back to the house; the percent of women working in a professional field increased from 11.9% to 14.2% in 1920 (Deutsch 2). Women kept jobs such as telephone operators and secretaries, leaning towards a more developed job instead of being a housemaid (2). Despite that, the discrimination of women still continued, …show more content…

Linda has a major impact on the main character, willy, she lives for him and will never defy him, even when it is apparent that Willy is not in the right mind. Linda often feeds Willy’s delusions about himself; when Willy started to admit that he was at fault and that he almost hit a kid, linda countered with, “ Maybe it’s your glasses. You never went for your new glasses.” (Miller Act One). She often makes excuses for Willy and by doing that she is helping Willy, and herself, stay static. This is extremely important because what drove Willy to his ultimate demise was the fact that he was living in a delusional world and had just realized how everything he thought was true, was not. This static attitude of theirs also rubbed off on their sons. Happy developed into a static character when he would not admit his faults and never told the truth, much like his father. On the other hand, Biff had enough willpower to break away from his static family and acknowledged his lies and faults, however he wasted more than 30 years of his life in a lie because of the lies Linda and WIlly told him. WIlly had the power to stop all of the lies and delusions early, however it did not help that he had Linda always boosting his ego and making excuses for him, which affected all of her

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