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The Restaurant Business By Louise Erdrich Summary

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Many people wish for jobs that do not take over their entire life. They dream of being able to leave the struggles they face in the workplace and come home to a complete sense of freedom. However, many people find that this is an unattainable goal. In “The Lady in the Pink Mustang” by Louise Erdrich, “The Secretary Chant” by Marge Piercy, and “The Restaurant Business” by James Tate, there are characters who have lost their identity because of their jobs. Louise Erdrich's poem, “The Lady in the Pink Mustang,” conveys the loss of self worth and identity felt by a prostitute. In lines 1 and 2, it is said that “The sun goes down for hours, taking more of her along / than the night leaves her with” (Erdrich 150). This shows that the prostitute feels as if the darkness of night chips away at her personality until she can no longer recognize herself. …show more content…

Throughout the entire poem, there are relationships drawn between parts of the speaker's body and office supplies. In lines 8 and 9, the speaker states that “My head is a badly organized file. / My head is a switchboard” (Piercy 151). This implies that the speaker constantly has thoughts running through her head that often get confused. Her job makes her head so cloudy and disorganized that she cannot have even one clear thought. Additionally, in line 15, the speaker laments that “My navel is a reject button” (Piercy 151). Contrary to the traditional image of a navel being the place where life is given to a child, the speaker feels as if she is constantly being rejected. The most important representation of the loss of identity in “The Secretary Chant,” however, is in lines 21-24 that proclaim “File me under W / because I wonce / was / a woman” (Piercy 151). This excerpt clearly states that she no longer feels like a woman and has been taken over by her

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Las Playas Family Restaurant is appealing both in the atmosphere and the food. The murals on the walls, colorful booths and large fish tanks make one feel welcomed and entertained. Speaking of entertainment, the weekend karaoke and full bar make it the ideal spot to meet up with friends. The Mexican cuisine feels like grandma 's home cooking rather than upscale which is well received by locals looking for a satisfying meal. The locals love the service at Las Playas Family Restaurant as well.

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Kaya one of the main characters just went through her father passing away from cancer, Kaya dealt with it a different way. Kaya separated herself from her family and went into the prostitution field. ”The women is wearing a short skirt, heels and a tank top, with a ratty sweater overtop. ”(De Vries 69) The author is implying that this lady is a prostitute.

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Identity is an important aspect in the novel Passing by Nella Larson, and it is tied within race, socioeconomic class, and gender. However this novel challenges the very notion of self- perception and how circumstances regarding your race, gender, and overall identity can change as you encounter obstacles and adversities ; as seen with Irene Redfield who’s own self-identity especially with respect to her race, family, and general livelihood is morphed and challenged with the reemergence of Clare in her life. One of Irene’s early encounters with Clare, the one where Irene is introduced to Clare’s husband, reveals how even though identity is such a pivotal part of one’s character we must still adapt to and act accordingly to the

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When comparing Anne – Marie Slaughter, the author of “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, and Ellen Ullman, the author of “How to be a Woman Programmer”, both possess a strong feminist perspective within their writing. In their articles, both female authors touch a nerve across generations, among both men and women, that has set off a new public debate on women’s progress and work-life balance. Slaughter and Ullman both agree that society still considers the woman to be the primary caregiver within the relationship. Due to these views, both women are combating sexism within the workplace, but, despite this, both are strong, career driven women. Anne-Marie Slaughter is a lawyer, foreign policy analyst, political scientist, public communicator, current president and

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In her essay, “The Importance of Work,” from The Feminine Mystique published in 1963, Betty Friedan confronts American women’s search for identity. Throughout the novel, Betty Friedan breaks new ground, concocting the idea that women can discover personal fulfillment by straying away from their original roles. Friedan ponders on the idea that The Feminine Mystique is the cause for a vast majority of women during that time period to feel confined by their occupations around the house; therefore, restricting them from discovering who they are as women. Friedan’s novel is well known for creating a different kind of feminism and rousing various women across the nation.

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He becomes much like a woman himself, fainting and losing the prideful power he used to possess. This shows how much built up anguish she has attained from being left alone day after day to "heal". Her Husband was not severely concerned about her well-being or the fact that she was losing touch with reality. She became so fixated upon the wallpaper that she saw it "move" and dance about. Her imagination grew intensely wild and, in the end, left her deranged.

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‘Nora’s First Job’s genre is a fictional short story in a Bunty for Girls Annual in the 1960s. Its purpose is to entertain and engage with a young female reader – presumably teenagers aged 15-18. It includes a young woman – Nora – who is attempting to get her first job, which can be relatable to a lot of teens. The background context of this text is relevant as it was published in the 1960s – where a big change happened in youth culture.

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She was not satisfied as a housewife and wondered if other women felt the same. So, she surveyed her peers from Smith College What she concluded became the Feminine Mystique. Women’s personal identity as mothers and housewife was not fulfilling enough. Women suffered frustration because their only responsibility was the children and husband without exploring their intelligence and abilities. (History.org) Betty Friedan launches her nonfiction account of the twentieth-century

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For different people, comparable situations do not always reproduce the same end results or leave the same impressions. Rather, the resulting conclusion is often highly variable. As is the case of two labors featured in the poems, My Father’s Lunch” and “The life of a Digger”. While Erica Funkhouser’s speaker, Henry, experiences injustice and lack of reward for his hard labor in “The Life of a Digger,” Margarita Engle’s speaker experiences prosperity and remuneration for their father’s hard work in “My Father’s Lunch.” Each author uses the setting of a laboring man’s lunch break to demonstrate the ramifications of a hard day’s work and the rewards or lack thereof for their efforts.

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In her society, it is the woman that is left to be alone in her own thoughts, shown through her husband’s freedom to leave the house and not come back until he wants to versus her confinement to the house. This is reflected through the various “hedges and walls and gates that lock”, making her stay isolated in the house. Ultimately, the character is overtaken by the imagination and through the

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Being a woman in the early twentieth century, she simply followed what her husband told her. She did not have her own voice and kept her thoughts to herself. With that being said, it is as if her identity is simply that of the average woman during her time. However, the days she spends in confinement go by, the identity of that woman drifts away and she is overtaken by the identity of her own mental illness. As said in Diana Martin’s journal on “Images in Psychiatry”, while the narrator in isolation she becomes “increasingly despondent and nervous”.

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In the poem “Ego Tripping” by Nikki Giovanni it is evident that it is difficult to fix a past filled with misogyny, and patriarchy that advance women as feeble vessels, whose words and activities put men at risk. Despite the fact that it implies battling a custom of subordinating women that stretches out back a large number of years, the women’s activist development has since the mid-1970s attempted to give a voice to ladies that offers trust, gives quality, and proposes approaches to battle for more equality. Nikki Giovanni fights for change for African American women in the form of present tense language that shows women’s strength, power, and beauty. Although she is speaking in present tense, she is alluding to the future she wants women

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Reflection Week Six I found the readings this week to be eye opening. When we hear the term “sexualized work environments” we assume a profession in which sexual labor is the primary generalization. After reading Philaretou and Young, I now have a better grasp in what is a sexualized work environment. It made me think about a restaurant in Huntington, Roosters. At this restaurant, they only hire females to work on the wait staff and the men are placed in kitchen duty.

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This shows a balance between gender roles, as well as the embracing progressive changes within culture and society. In the story “The Story of an Hour,” by Kate Chopin, a third-person omniscient narrator, relates how Mrs. Louise Mallard, the protagonist, experiences the euphoria of freedom rather than the grief of loneliness after hearing about her husband’s death. Later, when Mrs. Mallard discovers that her husband, Mr. Brently Mallard, still lives, she realizes that all her aspiration for freedom has gone. The shock and disappointment kills Mrs. Mallard.

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Standing Female Nude, written by Carol Ann Duffy, is a poem which describes the condition of a prostitute who is struggling to make a living. Duffy, as with a majority of her other works, attempts to give a voice to voiceless women in the middle and lower economic classes in an effort to promote her feminist agenda. This poem is in fact very layered and explores multiple aspects which may not be spotted on a superficial level, and enables her to transmit her ideas to the readers. Duffy puts across her main ideas of society’s treatment of the prostitute versus the treatment of males, and the prostitutes introspective views. Duffy creates a society, not too distorted from our own in fact, which objectifies the woman and values her purely for her physical assets.

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