Introduction
Literature has been a mirror of social happenings and dynamics towards understanding the human society. Gender is one of the topics that have dominated literature as it relates to the positions of men and women in the society. Class on the other relates to the division of the society into economic cluster groups based on the economic empowerment levels. In some societies, ethnic diversity is a major line for defining the society. These three societal parameters are just a few within a very extensive study of societies. Towards understanding human nature, human beings are in the pursuit of achieving self-actualization through the element of creativity. Particularly, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf are the main contexts for analysis towards achieving the thesis of identifying the relevance of gender, class, and ethnicity in fulfilling self-actualization and creativity. This writing is often unclear. You should be more direct and straightforward.
Gender and Self-actualization
The first relationship to evaluate is the relationship between gender and self-actualization and creativity. Specific to gender, the study of society even to-date has been dominated by the works on the plight of women. Women and the girl child are seen in many societies to be of lesser than men and the boy child. Support of this position is still deeply rooted despite empowerment of women and emancipation of masses on the importance of women in the society. Self-actualization, on the other hand, is a state of the feeling the true self through achievement of full potential. It is through self-actualization that human beings express their creativity and higher degrees of knowledge. Relating gender and self-actualization women are often limited in their potential, unlike men who can go out and explore the world. For instance, John who is the husband of the woman telling the story about the Yellow Wallpaper is a doctor and has the liberty to practice his expertise in healthcare. However, his wife is confined to their mansion and more specifically, in a room upstairs with many windows (Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper page 2). From this basic onset, the main woman figure in the story about the Yellow Wallpaper is limited within the house.
Secondly, on the limitation of women from achieving self-actualization, the narrating woman depicts a situation where the John, her husband, calls the shots. Evidence of this is in the manner the way the man decides that his wife should be locked up As I read it, the narrator is not literally locked in. She is told to rest in her room. in a room upstairs for without working. Drawing from a feminist perspective, the narrator stands a better chance recovering while working. However, since she is in no position to make the decision or contribute to the eventual remedy for her condition, she is confined to the decision of the man.
Shifting focus to the literal literary work of A Room of One’s Own, Woolf states that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (Woolf, A Room of One’s Own line 14). This idea by Woolf on the place of women in the society is a figure of speech to indicate the challenges that women have to overcome towards achieving self-actualization through acquiring an education. Notably, the highlighted challenges are poverty and acquiring a room for oneself self, in the case of women. As noted earlier, education is a key to self-actualization. Therefore, when women are kept away from acquiring education, the outcome is limited potential. Woolf goes ahead to specify that she has gone through this stigmatization from her family as her father only believes education to the boy-child. Even as Woolf delivers her lecture on the importance of education to those with the opportunity to education, she engages in sessions of ‘but’ ??? as a way of reminding the same women of their position in the society. Combining these ideas by Woolf about women and self-actualization, gender is portrayed to have a major contribution to self-actualization through the controlled access to education among boys and girls. When the girl child is not educated, they lack creativity towards exploring their potentials and achieving self-actualization.
Ethnicities and Self-Actualization
Regarding the present evaluations on gender and self-actualization, both Gilman and Woolf present a form of ethnicity Ethnicity or race isn’t a theme in these two works. within the nineteenth and twentieth-century societies. Ethnicity by definition refers to the sense of belonging to a specific social group that has a unifying cultural profile. In both cases, the periods under focus demonstrate a culture of confining women to household responsibilities and chores. Despite their creativity and abilities, they are confined to physical spaces that only require them to attend to house chores. In the case of Gilman narrating the plight of the confined woman, she is explained to possess some significant levels of creativity as she notices the yellow wallpaper and even goes further to see a woman figure in its patterns. Similarly, Woolf explains Judith Shakespeare as imaginative and adventurous in expounding on her abilities (A Room of One’s Own line 50-72). However, every move for Judith to explore her potential is curtailed by an imposing father-figure who eventually forces her into marriage. Both of these societal settings depict ethnicities that believe in submission and confinement of women. Furthermore, their cultural settings explain the man to a superior gender. Due to the belief in the inferiority of women, this paper speculates the suppression of self-confidence within women due to ethnic dictates. Consequently, it is expected that most women in the society will avoid holding their wish of self-actualization as a way of conforming to the stable societal order. An additional element to note about the limitation of creative abilities in women is that it leads to the complete opposite of self-actualization which self-destruction. Mental and physical confinements lead to the build-up of pressure within self that women end up expressing their hopelessness through suicide or extreme mental incapacitation. Are you quoting someone?
Class and Self-Actualization
Further, in support of the established thesis, self-actualization and creativity are affected by the societal element of class. Most applicably, the element of class is evident in the literal work by Woolf on A Room of One’s Own. Despite the fictional approach to narration, Woolf indicates the element of money to be a major barrier to exploration by women. Money as a societal tool and resource is used to define economic classes within the society. It is clear that the denial to access money is an effective yet destructive way of preventing women from exploring their capabilities. On the effective part, the society uses the poverty baseline as a way of crippling How is this “effective”? the self-actualization of most women in the society. On the detrimental part, women are limited to be a lesser gender in the society. Still, on the same idea of class, women were suppressed from attaining economic independence as a way of denying them the ability to acquire an education and other necessities such as poetic licenses as highlighted by Woolf (A Room of One’s lines 70-83). However, these negative influences of social classes are explained only to hamper the low class in the society.
Most notably, Woolf indicates that women were only in capable of owning their rooms if they hailed from extremely affluent families yes or families that were held in the noble position within the society. This is another perspective into how gender affects the achievement of self-actualization.
Deductively, education is denied to the lower and middle classes. Based on this premise, this present evaluation argues that it is a strategy employed by the ruling class as a way of denying the masses the necessary information about their value in society. Subsequently, the middle and lower class continue to become subjects of labor to the elite class as it continues to amass wealth at the expense of the rest of the society Give direct quotes from these sources. (Castells, Manuel, The power of identity: The information age: Economy, society, and culture 57). On the other hand, the elite continues to educate their children as way of only confining the larger societal cake to only the few noble families in the society (Castells, Manuel, The power of identity: The information age: Economy, society, and culture). On this third perspective on the achievement of self-actualization, both genders are speculated to be victims of the economic oppression, meaning that even the boy-child in the middle and the lower class is treated to a sub-standard quality of education as a way of limiting their creativity capacities. Therefore this paper presents that argument that it is possible that even the educated boy-child in either the lower or middle classes has not achieved self-actualization.
Conclusion
Indeed, self-actualization is the key to human liberation. When people have adequate information about who they are, they tend to go beyond their confines to explores their full capabilities. The above evaluation majorly highlights the plight of women in achieving self-actualization, but towards this conclusion, some light is shed on the possibility that even some men in the society have not attained self-actualization. An important tenet to draw from this analysis is that education is essential towards full exploitation of self which on second thought is more constructive for the society Castells, Manuel, The power of identity: The information age: Economy, society, and culture).
Work Cited
Castells, Manuel. The power of identity: The information age: Economy, society, and culture. Vol. 2. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The yellow wallpaper. Prabhat Prakashan, 1994.
Woolf, Virginia, and Virginia Woolf. A room of one's own. No. Sirsi) a457333. 1945.
You need two more secondary references.
Daisy, I see your thesis in this sentence, from your first paragraph: “Particularly, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf are the main contexts for analysis towards achieving the thesis of identifying the relevance of gender, class, and ethnicity in fulfilling self-actualization and creativity.” This is a workable thesis for a research paper, and you do focus in detail on the assigned works.
But as you can see in the sentence above, your writing is often unclear. You should write in a plainer, more direct style. Further, ethnicity (i.e., race or cultural-group identity) doesn’t come into play in these readings, though you provide a section on ethnicity.
You seem to have only one secondary reference, as listed in your Works Cited, while three secondary sources are required by the assignment. See my announcements and emails on the assignment.
Score: 15.0