Leonce Analysis

This quote really sums up the time period in which the book is set in. During this time, women were controlled by their husbands and treated with disrespect in most situations. Women weren’t allowed to divorce their husbands or report abuse, they just had to stick with it. The whole time, men kept undermining women and it became a society wide problem. Leonce falls into this category because he forces his wife to follow him and doesn’t allow her to follow her dreams. He treated his wife as if she were “a valuable piece of personal property”(44). Later in the book Leonce ridicules his wife even more by saying, “If it is not a mother’s place to look after children, whose on Earth was it?”(48). Leonce was plenty capable of taking care of the kids,
his wife shouldn’t be the sole caretaker for them. The book's message is that women should be free to do what they please and not be controlled by their husbands; and this quote gives Edna a reason to rebel against society and break free from the grasps of misogyny.

When I read this quote, immediately I disagreed with Leonce’s way of thinking. He believes that women should be treated like a piece of property, as did most of the men in society during that time. This way of thinking is very disturbing, considering it went on for decades. It horrifies me because I was raised differently the Leonce and I live in a society where women are free to make their own choices. I believe that women should be treated with respect and dignity. Women are humans just like men, the only difference is our bodies are different. That is no reason to treat someone with disrespect and Leonce is a coward for doing so. The quote is also meaningful because it shows that Leonce believes Edna is property, but she doesn’t let that overcome her and she pursues her own dreams.