Shirley Jackson Patriarchy

Female agency implicates on putting the female at the center, which has been explored to a certain degree in the characters Tessie Hutchinson in Jackson’s “The lottery”, Louise Mallard in Chopin’s “ The story of an Hour” as well as Joyce’s “ Eveline.” The three stories arise together from the unavoidable fact of women discrimination and patriarchy. This conflict is the key factor on explaining the main point of the stories which is the attack of the society’s ideas of fear, equality, and freedom.
To begin with let’s explore what is meant by female agency. Female Agency is an individual’s or a group’s ability to convert its choices and desires into action and effective outcomes. Women despite the discrimination and oppressive structures have
managed to stand up for themselves and show their capability on different spheres in life. Based on this point, female agency is the ability of women to show their skill and to rise above the situations in which they are being strapped on. This can be further construed as, participation in the community, identity allegation and how they continue to survive and make changes for themselves, their environment and community. (University Wire par.3, 4, 5)
We will now consider specific examples of female agency from literature, namely Louise Mallard in Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour.” The story demonstrates us a social condition in which the wife is seen as the prisoner of the husband. Louise Mallard after her marriage to Bentley Mallard completely losses her identity. It might seem normal that after this kind of event the women should indeed take the husbands last name and become a property of his but yet it can’t be ignored that due to this fact, a part of herself is demolished. Mrs. Mallard is very much in love with her husband but that doesn’t prevent her from hiding the happiness that she feels inside when she hears about his death. The gift of freedom that was just handed to her with this incident can no longer continue being avoidable and unenjoyable. This can be seen when she mumbles the words “"Free! Body and soul free!” It shows that love is not a primary thing to her when compared to the independence that she long dreamed of. (Chopin par.14) The freedom that she has been given seems not to be a long lasting thing because it is taken away the moment her husband had walked in the house and left everyone in shock. She quickly dies after the last look of her husband due to the claims that she died of heart disease but that it is more of a symbol showing her emotional state rather her medical one. (Chopin par.15, 16) Jackson’s, Tessie, and Joyce’s, Eveline, serve as characters that resist displaying female agency.
These two characters are the opposite of the character of Mrs. Mallard due to the fact that instead of seeking for their freedom and their independence they decide to isolate themselves. This happened due to the circumstances that they found themselves in and also because of the society’s mentality. Eveline in one hand had the chance to run away with her lover, Frank, from the horror that her father caused her. During her decision making, she got caught up in so many things that she feared. One of those things was fear of the unknown. She was so caught up in her life and in the terror that followed her in a daily basis that the thought of leaving it was too tough for her. Eveline was seeking Argentina as a place of hope and savior from her father’s violence, where people would finally appreciate her effort and would give her the respect that she never got. Although due to these factors she ended up not making a step forward towards her future but instead her thoughts got the best of her so she had decided to continue living on that “cage” that her father had created for her. (Joyce par.5, 12, 13) Another brief example from literature is Tessie from Jackson’s “The lottery.” Tessie is Bill Hutchinson’s wife and during their ritual whom only men are allowed to take part in, Tessie ends up being the victim of the horrible tradition. No one in the town has the courage to speak up about the inhumanity that this tradition of stoning “the winner” to death is representing. As a brief conclusion Jackson’s “The Lottery” marks, not a winner, but a loser who gets stoned to death by the village.(Jackson
par.9-22)
Beside the characters in the stories that I mentioned above whom powerfully state the patriarchal system, there are also other examples of women that have been alienated by the deleterious society. Such as Farkhunda Malikzada, Malala Yousafzai, Boko Haram and the kidnaping of the schoolgirls, Rosa Parks and many others. Farkhunda was slaughtered to death by “her people” due to the claims that she burned the Quran. After this incident the world immediately reacted to this horrible event which led to many protests supporting Women’s rights in Afghanistan. (News Briefing par.5, 6) Another example is Malala, the young girl who was shot at a young age for the fact that she was one of the few women who supported education openly under the Taliban regime. (New York Times A30). These examples and many others explain how women despite the difficulties are still not giving up on their rights.
What we can understand is that equality between genders has been a tough task for women for so many years, and this inequality still continues to be present. We took as an example three figures of literature that represented different perspectives of the same problem. The problem with patriarchal society and traditional gender roles. Living in the 21st century we can see that women are still being discriminated and tortured due to the fact that they share their beliefs openly with the rest of the world. However, women day by day are not letting society drown them but instead they are fighting to have equal rights in the world, and even though this is looking up to be a long and a not so calm journey, each day that goes by seems to be taking women a step closer to their goal of achieving equality.