The Theme Of Matriarchy In Southern Writers. Essay, Research Paper

“We will never understand the psychology of either women or men as long as we fail to acknowledge that a state of war has existed between the sexes for approximately six thousand years. This war is a guerrilla war. Six thousand years ago the patriarchy triumphed over women and society became organized on the basis of male domination. Women became the property of men and were obliged to be grateful to them for every concession. But there cannot be domination of one social class, nation, or sex over the other that does not lead to subliminal rebelliousness, rage, hatred, and desire for revenge in those who are oppressed and exploited.” This statement was made by Erich Fromm in and interview appearing in the February 16 1975, issue of the Italian magazine L’Espresso. It sums up the basic thinking concerning the problematic relations between men and women.

But any solution to the problem that merely attempts to transfer domination from men to women only fosters the warfare between them. This is the reason “we do not favor a movement for women’s rights that in reality retains the principles of the patriarchal world, except that women now will have the power that was formerly the exclusive domain of men.”

This means that women are not “being emancipated as human beings” and the war would then continue and produce a great deal of hatred on both sides. Each group hates the other and fears the attacks of each other. “Even though men pretend otherwise, they nonetheless do fear women.”

In “Everyday Use,” this thinking is put to the test because Mrs. Johnson manages quite well without a man and seems more at peace with herself. Yet Mrs. Johnson exist in the story as a foil for her daughter Dee, who like other women suffers from misplaced loyalties or perhaps more accurately misplaced priorities. Dee remains blind of the life she lives as a

modern young black woman. She makes the mistake of believing that one’s heritage is something that one puts on display if and when they feel like. For instance the name Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, is one put on to replace the one passed down to her through generations of Johnson women.

Walker also portrays the struggle between men and women it the novel, The Color Purple. This novel is based on Walker’s great-great-grandmother, who was raped and impregnated at the age of 11 by her master, Walker’s great-great grandfather. In the novel, when Celie’s mother becomes too ill and too worn out from childbearing to satisfy her husband’s

sexual appetite, he rapes Celie repeatedly and then sells or gives away the two children born of his sin.

Some of Walker’s fictional women, especially her early ones, “have not found their inner sources of strength and thus prove too willing to let others determine their definitions on self. They deny themselves out of misplaced loyalty to black men or adherence to societal codes that dictate confining gender roles.” Then Walker shows that her “female characters grow as they progress from positions of vulnerability to positions of relative strength”.

Another author who shares the theme of matriarchy is the famous Flannery O’Connor. She is known for her capacity to “blend the comic and the serious in a single view of reality”. In “Good Country People”, O’Connor does this by robbing a character named Hulga of her most valued possession-the wooden leg which is at once the sign of her difference. In another story by O’Connor titled “A Circle in the Fire”, Mrs. Cope must be deprived of a portion of her precious property by her youthful “demonic” visitors who prove to be archangels in disguise. She, Mrs. Cope, must lose her place in order to see and discover her common bond with deprived humanity and then come to a refreshed sense of her own identity. And in “A

Good Man Is Hard to Find”, the grandmother must be brought to the verge of misery before she forgets her obsessive self-concern in a splendid moment of unselfish compassion.

Although in every story that I have mentioned in the previous paragraph is a “depiction of salvation through disaster”; the main character in each is a female. Each story begins with the presentation of a “close-knit”

family, or a combination of a “family-economic group which is itself beset by deep inner tensions”. Into each of these stories a stranger intrudes the everyday life of the family causing a threat which is fulfilled by the women

of what they most prize. But in the process of doing this, he is freeing her to attain or move them toward grace through forcing them to the acceptance of a new identity.

Much of O’Connor’s writings have to do with her background. She was born in Savannah, Georgia, and attended the local woman’s college. So in all she was close to family and this is depicted through her writings.

Another southerner by the name of Tennessee Williams shares the same theme in writings as the two previous authors that I have mentioned. Tennessee Williams was also close to his family. Born in Mississippi on March 26, 1911, Tennessee was mostly attached to his mother Edwina and

his sister Rose. So close that he wrote a play named, The Glass Menagerie. Here the mother, Edwina, became Amanda and Rose transformed into Laura and Tom is himself. In this play Amanda, is head of the household, but in actuality Tom is the working man. His mother nag’s and complains just as if it were reality. Tom gets upset at the fact that her works and takes care of the family. He gets into a spat with his mother and decides to leave. In the play it seems that the man runs the house, but in actuality the mother does. Reason for this is because through her nagging she gets tom to do just what she wants him to do.

“Raising her young, the woman learns earlier then the man to extend her loving care beyond the limits of the ego to another creature, and to direct whatever gift of invention she possesses to the preservation and improvement of this other’s existence. Women at this stage is the repository of all culture, of benevolence, of all devotion, of all concern for the living.” This is the theme these authors have successfully use to captivate the readers and audiences of or world today. Many may disagree with their style but motherly love is the seed from which all love and kindness grows. But beyond that, “motherly love is the basis for the development of universal humanism.”

Bibliography

1. Walters, Dorthy. Flannery O’Connor. Boston:

Twayne Publishers, 1973.

2. Winchell, Donna Haisty. Alice Walker. New York:

Twayne Publishers, 1992.

3. Dr. Funk, Rainer. Love Sexuality, and Matriarchy.

New York: Fromm International, 1997.

4. Smith, Bruce. Tennessee Williams: The Last Stage.

New York: Paragon House, 1990