Why I want a wife – Judy Brady

Why I want a wife – Judy Brady

The essay “Why I want a wife” by Judy Brady, a great feminist writer of 1970’s. The purpose of this essay is to show women how men think, act and feel about them. The essay had a great impact on the feminist movement of the early 70’s. Many men of those times heckled and despised this essay but it was a huge step towards emancipation of women in male chauvinistic society.

The tone of this essay is very serious, but at the same time, it is considered as humorous, sarcastic and even dramatic.  Judy Brady, being a feminist wants to show how men truly think of women. She writes this essay in the first person to enhance the intensity of women sufferings with innumerable responsibilities. She makes a list of the responsibilities of a typical woman of 1970’s.  She wanted women to know how men truly are. The list of responsibilities, she provides, are rather mind-boggling and proves that some of the things men require are just demanding. Every sentence she writes is emotionally charged description of what men expect from their women. She believes that this is not the way, how women live their lives.

Women are assigned the role of homemaker in the name of culture or tradition. As a result, women are forced to fall victim to perform such role and obliged to fulfill certain duties that have been earmarked for them. Although a woman is working and earning equal to her husband, she has to take care of the entire responsibility of the home. She has to look after of the children. She has to feed them properly and keep a track of children’s doctor and dentist appointments if anything goes wrong with the children’ health. She has to make sure that the children eat properly or not and keep them clean. If we wanted to tell it concisely, she has to take care of every responsibility of children in the process of bringing them up.

In spite of all these responsibilities, as a wife, she has to take care of her husband’s physical needs. She has to see that all her husband’s personal things and keep them in their proper place so that he can find them when he needs them instantly. She has to cook for him and shop for him.  She has to care for him when he suffers from any sickness.

Moreover, she (wife) should not trouble her husband with complaints about her duties. She has to treat his guests properly and she should not interrupt her husband, when he is talking with his guests or friends. She must be very sensitive to the sexual needs of her husband and at the same time, she should not demand sexual attention from her husband when he is not in mood for it. The husband expects her to be very faithful even such critical situations.   

Thus, Judy Brady vehemently rebukes at the male chauvinism, which reduces the status of the women to slaves and servants. Their individuality and self-respect is never recognized in the pro-male dominated society.   

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Nightingales – Robert Bridges

Nightingales - Robert Bridges

Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,

And bright in the fruitful valleys, the streams, wherefrom

Ye learn your song:

Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,

Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air

Bloom the year long!

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:

Our song is the voice of the desire, that hunts our dreams,

A throe of the heart,

Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,

No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,

For all our art.

Along aloud in the ruptured ear of men

We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,

As night is withdrawn

From these sweet-springing meads and bursting bough of May

Dream, while innumerable choir of day

Welcome the dawn.

Summary:

‘Nightingales’ is a poem that goes against all the Romantic qualities that are normally given to these birds. These (birds) are small; reddish brown birds usually migrate to warm places in the winter. They sing very sweetly by day as well as by night. Many poets including John Keats and W.B. Yeats have written in praise of the nightingale, because for them, the song of this bird meant perfection and beauty. Robert Bridges, however, associates the bird with deep sorrow. The poet’s attitude may be based on the Greek legend of Procene and Philomela which tells of the origin of the nightingale.

Procene and Philomela were sisters and daughters of the King of Athens. Procene was given in marriage to Tereus, who was king of the Thraciaus and who had helped the king of Athens. Tereus, however, was in love with Philomela and he seduced her after telling her that Procene was dead. He also tore Procene’s tongue but Procene wove a message for her sister into a robe. Philomela helped her sister escape from Tereus’s prison. Procene killed and cooked their son Itys for Tereus to eat. When Tereus discovered what he was eating, he chased the sisters with an axe but the gods changed all three into birds. Tereus became a hawk, Procene a swallow and Philomela, a nightingale.

The legend is a terrible, heartrending one and explains the poet’s anti-romantic view of the nightingale’s song. The poem is in two voices. The first verse is in the voice of the typical Romantic who imagines that nightingale belongs so a beautiful world filled with flowers and fruits equal to a paradise.

The second and third voices are in the voices of the nightingale who, in reply show how romantic and sad their world actually is. It is not of fullness fertility they sing, but of dreams and desires that never fulfilled. Even their song is unable to express the depth of their sorrow. The last two lines suggest that the more ordinary birds who greet the sunrise are the ones that are really joyful.

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