During our class discussion on Thursday, the question on how to define women's literature was very hard to word Many people said that women's literature was written for the women and by the women. I believe that to some extent, that statement is true however, I don't agree with the fact that women's literature is written for women solely. Women's literature definitely relates to the female audience at a deeper level but on the other hand, I feel like it acts as an epiphany to many of those people unaware or just simply ignorant. For example, Alice Munro states in her interview that the loss of her middle child was a big deal and she also stated that the loss of children for mothers in other countries may not be that big of a deal simply because it's common. Reading women's literature from all around the word gives these different perspectives and makes people, not only women, aware of what the world of women is like in different places. Also, in order to raise awareness and to achieve a purpose such as gender equality, the audience needs to be everyone.
I believe that there are quite a few reasons as to why we study literature. Some of the prominent ones are: better understanding of current culture as a whole and greater sensitivity and understanding to different perspectives. Better understanding to different cultures is quite relevant as our society is a lot more mobile now and understanding the different perspectives is likely to keep greater harmony in our mobile global community.
The themes and values of social realism were very significant during the 1950s-1980s as that was the period of second wave feminism. Essentially, second wave feminism was a fight to raise the women from their secondary roles and give them equal opportunity for primary roles- this was after basic rights were achieved. In one of Munro's works, the Runaway, Grace is portrayed as someone who dislikes the given gender roles of women at that time and because many women, like Grace, didn't agree with the gender role of women as people only really capable of secondary roles, there was second wave feminism.
I think Munro's work has contributed to gender equality in terms of reaching out to a large audience. She doesn't only develop the main character, the subsidiary characters are just as well developed so anyone reading the book can always relate to aspects of a character. Many times, the reader can also relate to different aspects of different characters at the same time so that makes the text of the stories more engaging. Additionally, no character is shown in a completely bad light meaning that there's no 'good' or 'bad' character so no reader really gets put off and they can see for themselves the position they are at in terms of gender equality/inequality.
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This was an insightful reflection. I mostly agree with your statement that Munro does not create archetypical 'good' or 'bad' characters. Most often Munro's characters are the product or in some instances 'victims' of their situations and as such it is hard to view them as inherently good or bad. However, in some stories not studied in this unit she has dreamed up some rather distinct villains.
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