Women in contemporary society
28 03 2007One of the questions being considered during this unit is: How are women depicted in contemporary fiction and media? During your reading of the novel, comment on the ways in which women are being portrayed. Consider relationships, experiences, situations, etc.
Most of the women in these novel are strong willed and helpful. Regina refuses to give up her Indian ways, and White Owl is always called for when help is needed to heal someone. Actually, once Diego and Bernardo arrive in Barcelona, the depiction of women change. Juliana seems like she is incredibly stupid and Agnès is a gold digger. Juliana and Isabel’s chaperone/nanny or whatever she is, Nuria, is weak. She gets pushed around by the girls so that she might as well not be watching them.
The only woman that I have any respect for whatsoever in Spain is Isabel, who seems very smart.
I also want to comment on the fact that almost the entire first section of this book could have been avoided or at the very least, shortened considerably. The story is good, but I wouldn’t mind a couple lines of dialogue thrown in or maybe some chapters. That way we wouldn’t have to read 90 pages of description before there was a break.
sorry that last one was by robb my bad
Women are depicted in several different ways in Zorro. Some are depicted as leaders and warriors, like Toypurnia, who gathered a group of warriors and rebelled with her as chief. This same character is depicted in a much different way after marriage. It is said that her responsibilities are the household chores, yet she uses a woman of a lower social class to do the work and roams free herself. It can be argued that women of lower class are for household work, while those of a more upper class can do whatever they like. For example, Eulalia and Regina (Toypurnia) both end up doing what they wish to as they put themselves above the men in society, as both men are in some ways blinded by raging love for the women. Ana, Bernardo’s mother, is the one who does the household chores and “she is happy even though she has little to be happy about.” When the pirates invade, they view women as sex tools; they instantly rape and murder her as they had not seen a women in many months. Women are also portrayed well in relationships. Bernardo falls in love with Light-in-the-Night, an Indian girl, and spends time with her. In the end she decides to give herself to him before he goes to Barcelona. Diego does not have such a love in his life. The closest thing to one is Lolita, whom he meets at a party. Women are also portrayed as solitary, mysterious, powerful, and healing. This is shown through White Owl, who is a powerful healer, who is more or less solitary and quiet and mysterious.
-Alex
So far in Zorro, it seems to me that women are the driving force for all of actions of Diego, Bernardo, Moncada, and the other characters in the novel. Diego, even though he has not matured as much as Bernardo, tries to find a woman with whom he can fall in love. When he gets to Barcelona, immediately he is fascinated by Juliana. He does whatever he can to get Juliana to notice him. Moncada does the same thing as Diego because he gets his friend to sing for him to try to impress her. Another example of both of them, especially Diego, trying to impress Juliana is when they duel each other. They were willing to sacrifice their lives in order to be noticed by Juliana. After Diego wins and Juliana has to take care of his wound, the narrator says that those four days were the best four days of Diego’s life. For Bernardo, Light-in-the-Night is the infulential woman in the story. He goes to visit White Owl’s village just to see Light-in-the-Night. He does this on his and Deigo’s birthday rather than staying at the de la Vega hacienda to celebrate with tons of people.
Women also are very powerful and influential in this novel. When Regina was still Toypurnia (the chief of the village that tried to massacre Padre Mendoza’s church), she had a lot of power and impact on the people of her village. White Owl also has a lot of power in this novel. She is called on whenever someone is near death. She has the power to heal, which is arguably one of the most powerful things in this novel so far.
-Dan
For the question: The main women in this book are portrayed as very strong individuals and basically ‘wear the pants in the house’ even though they don’t really wear jeans or whatever. Regina is very strong willed, and she keeps all of her Indian heritage and doesn’t shy away from conflict or her traditions even though everyone basically shuns her just because she is proud of her family and culture. Even before we know her as Regina and Diego’s mom, or know her at all, she is the leader of all the Indians as they opposed the Spanish at the missions. White Owl, her mom, is not only a very proud woman, but a very important character as well. Without her and her medicine, Regina and Diego would be dead and Bernardo would still not be talking and basically mute.
Also, l definitely agree with Robb about the length thing…sort of. I wouldn’t really cut anything out because i really like the story so far. However, a couple of chapter breaks or something would have been nice to space out the reading so there are more than 6 “chapters” in a 400+ page book.
-Sam
I support Alex’s argument about women of upper class versus women of lower class. In the thrid and fourth parts of the book, women of upper class such as Eulalia and the de Romeu girls are free to do as they please. Eulalia especially can do as she pleases because she has so much power and influence in Barcelona. Women such as Amalia, the gypsy, get pushed around by people of higher power. Eventually this is taken to an extreme when she and her clan are forced to leave Barcelona because of problems with Moncada.
I still believe that women are portrayed as powerful and influencial. I say this because in this section of the book, Diego and the de Romeu girls are forced to go to Eulalia to get her to try and free Tomás de Romeu from prison after he was arrested for being a French sympathizer. A different kind of power and influence in women is that of Juliana. She gets the attention of all the men who are around her. A prime example of this is the pirate Jean Lafitte. He falls in love with Juliana even though he is already married. When Diego finds out about this relationship, he goes crazy because the past five years of his life have been dedicated to getting Juliana to fall in love with him.
-Dan
Unlike our book, Gifts, the women in Zorro are displayed as much more heroic figures than the women in Gifts. The women of Zorro are much more bold and have few restrictions, unlike the traditional roles of women in Gifts. This shows how women authors can have different veiws about womens’ roles in society.
-david m
yo gerges i think that point you made about how women are portrayed as powerful and influencial was a very good point. I think in many of these books the women are portrayed as independed and influencial. In Bastard Out of Carolina the women are very powerful and influencial. The women basically raise their kids. Many kids like bone (the main character) don’t even know their father. At the end of the novel bone reflects on her mom and how much love she has for her. Anney (bones mom) basically had to be the cement of the family because there were always problems between bone and her stepfather, also when they were moving around because they had such little money. Basically Anney had a lot of stregnth and held the family together.
Men in Bastard Out of Carolina are shown as angry drunk people with little respect for their wives, kids, and friends. The men, especially daddy glenn created all the conflict in the book. The men are shown as drunks and they are always loosing their jobs and cant support their families
word
The women in Zorro seem to be depicted as strong and powerful. This is an interesting contrast to the women in Child of My Heart who are used to show that no one is what they first seem to be. Most of the women in Child of My Heart are neglectful of their children and don’t care much about their families. The role of women in Child of my Heart seems to be opposite of the role of women in Zorro and Bastard out of Carolina. The women are not strong and powerful they are weak and not trustworthy.
It seems to me that the women in this novel retain their strength through their refusal of the norm. For example, you all mention White Owl, who has had nothing to do with modern society and has not been “tamed” by the others. She seems to be the most powerful person. Yet, you also mention (Robb) that most of the women who are attached to Spain show weakness or passiveness. The indian lady who refuses to give up her ways also seems to wield immense power. Thusly, from your explanation, in Zorro it seems that women gain their power through refuseing to become tame.
yhsjoyluckclub = Andrew H. Massey = awesome
I’m going to go ahead and agree with Tut and Vladimir on this one. In general, women of the upper classes have more freedom. Although, we should also remember that the De Romeu girls have a chaperone following them constantly so they dont have complete freedom. I also feel like Allende portrays women from the upper classes poorly compared to those of lesser descent. Eulalia is shown as a snobbish queen, and Juliana is very, very slow. Comparatively, Diego’s mother, Amalia, Light-In-the-Night: all are strong women who act fairly and intelligently. I feel like Allende is attempting to show that money can corrupt people and that some of the best people are happy without it.
yea i forgot again that was by robb
yhszorro= Robb T. Arndt=awesomest
Overall after finishing the book I would say that women are depicted as mostly submissive in that they cannot take full control of anything, unless they are of the upper class, in which case they can do mostly anything. Eulalia is in control of her family. Juliana is beautiful and although not in full control she still manages to get a degree of control by not instantly submitting to her suitors, no matter how rich they are; she wants to love her future husband. Whit Owl is another prominent respected woman, in control of herself and others. Although she isnt upper class, she is indian, where there are no classes and is respected for her abiulities. As someone said earlier, they are the driving force for men, and they are men’s goals and affect many of their decisions.
-Alex