On the Female Search for Identity

Abstract

This thesis examines the female search for identity in The Women’s Room by Marilyn French and how the patriarchal practices which characterized the American society during the 1960s and the 1970s have affected the women’s search for identity and their self-awareness development. Hence, this study aims at investigating the refraction and the fission of the identity of the central heroine, Mira Ward, throughout her journey of giving up her role as a submissive and indecisive woman to adopt equal autonomy amid the plethora of experiences she undergoes in her life. It also traces the issue of identity quest and meaning in life to women and explores movingly the painful psychical and physical effects of male dominated system on women switching between the central protagonist's childhood to womanhood. Indeed, Mira, throughout the novel oscillates between four different worlds mapped out in the four different stages of life making up the whole novel, The Women’s Room, this includes her childhood, her life as a married woman, divorced woman and the last as free and autonomous woman whic h do not only reflect the fraction within the self of the protagonist but also the fragmentation and the chaos of the world where she lives and everything surround her. Through the use of a feminist approach, this paper seeks to analyze how marriage contributes in making women submissive to men’s realm, and how divorce with its dreadful effects on women after a long life of dependence on man, comes as a new form of relief to liberate women from the suffering they tasted in their past marital experiences. On the one hand, the study seeks to address the impediments that resulted on the identity formation of the central protagonist including, the family restrictions and the social cost of being a woman, a lover, a mother, a divorced woman as well as a political activist in a world which sees woman as an inferior creature. But on the other hand, it elucidates clearly the fragmentation within the female identity by highlighting IV not only the factors and aspects of the inequitable social rules in her life but also b y relating it to the historical events and divisions in the structure of the American society during the 19th century and which reflects the personal experience of the writer herself. Furthermore, this research attempts to throw light on the crucial role o f womanism which plays a significant role on the awakening of the female awareness enabling her to free herself from the unfair practices imposed on her and realize self-reliance. The general conclusion which is the essence of this analysis is that French uses her personal experience reflected in her work, The Women's Room, to raise awareness and help those oppressed women beneath male supremacy and call for constitutional and political reforms to give women their equality in the American community in the context of liberal feminism