On The Road, Post 1, Question 4.
4. Consider both novels. What do you notice about the treatment of women? The characterization of women? Or the omission of women? What might it suggest or signify in either novel?
Reading “On the Road” as a woman or a young lady its easy to get highly offended by the treatment of women because it so negative. Woman aren’t seen as a smart woman, or full of personality there seen as pretty or sexy and good for sex in this book. The inside becomes irreverent and the outside becomes relevant. When a woman comes up the next thing that follows right after her is the way she looks. This is expressed a lot by Sal. When he talks about a woman he always talks about how they look he describes details of there bodies alone. There seen as sexy, intellectually inclined, and people who sleep with any and everyone.
'“And where's Marylou?” I asked, and Dean said she'd apparently whored a few dollars together and gone back to Denver- “the whore!”'
As offensive as this book may sound it was set in 1947-1950. This is right after World War 2 and right before The Civil Right movement. This was how woman were expected to be in that time period. They were expected to be stupid, sexy, whores. This was completely normal in that time and the book was set in that time. So it wouldn’t make to much sense if the treatment of woman was any different. So its understandable. Does anyone agree?
2 comments:
I rarely find myself getting frustrated with the objectification of women, at this point it's such a part of society I feel more irritated when people constantly complain instead of just proving it wrong. But I too found myself getting annoyed, particularly at Dean's careless use of women for sex and money. But the thing was, at times I felt myself beginning to dislike Dean, and I don't think that was necessarily by accident. He is excruciatingly self-centered and rarely pays attention to others: "I told Dean in the toilet. 'It was very kind of him to let us sleep here.' 'Yass, yass,' said Dean, not listening." He doesn't just treat women poorly, he can barely keep any friends. I think that Kerouac purposefully made Dean rather difficult to like. It's to the point where I don't see the book as chauvinistic any more, just Dean as the kind of person who doesn't treat others well.
I agree 100% because I honestly can say I felt ofeended by what the author made the character say , as females we want to be recognized a lot more , we dont want to be seen as a sex object. Dean was a rude person and saw every female as a "where" no wonder he didn't make friends .
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