11-5-02 Pleasantville: Gender Roles and Humanism Projected in a black and white 50's sitcom, Pleasantville portrays the parable of a totalitarian society inflicted by racial discrimination. With deliberate echoes of the Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, and books such as "1984" and "B...
Not only is this woman condemned for eating the fruit of the sacred tree, but she is also banished from the perfect garden and forced to reckon with the man who was banished along side of her. ... Margaret Fuller gives little to the efforts of men, while Anne Bradstreet remembers to acknowledge her counterparts "one main reason for this discrepancy is the fact that these two women live nearly two centuries apart. ...
Through sublimation, Cisneros fulfills her desire to free herself from the limitations of traditional gender roles, which allows her to give a voice to all the women who cannot speak up for themselves. ... It was a small house with crumbling bricks, small windows, no front yard, no trees, hallway stairs, one washroom, and everyone had to share a bedroom. (4) The house on Mango Street did not live up to Esperanza's standards of her dream house. ... Cisneros' search for her literary identity caused her phantasies to give birth to Esperanza. ...
