Feminism

Tolentino addresses sexist attitudes towards women throughout history and how it has adversely impacted both a woman’s personal and professional life in an all-encompassing way by diminishing individual worth and indirectly promoting a new era of self-righteousness. In the chapter “Pure Heroines”, Tolentino argues that while a “husband gets to be first a citizen, a producer, secondly a husband”, a woman is “before all, and often exclusively, a wife.” (117) The author demonstrates the historical persistence of women’s subjugation to men and how it has been ominously symbolized in literature. The deceit and adultery that women feel compelled to resort to negatively affects their inner conscience to a degree in which they explore death as the only feasible solution to end their inner turmoil. Popular heroines in literary novels demonstrate that women have traditionally suppressed their ambitions and desires for the sake of their marriages.

In “We...