When she closed the door behind her afternoon guests, and let the quiet smile die from her lips, she began the preparation of food her husband found impossible to eat. She did not try to make her meals nauseating; she simply didn’t know how not to. She would notice that the sunshine cake was too haggled to put before him and decide on a rennet dessert. But the grinding of the veal and beef for a meat loaf took so long she not only forgot the pork, settling for bacon drippings poured over the meat, she had no time to make a dessert at all. Hurriedly, then, she began to set the table. As she unfolded the white linen and let it billow over the fine mahogany table, she would look once more at the large water mark. She never set the table or passed through the dining room without looking at it. Like a lighthouse keeper drawn to his window to gaze once again at the sea, or a prisoner automatically searching out the sun as he steps into the yard for his hour of exercise, Ruth looked for the water mark several times during the day. Sheknew it was there, would always be there, but she needed to confirm its presence. Like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner, she regarded it as a mooring, a checkpoint, some stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was life and not a dream. That she was alive somewhere, inside, which she acknowledged to be true only because a thing she knew intimately was out there, outside herself.
In this passage Ruth talks about how she is a stereotypical woman in the 1960’s. Ruth talks about how she is a housewife and in order for her to feel like she is still alive she has to constantly look at a “water mark” on the table several times a day. She has to look at this water mark as a “checkpoint” to make sure her “world was still there” and that she is living real life and not just a dream.
Under the Feminist lens, it is analyzed how women serve as stereotypical figures such as housewives. Ruth, in this scene, is a prisoner in her own home. The water mark not only represents Ruth being a prisoner, but it also reminds her of the happy moments she used to have before she got married, while it also symbolizes the fear she has of her husband.
In this novel the water mark symbolizes many things. It symbolizes happiness, fear and being a prisoner. The water mark symbolizes happiness because before Ruth got married and she still lived with her dad, they had a vase in the middle of the table, where the water mark is. The vase was always filled with flowers because Ruth’s dad liked to have the house decorated and he thought the house looked nicer with flowers. The water mark also symbolizes the fear that Ruth has of her husband. This symbolizes fear because when Ruth had just gotten married with her husband, and the vase was always filled with flowers her husband threw the vase because he did not like the flowers. This caused Ruth to be scared of her husband and it also created the water mark. Lastly, the water mark symbolizes being imprisoned. This is because Ruth always tries to clean the water mark, she tries to take it off but she fails everytime. The water mark is stuck in the table, just how she is stuck in her house and can get out. Ruth is so depressed and unhappy with her life that she is constantly reminding herself that she is still alive. Looking at the water mark also helps her, because she is looking at a physical object so it reminds her that she is still there.
Through the feminist lence we can see how women in the 1960’s who were stereotypical women, suffered a lot. Most women would suffer a lot because they would have no say in what they wanted. They would just have to stay quiet and do what was “right” for their family.
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