Answer to Question #322921 in English for Bloom

Question

Directions: Read Judy Brady’s essay, “I want a Wife” (1971). Then, answer the questions that follow.

1. Structuralist: What is the essay about? What themes or patterns are constantly repeated in this literature?

2. Moralist: How does the text play out ethical principles?

3. Marxist: What role does class play in the work? What is the author analysis of class relations?

4. Feminist: How is the work gendered? Where does the text define the roles of femininity?

5. Historical: What assumptions does Brady make about her audience? About wives? Her essay was written in 1971—does still makes sense today? Why or why not?

6. Reader-response: Do you agree or disagree with the writer’s perspective? Why or why not?

Answer 1

1) The point of the essay “I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady is that a marriage is supposed to be a partnership and is not an ownership. The essay is important because wives and husbands need to know that it takes teamwork to make a marriage be successful. The intended audience of the essay is for both husband and wife. The main idea of the essay Why I Want a Wife by Judy Brady is that men 's perceptions of women still adhere to traditional principles of male dominance and female submissiveness.

2) Brady begins this essay by making an appeal to ethos, “I belong to that classification of people known as wives. ... And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother.” This appeal to ethos suggests that Brady understands the stereotypes that are placed on wives because she may have experienced them first-hand.

3) The repetition of the phrase “I want a wife” in the essay reveals the desire of a man to have a wife because of the duties that they fulfil. This phrase highlights the importance of the duties such as cooking, having children, cleaning, and other domestic work and how a wife must complete all of them. The repetition of the word “I” is describing men as egocentric in which they are worried about themselves rather than their wife. The author sets a sarcastic tone in which she demands to have a wife, where in reality she is tired of being a wife herself. The incorporation of rhetorical questions such as, “Why do I want a wife?” (Brady) stated at the end of the first paragraph and “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?” (Brady) helps create a sense of humour after describing and listing all the duties that women have to fulfil. The title “I Want a Wife” is an irony itself because it makes the reader feel that the author is a male since he is looking for a wife where in reality it is a wife whom is releasing her experience as a woman.

4) In her classic essay first published in feminist magazine Ms., “I Want a Wife” Judy Brady declares the role of women in the 1970’s as viewed from a man’s point of view. This essay by Judy Brady is written from a feminist point of view portraying how men perceive women in their minds and how life is difficult as a wife: “…while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I, would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife? (Brady)” By presenting that Judy is revealing how being a woman is an exhausting experience and how she has a desire to have a wife. As Judy’s article progresses, she reversed her role to a husband as she continues to write from first-person point of view. 

Specifically, the inequities she reveals are those of education (women are not expected to improve themselves intellectually; that privilege is for men), service roles in the household (men are not expected to shop, cook, clean, babysit), sexual desires (men are expected to desire satisfaction; women are expected to adhere).

5) Brady makes the assumption about her audience that they do the chores in the house like she explained without even realizing it. They clean, make the food, and take care of the child because that is what is expected of them. Brady makes the assumption that wives are people that should know their responsibilities and never complain. Brady uses a sarcastic tone in order to express her negative opinion toward the gender roles in the 1970's. In the essay, Brady assumes that the reader knows about the inequality of gender roles in society.

6) I agree. The main idea of the essay is to emphasize the role of men and women in society and how unequal the roles are. Brady expresses her negative views and opinions of gender roles in this story through the use of tone, the idea of feminism, and use of pathos.