The Women's Room by Marilyn French
"The Women's Room" by Marilyn French is a seminal work that chronicles the evolution of the women's movement through the life of its protagonist, Mira. Set against the backdrop of the 1940s to the 1970s, the novel explores Mira's journey from a dependent suburban housewife to an empowered woman who returns to college after divorce. The narrative weaves in the lives of numerous women who influence Mira, revealing the shared struggles and experiences faced by women during this transformative era.
As Mira navigates her relationships and societal expectations, she grapples with themes of dependency, marital challenges, and the quest for identity in a male-dominated world. The book highlights the gradual awakening of feminist consciousness among women, as they begin to question the traditional roles imposed upon them. Despite the camaraderie and connections formed among women, the novel portrays a pervasive sense of loneliness and dissatisfaction, reflecting on the complexities of female relationships in a changing society.
While some critiques focus on the novel's lack of a cohesive plot and a perceived bias against men, it resonated deeply with many women who identified with Mira’s experiences and the broader feminist movement emerging during that time. Ultimately, "The Women's Room" serves as both a personal narrative and a commentary on the societal shifts regarding women's roles and autonomy.
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Subject Terms
The Women's Room by Marilyn French
First published: 1977
The Work
The Women’s Room is a chronicle of the awakening of the women’s movement. It follows the life of Mira as she grows up in the 1940’s to discover that a woman is thought of as nothing without a man. The novel continues, describing her years as a suburban housewife and finally her years as a divorced older woman who returns to college. The novel tells of the women who come and go in Mira’s life; with each of them she feels a kinship that comes from shared experiences and attitudes. Through the stories of these women, the book relates the story of the evolution of the societal roles of women from the 1940’s through the 1970’s.
Many women are important to Mira throughout her life. Fragments of other women’s lives that affect Mira include those of the women who briefly cheer her in the maternity ward after the birth of her first child, the other housewives in the suburb where she lives as a young woman, and other students at Harvard. In the early years each woman’s life is completely encompassed by men. Mira is forced into marriage by the realization of the potential violence in men. Her suburban friends cater to their husbands and depend completely upon the opinions of men for their self-esteem. They are also completely dependent financially, and many of them suffer for this during marriage and when they get divorced. Outcomes other than divorce include being driven mad by a husband’s coldness, having affairs, and alcoholism.
When Mira goes to Harvard in 1967, her friends and she change with the times. They begin to formulate feminist ideals. The married women are still tyrannized by their husbands, but they are beginning to realize and resent it. Realization, however, does not lead to happiness. Although the group achieves a closeness that is gratifying, they are each ultimately alone and to some degree lonely. The men are still self-absorbed and, at times, violent.
The Women’s Room was criticized for lack of a single plot, antipathy toward men, and a generally grim outlook. The largely autobiographical book was extremely popular among women who saw themselves and their friends in the characters. The novel, which appeared near the close of the first full decade of the women’s movement, seems to explain the genesis of the movement as well as dilemmas experienced by adherents to feminist thought.
Bibliography
Brown, Ellen. “Between the Medusa and the Abyss: Reading Jane Eyre, Reading Myself.” In The Intimate Critique: Autobiographical Literary Criticism, edited by Diane P. Freedman, Olivia Frey, and Frances Murphy-Zauhar. Durham: Duke University Press, 1993. Various essays explore the feminist approach and biographical connections in French’s work.
Clarke, Betsy. The Turmoils of Gender: Marilyn French and Mary Gordon. Rockford, Ill.: Rockford Institute, 1982. An interesting discussion by two modern feminist writers about their respective literary treatments of what some have called “the longest war.”
Current Biography. “Marilyn French.” 53 (September, 1992): 10-14. Offers biographical background on French, as well a brief critiques of some of her works. Describes The Women’s Room as a dramatization of a woman’s search for herself in a society dominated by males.
French, Marilyn. “The Great Chain.” In The World of George Sand. New York: Greenwood, 1991. French does not specifically address issues in any of her novels; however, she examines the treatment of women in relationship to political ideologies portrayed in books of the past. Offers interesting insight into French’s feminist philosophy.
French, Marilyn. “The Masculine Mystique.” Literary Review 36 (Fall, 1992): 17-27. Complementing Betty Friedan’s analysis of women’s ambivalent power base in a female mystique, French considers the background of men’s power base. She addresses the question of why she does not focus her fiction upon male characters and explains why men’s unselfconscious, phallocentric worldview has its dangers.
French, Marilyn. Season in Hell: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 1998. A moving account of French’s battle against esophageal cancer. Although this work does not address any of French’s works, it does offer insight into her tenacious character.
Sweeney, Susan Elizabeth. “The Madonna, The Women’s Room, and The Scarlet Letter.” College English 57 (1995): 410-425. Relates the treatment of women in these well-known novels to the theories of Sigmund Freud.