1 Women In Crisis Jovenel Jeanty Professor Entin American 20.1

1 Women in Crisis Jovenel Jeanty Professor Entin American 20.1

During the Great Depression writers sought to display the physical, economic and social turmoil families were going through. The image of men waiting in long lines is instilled in many peoples mind. Though men suffered women and children also felt the impact of the Great Depression. Even though it seems to me that women and children were forgotten during the Great Depression by writers. Many of the stories are male dominated or make hardly any mention of women and children at all. The description of poverty and hard times from a woman or child perspective are absent. Both Olsen and Lesueur emerge during a time of great misfortune. Meridel Lesueur and Tillie Olsen began their writing careers during the 1930s and were strongly influenced by those on the left. Though each had different styles Tillie Olsen’s Yonnondio and Meridel Lesueur’s Women on the Breadlines puts the main emphasis on the forgotten. The forgotten are the women and children. They both take everyone into the minds of those who seemed to be rejected by many writers during the Great Depression. Although Yonnondio is about the poor and oppressed people of America, it is a story that focuses on the women and children’s plight during the Great Depression. The constant oppression of poor women is one of the major themes of Yonnondio. Not only that but with Olsen she intertwines women and their role in the family. The odd element about Yonnondio is the narrator. The novel is in the point of view of Mazie so that the world can see what the children went through when things were tough at home. Olsen doesn’t go through the regular route of putting the father or the mother as the main character. She ignores this route because this could lead to an opinionated thought by either the mother or father. Instead by using Maize we are able to get a better sense of what is going on during these

2 difficult times. As a child Maize has no reason to concoct up a story to benefit the reader. Through the eyes of the child it enables one to get a sense of realism. This is exactly what I think Olsen had in mind when she was writing Yonnondio. Also knowing that the narrative comes from six year old Maize there is really no point in second guessing anything that she has to say. So when Maize states that she sees her father hitting one of the children or her mom the reader knows it happened. When the children burn the chicks the reader knows it happened. There remains little doubt to Maize’s stories. Its through Maize eyes we are able to bear witness to beatings, death, discontent, despair, resentment and many other ailments cause by the Great Depression. In Meridel Lesueur’s section about women during the depression, we get a better look at this rather murky topic as she discusses the crises among jobless women during the depression. It is the way Lesueur goes about it that throws me off. She acted not as a distant observer, but a co-participant in the women's despair and a fighter for their survival. Meridel Le Sueur recorded the struggle of poor women during the Depression. While reading Women on the Breadline it seems as if Lesueur is a news reporter just interviewing everyone she sees. The reportorial voice doesn't keep itself separate from the matter it describes, but, rather, identifies with the women and their distress. All the women in the job agency have a different story as to how they got to where they’re at. Her characters are not simply poor or abused because of their economic circumstances or race or sex or sexual orientation. Their problems are more difficult than that, and she shaped her writing style from their voices. She discusses the stories of multiple women. Lesueur seems to be on the frontline. At the same time she seems to be live and not planning to edit any of her material. Similar to Maize’s reporting style it’s hard to doubt the stories told by the women. So when she describes a woman getting mad and screaming at an employee at the Y.W.C.A. because she had been waiting 8 months for a job and was still hungry you know it happened. When Le Sueur provides us with the woman who has not known the feeling of having money for so long that she ends up spending

3 it all immediately in a moment of brief happiness the reader knows it happened. t One of the biggest differences I see between Olsen and Lesueur is the interaction between families. For Olsen it’s mostly about the Holbrooks. Even though Yonnondio seems to be centered on Anne and Maize the children and father are constantly close. I feel as though Olsen she wanted to concentrate on the not just the women but the every day struggles of the family also. Olsen chose to focus her narrative on the family unit and women's role within that family unit. This was important because she to make folks realized that women were the head of the household when men had to seek work. Introducing Americans to poor women was the goal of Lesueur. She didn’t mention the family a lot throughout the article. I feel as though she was more concentrated on women’s rights. For Lesueur I think she really wanted to focus on women alone. In Women on the Breadline I feel like the women at the job agency are family. In the article some even had seen each other before. With Lesueur the women are alone. They don’t speak to each other. These women are isolated and apart from one another even though they share the same room. Can you imagine a group of women together for a long time and not speaking? Lesueur makes a small mention of the women having or not having family but they too seemed separated. LeSueur was a writer who focuses on women, who had lost their jobs, faced starvation, and were abandoned by husbands who were forced to seek work. Both authors also shared similarities. Olsen is not objective at all. She has plenty of opportunities to throw in her feelings. You would think with the brutal acts of Jim committed against his own family, Olsen would throw in a few of her opinions. These opinions never show up. There is no hint of bias. Olsen’s ability to shield the reader of her views is critical. She leaves it up to the reader to formulate there own opinions and beliefs. The same goes for Lesueur. She is a news reporter and is live. Just like a news reporter they give

4 information that is suppose to be true to their knowledge. No one wants to here what the reporter thinks about what they’ve just been told. Lesueur statements are based on accurate observation, with information told through short, simple sentences, without any bias. I think both authors had one question on their mind. Why women’s plight being ignored during the Great Depression? Lesueur says it best when she states "It's one of the great mysteries of the city where women go when they are out of work and hungry. There are not many women in the bread line…..They obviously don't sleep in the jungle or under newspapers in the park…… What happens to them? Where do they go?"(Lesueur, 187). They were both witness to the pain and suffering of women and children. To them women and children were not invisible. They wanted it to be known that women and children in these dark times were going through the same thing as the men Women rejected for so long by most of society were put at the forefront. Besides the men there were the women and children who suffered. Both Olsen and Lesueur explored the effects of the Great Depression on women in particular. They made us witness to the most severe forms of poverty. Women and children thoughts are important and they decided to give readers a glimpse into their world. They were up to the task of reminding readers who forgot that those men on the breadlines were probably there to support there wife and kids. LeSueur became the reporter of women’s lives, often disregarded in accounts of the Great Depression, writing of their experiences in relief agencies and on the breadlines. LeSueur was one of the few writers to focus on women, who also lost jobs, faced starvation, and were abandoned by husbands who were forced to seek work elsewhere. In ways big and small, the women and children of Yonnondio and Women on the Breadlines create another picture to the male-dominated Communist literature of the 1930s. By avoiding this proletarian format they were able to depict experiences that shape women and children

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