To Be Independent? Or Not To Be Independent? Feminism

To be Independent? Or not to be Independent?

According to Webster's Dictionary, femininity is defined as: the quality of looking and behaving in ways conventionally thought to be appropriate for a woman or girl (Webster). In "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Shakespeare's Sister," femininity is defined very different. Audrey Hepburn portrays a young lady looking for a new challenge wherever she may go in the classic 1961 film, "Breakfast at Tiffany's." The femininity in the role she plays as "Holly," can be defined as independent. This is unlike the femininity described in Virginia Woolf's excerpt, "Shakespeare's Sister," from her novel, A Room of one's own. In "Shakespeare's Sister," femininity is defined as dependant. Examples of this can be seen in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" when Holly is seen with her own apartment and in "Shakespeare's Sister" when Judith is a shadow compared to her famous brother.

In the movie, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," femininity is shown as being independent. Audrey Hepburn's character, "Holly" is characterized as an independent woman, but rather her gender role is switched. Holly plays a very feminine woman in the movie. She has a lot of sex appeal with her wardrobe. Holly would wear bright sundresses with enormous size hats over head. Holly got the attention she craved with her femininity. In the movie, she dressed as if she was apart of the high social class. In fact, she wasn't at all. Her attitude toward men and her lifestyle can assure you that she is feminine. Men lavish after her throughout the movie.

Even though she is very feminine, her gender role was switched in the movie. She takes care of herself, supports herself, and is determined to live on her own in a big city. In the movie, she does not depend on a man to take care of her. Holly is able to make decisions on her own without a man telling her what to do, wear, or whom to marry. Holly makes her living by visiting Mafioso, Sally Tomato, at Sing Sing, a prison. She visits him every Thursday to spend an hour with him. Mr. Tomato pays Holly one hundred dollars every week to give his lawyer the "weather report."

Although it is not mentioned in the movie, Holly was a prostitute. Every night Holly came home from a night out, men were at her door, wanting to get more out of her. She told her neighbor that men would pay her, "fifty dollars for the powder room." This was an analogy that was used in the movie, to say that men paid her for an evening with a man. In the time of this film, sexual language and content was not allowed.

Even though Holly was wealthy with all her earnings. She was not apart of the higher social class. Holly only seemed to be of a higher social class, because she had a lot of rich friends, had great sex appeal, and had parties with her rich friends. Holly was a "gold-digger." Even though Holly wanted to be independent, she wanted to marry a rich man and take all of his money. Was she so independent? Holly had all the freedom to do what she wanted. This was not like Judith Shakespeare.

Unlike Holly, Judith Shakespeare did not have any freedom. Judith was dependent upon other men. Virginia Woolf wrote "Shakespeare's Sister," to tell how women were written out of history. She wanted to let the world know that women were dependent upon men in the Shakespearian times. Virginia Woolf wrote this non-fictional story to show how Judith wanted to be independent, but could not, because she was the shadow of her famous brother.

Judith was created to show how life had have been like for an imaginary sister of William Shakespeare. She was not educated and could not do anything without a father figure or husband to support her. Judith's femininity was defined as being dependent woman. In this time period Judith

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