Course Title Advanced English Reading

1
Course TitleAdvanced English Reading

• Course Book
• Advanced English Reading Modern Prose
• Unit Thirteen
• Philosophers among the Carrots

2
Teaching Procedures and Focus
3

• Intensive Study of the Text

4
Philosophers among the Carrots
5
Questions on the title

• Philosophers among the Carrots
• What does the title mean ?
• What is a philosopher ? What are carrots ?
• In what way does a philosopher have anything to
  do with carrots?
• Keep the questions in your mind while reading
  and we will come back to them.

6

• 1. As I was cleaning the refrigerator the other
  day and thinking deep thoughts about Women's Lib,
  I asked myself if it was still permissible to
  take pleasure in the profession of housewife and
  not be a traitor to the cause. Am I really making
  use of my college education? What good did
  Introduction to Philosophy, IA do me, for
  instance? Then I recalled Socrates' saying that,
  The unexamined life is not worth living, and
  decided that maybe it was time to examine mine.

7
Comprehension Questions

• What reminds the author of Womens Lib and
  Socrates?
• Why does the author decide that it is time to
  examine her own life ?

8

• 2. As I stood eating apples, oranges and brown
  bananas and gazing into the depths of my
  refrigerator while considering college educations
  and housewives, I saw the manifestation of a
  great, metaphysical truth. Like energy, matter
  simply descends in scalefrom roast to stew to
  soup to cat food. I muttered eruditely to the
  cat as I paused in my own eating long enough to
  pour a bit of soup into his bowl. Where are the
  string beans of yesterday? But of course, they
  are the vegetable soup of today. If I hadn't been
  to college, I wouldn't have seen that significant
  analogy, I thought smugly, depositing an orange
  pit in the sink as I finished the salad (or did I
  learn that in high school?).

9
Language Points

• metaphysical truth
• philosophical truth
• eruditely
• very knowledgeably, quite scholarly
• analogy
• a comparison between two things that are
  similar in some way, often used to help explain
  something or make it easier to understand

10

• 3. Then, as I eyed a bowl of cooked carrots
  speculatively, sizing them up for carrot cake or
  marinated vegetable salad and opting for the cake
  which I knew would be seconded by my husband and
  three sons, I followed the train of my thoughts
  which was chugging off into philosophical realms
  led by Archimedes who said, Any object placed in
  a fluid displaces its weight an immersed object
  displaces its volume, and with that principle to
  guide me I immersed the lumpy carrots in the milk
  called for in the recipe and found they made
  almost exactly the one cup called for. Muttering,
  along with Emerson, that A foolish consistency
  is the hobgoblin of little mindsI dumped in a
  couple of spoonfuls of applesauce to make it come
  out right.

11
Language Drills

• Make sentences with the following phrasal verbs
• 1. opt for 2. chug off 3. call
  for
• 1. He opted for early retirement.
• 2. The train chugged off into distance.
• 3. Study calls for patience and diligence.

12

• 4. With the cake in the oven I went into the
  bathroom-laundry room carrying my new found
  illuminations about housewives and philosophy
  with me (Buddha had his Bo tree, I have my
  refrigerator) and there I faced the endless river
  of dirty tee shirts, sweat socks, pajamas and
  underwear, with a quote from Heraclitus. You
  can't step twice in the same river, I assured
  myself as I picked up a pair of jeans and emptied
  the pockets of bubble gum wrappers, pencils and
  pennies, and I saw about me the variety in unity
  and unity in variety spoken of by my aesthetics
  professor.

13

• 5. Then, having started the wash, and reflecting
  on the symbol of the lotus in Oriental philosophy
  which rises, pure and pristine from the mud and
  muck, I walked proud and untouched among the gym
  trunks and sweatshirts and out into the rest of
  the house to tidy it up. There I indulged in
  aggressive fantasies against my dear family as I
  picked up a necktie draped on a lamp, a pair of
  tennis shoes under the couch, a cache of peanut
  shells beneath a newspaper and, remembering
  William James' comment that Even a pig has its
  philosophy, I wondered angrily what theirs was.

14

• 6. After several days of such virtuous, domestic
  behavior scrubbing, ironing, cooking, and making
  yeast dough that blossoms and rises under my
  fingers like the miracle of life itself, I got up
  one morning and, with a wave of willfulness,
  remembered the philosophy of Rabelais' renegade
  abbe, Do as you will. In my present state of
  mind I found this the quintessence of good sense
  and I walked out of the house and into the car,
  leaving the breakfast dishes on the table. When
  my husband came home he said, This place is a
  mess!

15
Comprehension Questions

• When did the housewife leave home? Where did she
  go ? What did she do after she left home? What do
  wives usually do when they are angry with their
  husbands ?
• When did the housewife return home ? Why did her
  husband complain ? If you were in the position of
  the housewife, how would you react to the
  husbands complaint ?

16

• 7. I smiled enigmatically as I continued to stir
  the chicken soup and quoted Alexander Pope, All
  chaos is but order misunderstood, then added
  with composure that I had purchased a new a
  dress.

17

• 8. A new dress! You just bought one last week!
  he shouted in an unseemly manner. But, without
  becoming the least bit ruffled, I replied, in the
  words of Pascal, Ah, but the heart has its
  reasons the mind knows not of, and I moved off
  into the kitchen to cut up some cheese and fruit
  and put the bread into the oven. Next I went into
  the bedroom, put on my new red dress, combed my
  hair and sprayed some My Desire cologne on it.

18
Comprehension Questions

• What did the housewife do after she quoted Pascal
  as a retort on her husbands complaint ? Why do
  you think the housewife put on her new red dress
  and perfumed her hair despite the husbands
  unseemly and loud complaint?
• How did the housewife expect her husband to
  respond to her deliberate make-up? What do women
  usually expect from their husbands/boy friends
  under such circumstances?

19

• 9. My husband looked at me eyes growing wide
  as an approving smile spread over his face. But
  the bread, with its tantalizing aroma was
  competing with me his affections and the bread
  won for the time being. I sat there smiling
  content amid my four men who were happily and
  heartily eating and I reflected that the
  philosophy of Boethius for me, at this time,
  seemed right and that Whatever is, is good.

20
Critical Analysis
21
Assignments

• Translate the text into Chinese and discuss with
  your classmates the strategies in translating the
  philosophical quotations (mottos) in the text.
• Surf the Internet to search for some references
  on feminism and then write a composition either
  for feminist ideas or against them.

22
Sayings about Wife Housewife

• Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for
  middle age, and old men's nurses.
• 
  Francis Bacon
• The most dramatic thing is that, even when you
  look at women who are working full time outside
  the homeas full time as their menwhen it comes
  to ironing and cleaning, 60 or 70 per cent of
  that work is still done by the women.
• 
  Malcolm Wicks
•  

23

• To the old saying that man built the house but
  woman made of it a 'home' might be added the
  modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as
  a chore but man has made of it a recreation.
• Emily Post, 1872-1960, U.S. writer and
  columnist
• O! men with sisters dear,
• O! men with mothers and wives!
• It is not linen you're wearing out,
• But human creatures' lives!
• Thomas Hood, 1799-1845, British poet and
  humorist

24

• In the late 1960s women began to work for equal
  rights. They wanted to end discrimination against
  women at home and work. To accomplish this, women
  began taking part in marches, working for the
  passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and
  generally speaking out against inequality. The
  women in this photograph participated in the
  Womens Strike for Equality held in August 1970
  in New York City.

25

• Socrates (????, 469-399 BC), Greek philosopher,
  who profoundly affected Western philosophy
  through his influence on Plato. Born in Athens,
  the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and
  Phaenarete, a midwife, he received the regular
  elementary education in literature, music, and
  gymnastics. Later he familiarized himself with
  the rhetoric and dialectics of the Sophists, the
  speculations of the Ionian philosophers, and the
  general culture of Periclean Athens. Socrates was
  reportedly unattractive in appearance and short
  of stature but was also extremely hardy and
  self-controlled. He enjoyed life immensely and
  achieved social popularity because of his ready
  wit and a keen sense of humor that was completely
  devoid of satire or cynicism.

26

• To live an aware life, the individual must begin
  with an awareness of self. He must conduct a
  running examination and periodic reexaminations
  of the self in language, the medium of
  furthest reaches, deepest diving, most
  labyrinthine windings. The sorting through might
  well begin with the ordinary, everyday
  experiences of life. A diary or journal enables
  one to sift through and evaluate experiences, as
  well as to come to understand them and their
  significance or insignificance. Most of us do
  this sifting and evaluation in moments of reverie
  or in that state of mental vagabondage just
  before sleep. There is some (even great)
  advantage, however, in subjecting ourselves to
  the discipline of written language, in which the
  vague and the mushy and the muddled must give way
  to the specific, the firm, the clearly
  formulated.
• 
  ----James E. Miller, Jr

27

• Compare the Following Chinese
• ?????????????,?????????,??????,????
• 
  ?? . ??
• Master Zeng said, Every day I examine myself on
  three points in acting on behalf of others, have
  I always been loyal to their interests? In
  dealings with my friends, have I always been true
  to my words? Have I lived up to the ethical
  precepts that have been handed down to me?

28

• A housewife with a college education, the author
  is aware that she owes Women's Lib some loyalty
  for giving her the right to equal educational
  opportunities, and that she should not betray the
  cause, which demands that woman be no servant to
  man. She therefore feels a bit guilty for
  remaining a housewife. On the other hand, she
  cannot escape the situation as a housewife. In
  fact, she feels at the bottom of her heart she
  loves her present life. She is thus caught in the
  conflict between her uneasy conscience for not
  meeting the demands of Women's Lib and her
  enjoyment of the housewife "profession".

29

• She expresses her dilemma precisely in the
  sentence "I asked myself if it was still
  permissible to take pleasure in the profession of
  housewife and not be a traitor to the cause", in
  which the words "still permissible to take
  pleasure" show her strong sentiment for her
  present condition and her wish to take
  guilty-free pleasure in being a housewife.
• "To relieve her guilty feelings, and also to
  fulfill her education, she recalls Socrates
  saying and decides to apply her philosophical
  knowledge to the mundane concerns of a
  house-keeper, as if saying "So let's see if I
  can use my college education in the kitchen."

30

• Empirical observation in the 19th century led to
  the conclusion that although energy can be
  transformed, it cannot be created or destroyed.
  This concept, known as the conservation of
  energy, constitutes one of the basic principles
  of classical mechanics. The principle, along with
  the parallel principle of conservation of matter,
  holds true only for phenomena involving
  velocities that are small compared with the
  velocity of light. At higher velocities close to
  that of light, as in nuclear reactions, energy
  and matter are inter-convertible (see
  Relativity). In modern physics the two concepts,
  the conservation of energy and of mass, are thus
  unified.
• (????,??????)

31

• It is an alteration of the quotation from the
  poem by the French poet Francois Villon Where
  are the snows of yesterday? Where are is a
  motif used in many poems which lament the
  transitory nature of life (the fleeting of time)
  and beauty. In W. B. Henleys Ballad of Dead
  Actors, for instance, we read
• Where are the passions they essayed,
• And where the fears they made flow?
• In the text, however, the author makes jocular
  use of the motif to convey in a straight way the
  following meaning
• What has happened to the string beans?
• (Of course, they have become the vegetable soup
  of today.)

32
Archimedes

• Archimedes made extensive contributions to
  theoretical mathematics. In addition, he is well
  known for applying science to everyday life. For
  instance, Archimedes discovered the principle of
  water displacement while taking a bath. He also
  developed simple machines such as the lever and
  screw into useful tools for war and irrigation.

33

• An object is subject to an upward force when it
  is immersed in liquid. The force is equal to the
  weight of the liquid displaced. The apparent
  weight of a block of aluminium (1) immersed in
  water is reduced by an amount equal to the weight
  of water displaced. If a block of wood (2) is
  completely immersed in water, the upward force is
  greater than the weight of the wood. (Wood is
  less dense than water, so the weight of the block
  of wood is less than that of the same volume of
  water.) So the block rises and partly emerges to
  displace less water until the upward force
  exactly equals the weight of the block.

34

• American intellectual and author Ralph Waldo
  Emerson helped lead the transcendentalism
  movement, a 19th-century school that looked to
  individual intuition, rather than scientific
  rationalism, as the highest source of knowledge.
  In Self-Reliance (1841), one of Emersons most
  important works, he expressed his optimistic
  faith in the power of individual achievement and
  originality. He also considered the overarching
  need to discover and develop a relationship with
  nature and with God.

35
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little
minds, adored by little statesmen and
philosophers and divines. With consistency a
great soul has simply nothing to do.

• A foolish consistency means an inflexible
  observance of a rule, a law, etc. A hobgoblin is
  an abominable thing or quality, a mischievous
  devil. Little minds refer to people without
  intelligence. So the quotation means to observe
  a rule rigidly is an abominable quality of
  unintelligent people.

36
Buddha had his Bo tree

• This Buddha figure carved out of sandstone is
  from Mathura, a city in northern India that was
  at the center of Buddhist sculptural activity
  from the 2nd century bc to the 6th century ad.
  Buddha is shown seated on a lion throne with a
  large halo behind his head and attendants at his
  side.

37
Just as Buddha received heavenly inspiration to
found Buddhism under the Bo tree, so I got new
understanding about housewives and philosophy
beside my refrigerator.

• The bo tree is an Indian fig tree also known as
  bohdi, pipal, or peepul. It is sacred to
  Buddhists because Buddha is said to have received
  enlightenment while sitting under a bo tree. The
  trees can grow to a height of about 30 m (about
  100 ft).

38
You can't step twice into the same river.

• Everything flows and nothing stays.
• The foundation of the world is at rest, the world
  itself is in motion.
• We both step and do not step into the same
  rivers we both are and are not.
• ???????,
• ????????
• ????????

• Even if the clothes I wash every day appear to be
  the same, what I wash today is certainly quite
  different from what I washed yesterday, because
  every time I wash them they will surely have
  different stains, tears, smells and whats not
  different features that bring to me different
  fantasies and pleasures.

39

• This is an aesthetic principle, which means to
  see uniformity in difference and see difference
  in uniformity.

• Think of it in terms of the Marxist philosophical
  
• principle we are familiar with
• ?????????????

40
Literal interpretation

• Works of art have long been regarded by
  aestheticians as a combination of unity with
  variety. When diverse and various parts are
  combined onto a whole, the unity of the parts in
  the whole is immediately perceived, for man has
  natural inclinations to seek harmony from chaos,
  and unity from variety. At the same time,
  however, the human mind constantly needs to seek
  variety as relief from the dullness and monotony
  of oneness. Thus, variety in unity and unity
  in variety become inseparable from, and
  complementary to, each other.

41
Contextual Interpretation

• Applied to the authors case, unity means that
  all the clothes she has to wash are dirty
  clothes, and variety means that every piece to
  be washed is different from each other. More
  importantly, unity means that all the clothes
  she washes have one unified quality they are all
  worn by her dear family members she is always
  ready to serve and each piece is something
  special to her (variety) because each of her four
  men appeals to her in particularly different
  ways.

42
Further Implications

• The author, possibly believing in the old saying
  Variety is the spice of life, takes this
  quotation to cheer herself up from the monotony
  of doing the laundry day in and day out.
• Also, it is very clear that the author takes much
  pleasure in doing the seemingly tedious laundry
  because every time she washes the various dirty
  clothes, they would appeal to her with a fresh
  new feature and even a tantalizing aroma which
  is unique and special and precious to her.
• So we may draw from her example here a somewhat
  philosophical conclusion that happiness has much
  to do with how one feels rather than what one
  does or possesses.

43
Think of this in terms of the following Chinese
sayings

• ???????
• ?????,???????
• ????,?????
• ????,?????
• ????????

44
? ? ?

• ??????,?????????????????,?????????????????,?????
  ?,????,????,????,????,?????????????,????????,????
  ???,????????!???,????????,?????????,?????
• ( ??? 1017-1073 )

45
Contextual Implications

• While washing the dirty clothes, the
  college-educated housewife was consoled and even
  proud of herself through mere imagination of
  herself as the lotus flower in Oriental
  philosophy, which rises, pure and pristine from
  the mud and muck.

46
William James

• American psychologist and philosopher, William
  James helped to popularize the philosophy of
  pragmatism with his book Pragmatism A New Name
  for Old Ways of Thinking (1907). Influenced by a
  theory of meaning and verification developed for
  scientific hypotheses by American philosopher C.
  S. Peirce, James held that truth is what works,
  or has good experimental results. In a related
  theory, James argued the existence of God is
  partly verifiable because many people derive
  benefits from believing.

47
Francois Rabelais (14941553)

• French writer and priest who for his
  contemporaries was an eminent physician and
  humanist and for posterity is the author of the
  comic masterpiece Gargantua and Pantagruel. The
  four novels composing this work are outstanding
  for their rich use of Renaissance French and for
  their comedy, which ranges from gross burlesque
  to profound satire. They exploit popular legends,
  farces, and romances, as well as classical and
  Italian material, but were written primarily for
  a court public and a learned one.

48
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

• English poet, who, modeling himself after the
  great poets of classical antiquity, wrote highly
  polished verse, often in a didactic or satirical
  vein. In verse translations, moral and critical
  essays, and satires that made him the foremost
  poet of his age, he brought the heroic couplet,
  which had been refined by John Dryden, to
  ultimate perfection. He first earned fame with
  the work An Essay on Criticism (1711), in which
  he wrote the now famous line, To err is human,
  to forgive divine.

49
Please read the following Chinese

• ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
• ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
• ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
• ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

50
All chaos is but order misunderstood.

• Literally, the saying means All chaos is in fact
  not chaos, but is order which has been mistaken
  for chaos. In this context, the author means to
  say My house is always very clean and tidy and
  you just take for granted a housewifes hardship.
  Even today, without much cleaning, our house is
  still clean and tidy with everything in its
  place. You simply dont know Housework is never
  done.

51
Blaise Pascal (16231662)

• French philosopher, physicist and mathematician.
  He is generally ranked among the finest French
  polemicists, especially in the Lettres
  provinciales, a classic in the literature of
  irony. He affects his readers by his use of logic
  and the passionate force of his dialectic. His
  motto is We know the truth, not only by the
  mind, but also by the heart.

52
The heart has its reasons the mind knows not of.

• The heart is often related with feeling, emotion,
  intuition, instinct and impulse, which are
  usually identical with women, while the mind
  stands for reason, ration, logic, synthesis and
  composure, which are generally assumed to be
  characteristic of men. The quotation means that
  sometimes we do something out of emotion which is
  not based on reason. It may also be taken to mean
  that sometimes women do something men can not
  understand at all.

53
Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus

• Boethius, (AD 470-524), Roman philosopher and
  statesman, he wrote De Consolatione Philosophiae
  (The Consolation of Philosophy, c. 523), a
  philosophic work that, although not explicitly a
  Christian text, contained so many elements of
  Christian ethics that it was highly regarded in
  Europe during medieval times. Many translations
  of the work were made, notably (in England) by
  King Alfred the Great and by the poet Geoffrey
  Chaucer. Boethius also wrote treatises on logic
  that profoundly influenced the terminology of
  medieval logic translations and commentaries on
  the works of Aristotle, from which medieval
  scholars largely derived their knowledge of the
  Greek philosopher and works on music,
  arithmetic, and theology.

54
Whatever is, is good.

• Written nearly 13 centuries earlier, this
  quotation is not related to Hegels (German
  philosopher, 17701831) much quoted saying
  Whatever exists is reasonable. By this Hegel
  means that the task of philosophy is to
  comprehend the rationality of what already
  exists.
• Literally, the quotation means that whatever
  exists is good. Reality is good because
  everything is created by God.

55

• The author quotes this to show that she is
  satisfied with everything because nothing could
  bring greater satisfaction to a mother and wife
  than being amid her own dear and beloved ones,
  especially seeing them heartily eating.
• Thus the question (I asked myself if it was still
  permissible to take pleasure in the profession of
  housewife and not be a traitor to the cause.)
  raised at the beginning of the essay has found
  its positive answer yes, it is not only
  permissible, but also practical and preferable,
  and even reasonable and philosophical to take
  pleasure in the profession of housewife because
  Whatever is, is good.

56
Heracleitus ( BC 540480 )

• Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology,
  in which fire forms the basic material principle
  of an orderly universe. Little is known about his
  life, and the one book he apparently wrote is
  lost. His views survive in the short fragments
  quoted and attributed to him by later authors.

57
PHILOSOPHERS AMONG THE CARROTS

• What is a philosopher?
• somebody who studies philosophy the branch of
  knowledge or academic study devoted to the
  systematic examination of basic concepts such as
  truth, existence, reality, causality, and freedom
• somebody holding particular beliefs somebody who
  believes in a particular system of thought or
  doctrine and thinks and acts accordingly
• thinking person a thinker who deeply and
  seriously considers human affairs and life in
  general
• calm and rational person somebody who calmly and
  rationally reacts to events, especially adversity

58
What are Carrots?

• common name for a plant (see Parsley) native to
  Eurasia and northern Africa and widely
  distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone
  the name is also applied to the root of this
  plant. The wild variety, popularly known as Queen
  Anne's lace, has a tough, woody root, unsuitable
  for food. The cultivated variety is the popular
  table vegetable.

59
In what way do philosophers have anything to do
with carrots ?

• At first sight, the title of the text presents a
  collocation clash, for it places two things
  together which are scarcely associated in real
  life. A close analysis, however, may reveal that
  the title reflects the contrastive structure
  (between housewife and college education,
  housework and philosophy) of the text in the
  largest possible measure of neatness.
• Along this line, sufficient justification can be
  found for the title, which is in effect not a
  semantic incongruity, but vividly illustrates the
  message of the text -- the writer's application
  of philosophy to the banalities of her life for
  the purpose of satisfying her conscience and
  consoling herself in household chores.

60

• The text may well be turned visually into a table
  with two columns. In the left-side column we may
  enter all the philosophical quotations or sayings
  from the text, and in the right side column are a
  housewife's domestic activities in one-to-one
  correspondence to the philosophical ideas on the
  left. Thus, the author's meditation on the tricky
  relation between an educated housewife and
  Women's Lib during her cleaning of the
  refrigerator, leads to the recall of Socrate's
  saying that "The unexamined life is not worth
  living" (pa 1). This prompts all the humorous
  details of her reassessment of life following
  this introductory paragraph.

61
Philosophers Among the Carrots

• doing housework
• examining life
• eating apples, oranges
• preparing for cake
• adjusting the cake recipe
• narrator and refrigerator
• faced with dirty clothes
• washing sweaty clothes
• becoming angry
• leaving home
• protest against complaints
• defending for new dress
• feeling content with life

• Womens lib
• Socrates
• Matter descends in scale
• Archimedes
• Emerson
• Budda and Bo tree
• Heraclitus
• Symbol of Lotus
• William James
• Rabelais
• Alxander Pope
• Pascal
• Boethius

62
The juxtaposition of philosophic terms which are
all of Latin origin, alongside common core
Anglo-Saxon household words to form a lexical
contrast, thus matching the overall contrastive
structure and theme.
63
The repetition of sentence structures

• The writer repeats the sentence structure As I
  dynamic verbs (describing domestic activities
  such as clean, cut, eat, pick up, spray, etc.),
  I stative verbs (denoting perception or
  cognition such as eye, gaze, find, know, recall,
  reflect, remember, see, understand, wonder,
  etc.), thus connecting the two otherwise
  incompatible sets of activities in a very neat
  form. (pas 1, 2, 3 )

64
Contrastive Essay Structure

• Right from the title the essay runs through an
  alternating contrast between a common housewife
  and college education, daily housework and
  orthodoxy philosophy.
• Started with an internal conflict between taking
  pleasure in the profession of housewife and not
  being a traitor to the cause of Women's Lib, the
  essay reflects the narrators contemplation of
  the tricky relation between an educated housewife
  and Women's Lib.

65
Figures of speech

• Alliteration pure and pristine , mud and muck
  (pa 5)
• Metaphor the train of my thoughts which was
  chugging off ( pa 3 )
• Analogy Buddha had his Bo tree, I have my
  refrigerator. ( pa 4 )
• Abundant philosophical allusions knitted very
  naturally into the texture of the entire essay
• The humorous tone with an omnisciently erudite
  touch (?????????)

66
Philosophically

• Philosophy (view of life), rather than
  physical possessions, decides the quality of
  human life. That is, a healthy life attitude
  guarantees a happy life.

67
Sociologically

• Personal fulfillment is achieved as long as
  the individual social role is played well.

68
Educationally

• The ultimate function of education is not to
  make the educated useful (utilitarian) but to
  bring the potentialities of the educated into
  full play, that is, to make the educated a full
  person with a liberal mind and a healthy body.

69
Ideologically (Feminism and Feminist Ideas)

• Every detail of the authors application of her
  philosophical knowledge to the mundane concerns
  of a house-keeper eventually goes from the
  sublime to the ridiculous, creating a series of
  comic situations in which profound idealism is
  faced with the dull daily work of a family
  manager. The fact that she seems able to make
  any of her domestic situations justifiable by one
  philosopher or another is also satirical in
  itself. The jocular effects she produces are only
  intended to amuse the reader and to poke fun at
  the ideals held up by Women's Lib.

70
Politically (Womens liberation, Equal Rights)

• The bitter irony comes at the end of the essay,
  when she finally decides to rebel against Womens
  Lib, for which she used to be an advocator, using
  the philosophy she has learned "Whatever is,
  is good" (pa 9). This quotation shows that she is
  perfectly happy with her present life, and that
  she is somewhat saying go to hell" to the
  Women's Liberation Movement.

71
Literarily (creative writing)

• ???????,
• ????????
• ???

72
Further Study

• Womens Rights
• Feminism
• Equal Rights Amendment
• Anti-ERA

73
Womens Rights

• Womens Rights mean to establish the same social,
  economic, and political status for women as for
  men. Womens rights guarantee that women will not
  face discrimination on the basis of their sex.
  Until the second half of the 20th century, women
  in most societies were denied some of the legal
  and political rights accorded to men. Although
  women in much of the world have gained
  significant legal rights, many people believe
  that women still do not have complete political,
  economic, and social equality with men.

74
Feminism

• Feminism is a collective term for systems of
  belief and theories that pay special attention to
  womens rights and womens position in culture
  and society. The term tends to be used for the
  womens rights movement, which began in the late
  18th century and continues to campaign for
  complete political, social, and economic equality
  between women and men.

75
Feminists

• Feminists are united by the idea that womens
  position in society is unequal to that of men,
  and that society is structured in such a way as
  to benefit men to the political, social, and
  economic detriment of women. However, feminists
  have used different theories to explain these
  inequalities and have advocated different ways of
  redressing inequalities, and there are marked
  geographic and historical variations in the
  nature of feminism.

76
Anti-ERA

• In the 1970s and early 1980s, Schlafly campaigned
  against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment
  (ERA). The amendment called for men and women to
  be given equal treatment under the law. Schlafly
  opposed the ERA because it would require women to
  serve in combat, and because she believed it
  would take away legal rights of wives and would
  negatively influence family life. Schlafly also
  argued that the amendment would lead to unisex
  restrooms. She became a leading opponent of the
  ERA through her lobbying organizations, Stop ERA
  and Eagle Forum, and by testifying against the
  ERA before 30 state legislatures. The ERA was
  defeated in 1982, and Schlafly continued to lead
  her Eagle Forum organization in campaigns
  advocating conservative issues. She has written
  several books, including A Choice Not an Echo
  (1964), which was an endorsement of the
  presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater
  The Power of a Positive Woman (1977) and
  Pornography's Victims (1987).

77
Phyllis Schlafly

• American political activist Phyllis Schlafly has
  long opposed the womens liberation movement.
  She is a proponent of traditional roles for women
  as wives and mothers.

78

• A housewife with a college education, the author
  is aware that she owes Women's Lib some loyalty
  for giving her the right to equal educational
  opportunities, and that she should not betray the
  cause, which demands that woman be no servant to
  man. She therefore feels a bit guilty for
  remaining a housewife. On the other hand, she
  cannot escape the situation as a housewife. In
  fact, she feels at the bottom of her heart she
  loves her present life (She is taking pleasure in
  the profession of housewife). She is thus caught
  in the conflict between her uneasy conscience for
  not meeting the demands of Women's Lib and her
  enjoyment of the housewife "profession". She
  expresses her dilemma precisely in the sentence
  "I asked myself if it was still permissible to
  take pleasure in the profession of housewife and
  not be a traitor to the cause", in which the
  words "still permissible to take pleasure" show
  her strong sentiment for her present condition
  and her wish to take guilty-free pleasure in
  being a housewife.

79

• "To relieve her guilty feelings, and also to
  fulfill her education, she recalls Socrates
  saying and decides to apply her philosophical
  knowledge to the mundane concerns of a
  house-keeper, as if saying "So let's see if I
  can use my college education in the kitchen."

80
Sayings about Wives

• A good wife is the joy of life.
• A man without a wife is like a horse without a
  bridle.
• A wife is sought for her virtue, a concubine for
  her beauty.
• If the wife wears the breeches, the husband must
  rock the cradle.
• If you take a wife from hell she will bring you
  back.
• The first wife is matrimony, the second company,
  the third heresy.
• When husband and wife agree with each other, they
  can dry up the ocean with buckets.
• A woman's work is never done.

81
Quotations on Women

• Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for
  middle age, and old men's nurses.
• 
  ----Francis Bacon
• The most dramatic thing is that, even when you
  look at women who are working full time outside
  the homeas full time as their menwhen it comes
  to ironing and cleaning, 60 or 70 per cent of
  that work is still done by the women.
• ----Malcolm
  Wicks (1947  )
• 
  British sociologist, 1990.

82

• For a woman to get a rewarding sense of total
  creation by way of the multiple monotonous chores
  that are her daily lot...as irrational as for an
  assembly line worker to rejoice that he had
  created an automobile because he had tightened a
  bolt.
• ----Edith Mendel Stern
  (19011975)
• U.S. writer and
  social critic.
• "Women are Household
  Slaves"

83

• O! men with sisters dear,
• O! men with mothers and wives!
• It is not linen you're wearing out,
• But human creatures' lives!
• Thomas Hood (1799 - 1845)
• British poet and humorist
• "The Song of the Shirt"

84

• Here lies a poor woman who always was tired,
• For she lived in a place where help wasn't hired
• Her last words on earth
• Dear friends I am going
• Where washing ain't done nor sweeping nor sewing,
  
• And everything there is exact to my wishes,
• For there they don't eat and there's no washing
  of dishes.
• Don't mourn for me now, don't mourn for me never,
  
• For I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever.
• 
  Anonymous
• 
  Spectator (London), Letter  

85

• To the old saying that man built the house but
  woman made of it a 'home' might be added the
  modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as
  a chore but man has made of it a recreation.
• ----Emily
  Post (18721960)
• U.S. writer and
  columnist, Etiquette
• The whole process of home-making, house-keeping
  and cooking, which ever has been woman's special
  province, should be looked on as an art and a
  profession.
• ----Sarah Josepha
  Hale (17881879)
• U.S. editor and poet.
  Godey's Lady's Book

86

• Goodbye
• Best wishes to you all !