Lily's Plight

Lily used a good image to describe her plight as a woman in her time period she says, " I have tried hard, but life is difficult and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent exsistence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else. What can one do when one finds that one only fits into one hole? One must get back into it or be thrown out into the rubbish heap-and you don't know what its like in the rubbish heap" (327). Lily was raised in a wealthy home and never had to work. She fits this image well. She was meant to be a particular cog: a wealthy house wife who would not have to provide for herself and just throw houise parties. When she did have to work, then she had problems. She was not used to the stress of working and could not handle it. She could not hold a job for a very long time. Women of her time suffered this plight because they were not expected to work and to provide for themselves and when they had to, they couldn't. Also the women of this time probably felt under valued because they didn't have many places where they could put effort into accomplishing something that felt rewarding besides throughing a good house party or catching that rich husband.