Oedipa Maas

Paper Summary:

The writer traces the development of Oedipa Maas' character as the novel progresses. The writer notes that her secure, yet narrow role, gradually erodes, reflecting both the many new choices beginning to be available for women in the 1960s and those same women's frequent reluctance or fearfulness to embrace their new roles.

From the Paper:

"The options which the narrator lists are conventional ones for a woman before the second wave of feminism in the 1960's opened many new avenues for women such as Oedipa: a woman could "make herself useful" through volunteer work or hobbies, she could become "the madwoman in the attic," or she could choose what was, for most women, by far the most appealing of these options: she could get married, as Oedipa does. Oedipa represents one of the generation of women caught in the midst of the great societal changes which the women's movement wrought in the 1960' s. Although Oedipa makes the traditional choice of marriage, she is not, as were women prior to her generation, expected to be a virgin before marriage, and does not even, apparently, feel guilty about her extramarital liaison with Metzger. Dr. Hilarius, however, (if he were sane), would no doubt be interested in the implications of her mating ritual, in which she dresses herself in every piece of clothing she has with her so that Metzger must remove it in an unusually demanding version of a seduction ritual."

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