Acquainted The Night Gender Roles

Society has always lived under the constant pressure of being observed from a microscope; it has been applauded for every little detail and criticized for every little detail. The pressure comes from trying to appease all those that are watching, even though those opinions do not matter. So as the world has gotten smaller and smaller through the use of technology, the scrutiny has gotten even worse. Like a virus, these gender stereotypes have evolved to survive in the changing world. Through the years, expectations that have been put on men and women should have gradually deteriorated but they are far from extinction; even today, gender roles continue to control society and is always a constant threat. Nearly all countries are somewhat
Women were not the only gender that was oppressed; men were choked with expectations that would leave their shoulders sagging with enormous burdens. The father must be the ultimate role model in the family, indestructible and imperviable to stress and emotions. Men were not allowed to show their emotions, crying was for the weak hearted and frail. In Robert Frost’s Acquainted with the Night, the poem is about a depressed man. The man states that he has become acquainted with the night, implying that he has been going on his nightly routine for a while. On his nightly walks, whenever the narrator makes eye contact with the watchmen, he “dropped his eyes, unwilling to explain” (Frost 1301). This action can be seen as embarrassment. This embarrassment is from the man losing his job. The man has “walked out in the rain – and back in rain” (Frost 1301) and has “outwalked the furthest city light” (Frost 1301) on his job search. As the person that must be the bread winner in the family, losing his job is the ultimate humiliation at this time in America. He, therefore, travels at night to avoid people questioning his walks. Frost also describes the setting to be stuck in time, as if everything was frozen or if time was trudging on slowly. This is because the man has no one to share his burden with and is stuck in the limbo of
As men were considered impermeable to illnesses, especially intangible mental illness. Even today, males struggle with accepting that they have been diagnosed with these illnesses because the idealized “traits such as toughness and strength may dissuade both women and men, and especially the latter, from identifying or acknowledging the signs of depression in men” (Swami). Further on, Swami states that “because of these societal expectations, men appear to have poorer understanding of mental health and aren’t as good at detecting symptoms of depression compared with women” (Swami). Because men do not know how to articulate their feelings into words except for a mere “I don’t know”, when asked about their feelings, because some “men don’t describe depression”