Women In Classic Western Literature

Women in Classic Western Literature in the past have been described as independent and interdependent individuals. One quality that is consistently portrayed in Classical Western Literature is their need for relationships. In Classic Western Literature women are represented as having an utmost interdependent self-construal. This is showed through their need to change to "fit in" and their tendency to follow their social duty. The ability to transfigure oneself to one's environment exhibits, one of the many, key attributes of an interdependent persona. In Classical Western Literature, women discover themselves, on various occasions, trying to "fit in" to their respective environments. A quintessential example of this, infamous Monna Giovanna from "Decameron: Federigo's Falcon". In "Federigo's Falcon", Monna finds herself being wooed by the nobleman Federigo. He, being bewitched by Cupid's unapologetic arrow, spends
However, Monna, seeing herself as only a wife, tries to properly fit in to her position and does not even give Federigo the time of day. As her environment changes (her husband dies and her child becomes sick), she changes to properly fit in to her motherly duties and attempts to fulfill her child's dying wish (to retrieve Federigo's falcon). She had to do something she wouldn't even dream to do; Visit, her admirer, Federigo, and retrieve from him his prized possession. She contemplates how could she "be so insensitive as to wish to take away from this nobleman the only pleasure which is left to him?"(6364). But, she does it, despite her morals, in order to better to fit in to her position as the child's mother. The correlation between the changes in environment and the changes in her behavior are very apparent throughout the story. But, in Classical Western Literature, the changes aren't only in behavior. In "The