Mildred's Success as a powerful woman

Essay by highflying10University, Bachelor'sA+, April 2003

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Director Michael Curtiz's 1945 classic "Mildred Pierce" tells the story of a woman whose love for her eldest daughter results in tragedy. Mildred first separates with her financially unsupportive husband and begins secular work leaving behind her former housewife routine. Mildred's younger daughter, the better one, dies from pneumonia. To add to this misery, Veda, spoiled rotten, hurts Mildred's feelings, despite Mildred's undying love, and ends up having an affair with Mildred's second love just before killing him. In the end, Mildred's is seen walking away with the father of her daughters. This means that she is going right back to her house life. This plot seems to send forth a somber warning to mothers that leave their homes to enter the work force: they will experience the worst consequences. They will lose their family along with anything they might have gained. Interestingly, Mildred's persevering will does bring her a certain degree of success.

She quickly was able to learn about business, start her own, attain fair wealth and recognition and all this in a world dominated by men and where women are to stay home to clean and care for children.

At the time of "Mildred Pierce"'s release, American men were finally coming home from the war. Women, who had replaced their husbands in the work place, were now being asked to go back home and resume their former courses. The movie does act as an argument, as ridiculous as it might seem, that woman really should stay in the home as it is the only thing that can keep them happy and proper, but Mildred however, was strong in her decision to go right no out to find a job and make her own money even though her motivation, to spoil Veda, was...