Searching for Happiness

Kendall Weinert

11/3/13

FYS Blog Post

The Search for Happiness

            In the novel, A Woman, Sibilla Aleramo emphasizes the struggle of searching for one’s happiness. This book is a story of events in Sibilla’s life that have led to her search for happiness. At the age of 15 Sibilla was raped and later married off to that same man. The narrator does not want to be married but feels that she must be because this man raped her before. Sibilla is not happy with her life with her husband so she searches for other ways to find fulfillment in her life. She tries to find fulfillment through her son and writing. Sibilla struggles to find happiness even through those two things that she loves. She is still unfulfilled with her life and must find other ways to make herself happy.

            Sibilla also feels that if she is married she cannot be an individual. She states “How could she possibly become an individual if her parents handed her over, ignorant, weak, and immature, to a man unable to accept her as an equal, a man who treated her like a piece of property, giving her children and then abandoning her to perform his social duty, leaving her at home to idle away her time.” (Aleramo, 114) Sibilla does not find happiness in being with a man. She thinks that to be an individual one must be on their own and not relying on a man for money, food, and shelter. Due to this, the narrator does not find herself happy throughout the novel and seeks alternatives to finding happiness. She is struggling throughout the novel to find this happiness.