Women's Ways of Knowing

This blog deals with analyzing a character in reference to Women's Ways of Knowing Developmental Positions handout we received in class. The character I chose to analyze is Mattie. Mattie is one of the few characters who does develop her own ways of finding truth to life. Mattie initially starts off as a received knower. She has little to to no knowledge of life and what certain things mean. One very important example i found while reading the assigned text was how she did not know that she was pregnant. Roy, his mother, and Eloise informed her of the life she was carrying.
After finding out she was pregnant, she had no idea how she was going to hide her pregnancy from school and make it after the baby was born. It was her family who helped her out and told her everything was going to be ok and that alone is what helped her get thru her pregnancy.
As Roy and Mattie's marriage progressed through the years, Roy became abusive toward Mattie. She stayed because that was all she knew from her mother's experience with Isaac. However, when Mattie became ill after Roy had beat her, she developed the strength to go live with family until she could get back on her feet and take care of her own family. This way of knowing to me goes between subjective and procedural knower. I say these two because she did what she thought was best for her family and more importantly what was best for her own well being.
Roy's apologies were no longer taken as sincere and she now demanded that he show her his changes; his word wasn't enough. She had her own strength to lean on and she was able to use that strength as an example to her children.