Gender Roles in Forbidden

As stated in the prompt for this post -- this book is set in the 19th century, so obviously there will be some interesting gender roles at play.

I am choosing to write on Eddy because not only do I love her, but her character development is also great. Firstly I will focus on the economical gender roles that Eddy falls into being a woman of color. In the beginning of the novel, Eddy falls where you would expect a woman of color to fall during such a grotesque period in American history. She is very low on money because she is paid unfair wages and choses not to sell herself for a profit. This is significant, because by the end of the novel Eddy has broken from this norm to own a restaurant of her own. This impacts the romance with Rhine because not only is Eddy a woman of color (whereas Rhine is passing) but she is also nowhere near as wealthy as he is. This changes at the end when Eddy is finally making a decent wage doing something she loves, and breaking 19th century norms at the same time.

The second role I will focus on are the 19th century societal norms for women of color. As previously mentioned, Eddy is treated very unfairly in terms of economics because of her skin color, but there are more ways than this that she is impacted. Being a woman of color, Eddy is expected to not overstep her boundaries. One thing I love about Eddy is that she does just that and says screw the societal norms. She puts her two cents in, and is a very powerful figure throughout the novel. This impacts her romance because she is willing to give Rhine a shot, and also tell a man of her own race no, even when it would be the safer option. She is able to break the societal norm and I think over all this not only helps her end up in a romance with Rhine, but also to become happy on her own terms.