“Having It All”: A Women’s Dilemma and Subjectivity in Wendy Wasserstein’s Isn’t It Romantic?

Abstract

'Wendy Wasserstein’s feminism is different from that of its predecessors, in that women’s oppression is not just portrayed as mere physical abuse. Her female protagonists are not illiterate, impoverished underclass but highly educated professional career women in American society. Wasserstein’s female characters are professional "uncommon women" who desire the dream of "having it all," which means successful careers as well as personal happiness. Wasserstein’s Isn’t It Romantic? deals with Janie Blumberg’s dilemma of "having it all" – that is, marrying an ideal husband and achieving a successful career at the same time. Whereas Harriet Cornwall finally succumbs to the dependency on the marriage with a man, Janie chooses to grow into an independent, autonomous, and subjective woman. Although Marty Sterling seems like a promising husband as a wealthy doctor from a rich family, she refuses Marty Sterling’s proposal, since he constitutes a fatal obstruction for her autonomy and feminist subjectivity. Janie also refuses her parents’ offer of a mink coat, which symbolizes coercive mother's oppressive expectations of "having it all." Through Janie’s dancing alone at the last scene, Wasserstein symbolically shows that Janie’s choice is quite right for her autonomy and feminist subjectivity.