The Wonder Years: Gilbert and Gubar

In this episode of The Wonder Years, Kevin’s mother (Mrs. Arnold) is fitting into the stereotype of the housewife. In the first part of this clip (1:16-1:47) the family is sitting down for breakfast, she is serving everyone while simultaneously situating their lives. She hands her husband coffee when he comes in, responds in rhythm to a multitude of questions like, mom can you, will you, do you know where… etc. She doesn’t miss a beat, but she also seems to be lacking any other identity other than “housewife” at this point. Her role in the family is to be the caretaker, as Gilbert and Gubar state, “ shine like a beacon in a dark world, like a motionless lighthouse by which others, the travelers who’s lives do have a story, can set their course” (599). Each member of the family (the travelers) presents themselves with having “external events”. She is the “lighthouse” that sets them in the right direction. She is the selfless character, nurturing her family while loosing her own identity.
In the middle of this clip (4:25-5:40) Kevin’s friend Paul is upset about his glasses. While he is complaining about them, Mrs. Arnold comes in with a load of laundry and asserts her role as housewife/ nurturer to make him feel better. About this sympathy role Gilbert and Gubar say, “She has no story of her own, but gives advice and consolation to others, listens, smiles, sympathizes…” (599). She is the embodiment of “advice and consolation” as she makes the boy feel better and soothes his ego with hot cocoa.
In the last part of the clip (7:10- 7:50) the boys are playing basketball and Paul starts talking about Kevin‘s mother and the life she had before her family. Because Kevin see’s her in this housewife/ mother role as far as he‘s concerned she is leading and has lead “a life without external events” (599). Gilbert and Gubar also say “a woman of right feeling should devote herself to the good of others… silently, without calling attention to her exertions because all that would tend to draw away her thoughts from others and fix them on herself” (601). In her failure to expose a life outside her family, Mrs. Arnold plays into the theory of the “angel” and therefore continues the cycle of her housewife ideology.
One could also say the character of Mrs. Arnold also embodies what Gilbert and Gubar define as the Angel with qualities of, “Submissiveness, modesty, selflessness; reminding all women that they should be angelic” (600). This character is angelic not only by action but appearance: with her golden hair, smiling face etc. When the family is at the table during the beginning she asks her husband about going to a play to which he essentially says no. She doesn’t respond but with only a look of dismay, “if Woman owes her Being to the Comfort and Profit of man, tis highly reasonable that she should be careful and diligent to content and please him” (600). Mrs. Arnold does not question her husband or refute his decision, she simply says nothing.
The character of Mrs. Arnold is the stereotypical housewife. She plays up themes from Gilbert and Gubar while reinforcing that women should be silent keepers of the house. For this character her identity becomes the angelic eternal feminine and continues having no story.


Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. “The Madwoman in the Attic.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. 812-825.