Source Annotation

To successfully complete this assignment, respond to each prompt in a thorough and detailed fashion with at least a paragraph on each and specific examples from the source itself:

1. For this first part, examine your source. Note any dates you’re given and the form the document comes in. Note any information that reveals who the author was, whom they were writing to, and where they came from. You may use the introductory paragraph that precede source to help answer these questions. If you can’t find exact information in the introduction or from the source, see what you can come up with by doing some logical guessing. Be sure to give specific details, examples, and evidence for your claims throughout.
2. What does this document tell us about the social and familial attitudes toward women? What were women’s main responsibilities in life? What was her conduct supposed to be like? What was her impact on others supposed to be like? If you only had this document to recreate an understanding of women in this society, what can you learn? Be sure to give evidence from the text and explain your thinking all throughout.
In this last part, consider the author’s interesting position within this society. What do you make of the fact that Ban Zhao was a well-educated woman, an author in her own right, and a compiler of the Han Shu, an important work of history and information on the Han Dynasty, and yet still wrote this book of advice for women that counseled them to humility in obedience?
3. What do you make of this paradox? Is her advice for women a betrayal of her own achievements, or a representation of how to succeed as a woman in a highly patriarchal culture? Or, do you think the answer is somewhere in the middle? Whatever you claim, support your idea with evidence and logical explanation.