Topic: Compare the portrayal of females in Othello and Frankenstein. To what degree are female characters in each work dominated or oppressed by a patriarchal society? How prominent roles have they in each work? A Comparison of the portrayal of females in Othello and Frankenstein The female characters play dominant roles in both Othello and Frankenstein. Though, when actually examined, the females portrayed in both literary works do show signs of bravery and rebellious spirit, which represents the actual mind of authors, they are still oppressed by the patriarchal society to a large extent.
Compare the way that Lady Macbeth, the protagonist of The Laboratory, Havisham and one poem of your choice are presented. Lady Macbeth, the protagonist in The Laboratory, Miss Havisham and the woman in the Battered Doll are portrayed as either physically or physiologically damaged causing the audience to be intrigued by their actions, creating a form of entertainment causing the audience to react differently depending whether it was a modern audience or not. The authors present their characters as damaged women using men as a catalyst to ignite their strong emotions towards them. This creates the theme of female dominance, death and a pinch of vulnerability. The result of the actions they have committed or what has been done to them, they react similarly but at different approaches, creating an idea of violence.
This essay will analyse and compare the presentation of Lady Macbeth and Curley's wife through the structure, themes, what is said about them, their actions and what they themselves say. Presentation of character can be explored by observing what Lady Macbeth says. Lady Macbeth is illustrated as a cruel character because she requests the evil spirits to “unsex” her. The use of the word “unsex” shows that Lady Macbeth does not possess the masculine qualities required to perform such an evil
Within “The Bloody Chamber” Carter demonstrates how her characters are a form of exploration into base human instincts but also explores the idea of their subconscious desires playing a major part in the development of the story. Subconscious desires are the desires of the characters they often don’t voice; in Carter’s tale these are heavily sexual. On the other hand much of Carter’s tale is a reflection of basic human nature and instinct and how that can affect the way men and women interact. The concept of Carter exploring base instincts within “The Bloody Chamber” is mainly apparent through her use of language to describe her main characters. The Marquis’ description is particularly animalistic; Carter uses phrases like “(his) dark mane” to describe his hair.
However, through the use of this taboo reference to virginity Carter also tackles the point of female seduction and personal desire, for example when Little Red Riding Hood is flirting with the mysterious yet charming man in the woods she “lowered her eyes and blushed” showing her own desire for him. In the mid-twentieth century, society was beginning to see the culmination of second wave feminism, a movement aimed at bringing equality and rights to women just as men had. The movement not only involved political rights but also social rights such as sexual liberation and freedom of speech, within Carters work we see feminism as an undertone throughout with references to these individual movements. For example the progression of Little Red Riding Hood as a character from a young girl described as an “unbroken egg” who conforms to society through her appearance and demeanour progressing to a powerful woman with power and choice who has the ability to “laugh at him [the wolf] full in the face”, this demonstrates Carter’s vision of how second wave feminism will take place, progression within a younger generation of women who will grow up empowered in who
To what extent does Carter depict the ideas that female identity is determined by a patriarchal society in ‘Wolf Alice’ and one other story? I agree to a certain extent that there is a theme of female identity being determined by a patriarchal society in ‘Wolf Alice’, although there are many other determining factors. ‘The Snow Child’ is then a story of which is almost entirely centred on the theme of female identity being determined through patriarchal society. Wolf-Alice is initially brought up by wolves. It has been suggested that through the masculine description of the wolves – although it may not be explicit in referring to the wolves, we can gauge an image of them through the initial animalistic description of the young girl as ‘lean and muscular’ and ‘thickly calloused’.
Re-Visioning Women in Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves” Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves” serves to re-vision the age-old traditions of the fairytale, Little Red Riding Hood, by repurposing it into highly symbolic literary erotica. Newfound sexual suggestions made in this retelling highlight the new meaning of being a woman by means of man’s dual purpose as danger and desire, Little Red’s carnal empowerment, and her poor old Granny’s ultimate state of being. In the original tale, Little Red Riding Hood, Little Red encounters two males, one being her savior, the huntsman, and the other being a threat, the wolf. With no other position to be filled, Little Red furnishes the story as a void, as the domestic woman. Carter’s re-vision combines the man and the wolf literally into one character, the werewolf, and metaphorically by presenting “Little Red” in opposition to both ideas the two individually provided, danger and desire.
Margaret Atwood’s speech “Spotty Handed Villainesses” explores Patriarchy, feminism and “bad” women in literature. She uses wit and humour to disarm the audience and often uses anti-climatic statements to grab the audience’s attention. Margaret Atwood’s speech resonates through time with her critical study of feminism in a social context and the impact that feminism has had on literature. In the speech Atwood explores the moral dichotomy that exists in Women at the time. She shows how women can only be categorised as either an angel or a whore.
If Dracula succeeds in turning the ladies into vampires, this will fully release their sexuality and its expressions. This is shown as an evil in the novel perhaps because a woman that embraces her sexuality has obtained power. In Dracula, female vampires represent women’s sexuality and vampirism; merely masks man’s forbidden fantasies. Though Dracula makes up the horror aspect of the novel the true “terror” lies in the awakening of
mankind’s experience of evil, experience of guilt and separation. • Psychological study of typically romantic characters, e.g. Victor, Walton, Clerval… • The ‘monster’ himself has been studied in connection with Rousseau’s theory of man’s natural goodness perverted by a hostile environment. • A sociological approach to the novel stresses its importance as a social document, giving evidence of a woman’s role /family ties/ education, etc.. in the first decades of the 19th century. • Feminist critics are especially interested in issues concerning women’s culture.