‘The role of female vampires in the novel is to warn of the dangers of female sexuality’ consider the presentation of the female vampires in Dracula in the light of this comment Many may argue that the novel Dracula highlights the suppression and belittlement of women during the 19th Century. In Victorian England, women’s sexual behaviour was dictated by society’s rigid expectations. A Victorian woman was either a virgin or else she was a wife and mother. If she was neither of these, she was considered a whore, and thus of no consequence to society This idea is reinforced by Stoker with the contrast of the ‘brilliant white teeth, that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips,’ the virginal white is contrasted with the hellish red of their lips shows the battle the women went through suppressing and hiding their sexual desires. Stoker’s choose of women as the temptresses may be a warning to the women of the Victorian era to beware about pushing the boundaries of their sexuality.
Popular fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” explores different gender roles in its various versions. A gender role is a set of social and behavioral norms that are generally considered appropriate for either a man or a woman in a social or interpersonal relationship. Maria Tartar, Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University argues that this well-known tale has been written primarily to state that it is indeed ‘Beauty’ who reforms the ‘Beast’ while British novelist Marina Warner argues against this claim and states that it is ‘Beast’ who brings out the wild side in ‘Beauty’. Contrary to the conventional claim of the man saving the woman or specifically the damsel in distress, much like Tartar, I too believe that this fairy tale has the stereotype reversed where the woman saves the man by civilizing him. Analyzing the gender roles of ‘Beauty’ and ‘Beast’ in Madame de Beaumont’s fairytale entitled “Beauty and the Beast” illustrates why I view women as the civilizing agent in their relationship with men.
(intro about 3-4 line, open topic of oppression and misogyny, short guide to essay) In their dystopian novels, both Atwood and Huxley offer an extremely sexist vision that portrays women as being obstructions to the success of men. Gender inequality was still prevalent even in 2001, when Atwood was writing Oryx and Crake, and the misogynistic issues shown in her dystopias such as child pornography and sex slaves may not have existed when Huxley was writing, however the motives of the authors are the same – they are trying to reflect the sexist society that they lived in. It was these presentations of misogynistic societies that made Deanna Maddern comment that in Brave New World ‘the women interfere with or prevent the men from achieving spiritually.’ There seems to be a lot of truth in this quotation, as in Brave New World we see how Helmholtz manages to rebel intellectually, and establish himself as a true poet, only when he decides to deprive himself of women and soma. Maddern’s view can also be extended to Atwood’s dystopia as the female protagonist, Oryx, is also presented as being a disruption to male characters work. We can see this by the way that she distracts Jimmy to such an extent that he is unable to do his work properly because he is tormented ‘night and day’ with the desire to ‘touch’ and ‘worship’ her.
To what extent does Angela Carter draw on the Gothic tradition in her representation of female characters in The Bloody Chamber and what is the significance of these representations? Angela Carter uses gothic tradition and conventions in her depiction of female characters in The Bloody Chamber in order to break down stereotypes and patriarchal expectations; she recreates traditional gothic tales into ones which are both eerie and shocking for her modern readers, in the same way that old gothic tales were to Victorian readers. Carter’s female victims come to be empowered by embracing their passions and work to go against patriarchal rule, acknowledging their own sexual desires. Female characters can be presented as victims of male tyranny in The Bloody Chamber. Within The Bloody Chamber, the protagonist brings about the attention of female sexuality to the reader through the loss of her innocence “I remember how…country of marriage” she is experiencing a journey from her innocence and individuality to being the possession of a man.
Angela Carter- The Bloody Chamber Discuss how Carter addresses the idea of a patriarchal society in 'The Bloody Chamber'. The 'Bloody Chamber', written by Angela Carter, is a series of short stories which follow fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast, and Carter puts her twist on them by challenging the way women are represented in these tales. She uses voluptuously descriptive prose and shows how the traditional tellings of fairy tales, which are often patriarchal, can become matriarchal societies. For example, the story 'The Bloody Chamber' is a retelling of Bluebeard, and Carter introduces a heroine to replace the stereotypical male hero; the girl is rescued by her mother unlike in Bluebeard where her brothers come to the rescue. Likewise, there is a different ending in 'The Company of Wolves', as the girl tames the wolf unlike the traditional tale of the wolf eating the girl and being rescued by the huntsmen who uses his axe to kill the wolf and save Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.
How does Angela Carter deal with the issue of gender in ‘The Lady of the House of Love’? Support your answer with reference to other texts or films you are aware of in Gothic genre It would seem that in ‘The Lady of the House of Love’ Angela Carter reverses the roles of gender as instead of the female being the helpless victim, she is instead the dominant and powerful character, the role usually played by the male. It would seem Carter is showing how females can break out of this routine in which they are trapped by society and take the main role; something which is also seen through her other stories such as ‘Werewolf’. Carter reverses the traditional scenario of a male vampire feeding on females by using a countess who only sucks the blood of young men and so it becomes a paradigmatic femme fatale. Instead of her being a helpless victim, she is instead taking on the role of a villain and so Carter is challenging the traditional gender role of a helpless female victim in a traditional gothic story; she seduces and murders men, much like the Count in the Bloody Chamber.
The phrase ‘fairy tale’, coined in the late 17th century by Madame d’Aulnoy, is a term used to identify a type of short story typically featuring mythical creatures, supernatural occurrences, and, perhaps most importantly, an underscoring moral message aimed towards the society from which it originates. The content of such tales generally remains fairly innocent and appropriate for child readers, but within Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’, the typical conventions of a fairy tale become inverted and corrupt. Cater, in her own words, ‘extracts the latent content from the traditional stories’ and thus introduces some harsher, unpalatable realities to her work. One of the most obvious deviations from the typical fairy tale conventions lies in Carter’s portrayal of her characters, namely the Marquis. Male figures in fairy tales are often shown to be masculine, authoritative, chivalrous and are generally viewed of as the ‘hero’ who saves the vulnerable female protagonist.
When reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, one cannot help but notice that the women characters seem to have little substance compared to the male characters. This may have been caused by the time period in which she wrote: one in which females were considered inferior to males. This difference between the sexes can be looked at using a variety of different perspectives. Johanna M. Smith, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, discusses this issue using feminist eyes in her essay entitled "'Cooped up': Feminine Domesticity in Frankenstein." The main points in Professor Smith's essay are that the female characters are there only to reflect the male characters, and that the Frankenstein family has a weird style of living, which she describes as a "bookkeeping mentality" (Smith 279).
Some people believe that Shahrazad's stories are the beginning of feminism while others not. The work is contradictory since it has extremely misogynist parts and feminist parts. The purpose of this essay is to find out can this text be viewed as a feminist text or not. 1) We can notice Shahrazad’ feminist views in some places. For example, there are many cases in the first several stories of Arabian Nights when women are disloyal and evil, but there are also stories about the wrong of men.
Both of these writers includ women as an element of their Gothic fiction, but they are used in contrasting fashions. In the Gothic genre, women are often times portrayed as either oppressed by a tyrannical masculine character, or in a forced position to make a tough decision. The former is the case in “The Black Cat,” although the beginning of the story makes it seem otherwise. This is exemplified by the narrator when he states, I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife.