Neither Blanche nor Stella knows about the code, which reinforces this stereotype. Although Blanche partially goes against this image by having a full education and even a job prior to coming to New Orleans, she is almost broke when she arrives which suggests that women cannot gain financial stability without men. Although perhaps intentional to some extent, Blanche also conforms to this general image of women by not showing any interest to the paperwork of the plantation, referring to them as a “bunch of old papers” and handing them to Stanley to keep in his “big, capable hands” (Williams 141). Stella follows the general stereotype of the period of women
Woolf interprets the contrast between the women in fiction and the real women of the period as evidence that the famous characters are nothing but impossibilities imagined upon by men. She argues that only a female writer could have created characters endowed with women’s hindered possibilities. But perhaps the women portrayed in Elizabethan fiction weren’t just men being conveniently portrayed as women like Woolf claims. Perhaps Shakespeare and other authors created these strong characters as symbols of what women could’ve been, barring the legal and social injustices they faced. Lady Macbeth is undoubtedly Shakespeare’s most vicious and cunning female character.
Explore the presentation of women in The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye. With emphasis on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ (1925) and wider reference to J.D Salinger’s ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ (1951), explore how women are represented across both novels. Fitzgerald largely ignores the experience of women in The Great Gatsby, which is symbolic in itself, but explores the representations of women in society at the time through its three main female characters - Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Myrtle Wilson. Fitzgerald often portrays women in the novel as corrupt, materialistic and reliant on men, exploring this idea through Daisy and Myrtle in contrast to the supposed independence women were experiencing during the 1920s, which is represented through Jordan Baker. In The Catcher in the Rye however, despite the fact women are also presented as materialistic at times, through Holden Caulfield J.D Salinger explores women as largely innocent and independent, rather than shallow beings who’s existence solely relies on the men in their lives.
This patriarchal society represented in Emma portrays the importance of marriage for women as it was their only means of financial security as well as the advancement of their position in society. ‘Emma’ had none of the “Usual inducements of women to marry,” because she had inherited wealth. Austen presents us to this world sympathetically as she uses an omniscient narrator that looks at everything from Emma’s perspective which is quite similar to Clueless as Heckerling’s voice-overs are created by Cher, which gives us an insight into her meddlesome ways. Emma still understood the importance of marriage for lower class women because she takes a girl of lower class under her wing, Harriet Smith, and tries to raise her status in society and find
It is rather surprising that a novel written by the daughter of so prominent a feminist should be so strikingly devoid of strong female characters. Many critics agree that Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein is littered with passive women that suffer placidly, then expire once exposed to the transgressions of the world . An initial reading of the novel might produce the notion that Shelley had very little to say on the subject of women. The entire cast of female characters appears to remain within the domestic realm, quietly performing their duties as mothers, sisters, wives and daughters for the men. Some might even say Shelley ardently agreed with the position in which they found themselves and the securely fixed roles during the Victorian era.
Isolated women by their husbands In the 19th century women had less to say and were often controlled by their husbands. In the story ‘The yellow wallpaper’ written by Kate Chopin, the narrator is married to a blank man and has very little control in their marriages. The stories are similar because the same things applies to Louise Mallard from ‘The story of an hour’ written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Both women are married to a blank man and they have very little control in their marriages. However they both get their freedom by different things and gain control at a certain time.
When readers are introduced to Dana, she is portrayed as a modern, strong black woman. She is a writer instead of one of the more appropriate jobs for women at the time (like a secretary or nurse). Also, she falls in love with and marries a white man even though neither of their families approve, and she stands her ground when she doesn’t want to do something. The book describes an instance when Kevin wants Dana to type some things up for him and she “refused” (Butler 109). She didn’t do anything that she didn’t want to do, something that readers are to admire about her.
Women of a certain era were expected to perform a number of societal tasks, not the least of which was to marry and become a decent housewife, ever present in the home, living only to serve her husband. The women who did not marry, who lived alone and remained unmarried and therefore depressed were seen as outcasts. In “Our Friend Judith”, the protagonist is in many ways viewed as the latter, a poorly dressed abnormality that relies on her uncle for support, living in a rather unfortunate apartment by herself. The contradiction, however, is that Judith, unlike her stereotypical spinster counterparts, chooses to remain in this condition. She is an intellectual, a poet with fans that she simply brushes aside, and an occasional lover, carrying on relationships until she grows weary of such interaction and then returning to her prior state.
Women were looked upon as inferior; and incapable of the skills men were, so a woman’s role was mainly housework and nothing with manual requirement. From the first short encounter we share with Curley’s wife we see just one, prominent side to her. From this first meeting, a lot can be foreshadowed. Steinbeck focuses our first introduction with her on her appearance; emphasizing her sexual appeal and desirability towards men. ‘She had full rouged lips and wide spaced eyes, heavily made up,’ which suggests that the author wanted us to presume the worst of her before she’d even spoken and we set ourselves up for her to be a character we feel a lot of resentment for.
From the first few lines of conversation between the Bennets, Austen shows the reader that theirs is not a happy marriage, nor a marriage of equality. Their marriage was based on a need for money and social status not a marriage reached through love or even any such feeling towards one another. As well as it not being a loving relationship, Mr and Mrs Bennet have completely different personalities. Mr Bennet seems to be an intellectual man who likes to sit quietly and read, whereas Mrs Bennet gives the impression of being slightly eccentric and focuses solely on getting her daughters married. Austen tells us that Mr Bennet was “a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic, humour, reserve and caprice”, where Mrs Bennet is “a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper”.