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.
This is significant in revealing character in Macbeth. It could be argued that Lady Macbeth calling on the “dunnest smoke of hell” to fill her with evil suggests that she incapable of such brutality, and needs the supernatural to assist her. Thus, Lady Macbeth is not wholly corrupted as it is the darkness of the night that gives her the ability to be a bearer of such evil. On the other hand, it may also be argued that this in fact enhances Lady Macbeth’s inner dark side. The idea that she consciously recognises the need for “murdering ministers” to provide her with the support to assist Macbeth in regicide certainly falls in favour of arguing that she willingly has the desire for help from the darker realms, making her more evil for actually wanting to be tainted by the poisonous associations of “darkness” in the play.
The sisters are a prime example of how Victorian men are weakened by aggressive sexy women. When Harker is dominated by the sultry vampires, Stoker creates a gender role switch. For example during the Victorian times woman are not forthcoming and sexy, they are plain, kind and loving and the men dominate them. However in this case it is the women who dominate Harker. Though he loves Mina, he still longs to be with the sisters.
By having the woodcutters nearby the reader still has their masculine hero and the mad male being the wolf who can run fast, is strong and can easily eat a granddaughter and child. Its obvious that males had domince good or bad and females were lesser citizens. In the twisted tale of Red riding hood it seems as we still have our original sterotypes of young girl loved by mother, abcent father and grandmother who isn’t able to take care of herself due to old age and flu. The young girl still nieve to the woods and danger it “holds” although the story then breaks sterotypes as we see the wolf doesn’t have his orginal bad guy traits but instead can be loving, caring and sweet. The reason we see this change in the second story is due to the fact of time change where being different isn’t bad but instead is a unique thing, it also gives red enough
Halberstam observes that in Gothic novels, “the Gothic monster represents many answers to the question of who must be replaced from the community at large” (Halberstam 3). By having Victor go on a trip with Clerval prior to his wedding, Shelley suggests a homosexual relationship between Victor and Clerval. In addition, Clerval serves as Victor’s “only nurse” when he was ill. This further emphasizes the homosexual aspect in Frankenstein since Victor does not need a female, but instead he favors a devoted male caretaker who willingly risks his life for Victor. In this case, Clerval is less visible monster, which disrupts the definition of an ideal man who should be heterosexual.
The Weird Sister -The three mistress vampires -encountered in Dracula’s castle represent all the qualities of how a woman should not be; voluptuous and sexually aggressive IV. Forward Women A. - “The fair girl went on her knees and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck, she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white, sharp, teeth” (Stoker 50). -mixed feelings men had towards forward women
In The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter reverses gothic traditions so that the males become the victims instead of the females. Consider at least two of the stories in the bloody chamber in the light of this view. The gender constructs of passive, young, virginal woman who are victimised by dominant, strong and wealthy males is a common trait throughout gothic tales including many of Angela Carters short stories from “The Bloody Chamber”. However, Carter received the criticism of “[extracting] latent content, conjuring up a new exotic hybrid” in which she challenges the typical stereotypes of gothic conventions, influenced by her feminist nature. These caused the post modern versions of her stories to adopt dualisms of combining sexual desires with naivety and give alternative interpretations that perhaps the male characters suffered victimisation instead.
A young girl is deceived by a wolf, leading to the death of the young girl and her grandmother. ‘The wicked wolf threw himself upon Little Red Riding Hood and ate her up’. The combination of storyline and the side-moral acts as a moralising force to emphasise the need for safety and trust for the responder.
Once he was told by the herder how the women were acting in Cithaeron; dancing, nursing wolves, and bringing milk up from the ground, he wanted to see for himself. He finally gave in to his urges and let Dionysus trick him into dressing like a woman, and was lead to his death. Much like the phrase “Curiosity killed the cat” Pentheus brought about his own murder, by
Like the creature, the women of Frankenstein are banished from society for no fault of their own. The obvious implication, of course, is that women are naturally equal to men, and are merely the victims of a social subjugation. While several cinematic adaptations of the film exist, it is telling that this theme has been compromised in each. In the novel, the audience’s ability to connect to the creature is made possible by a crucial lack of knowledge. When the story hit the screen, the audience lost its ignorance, and the monster not surprisingly became vilified.