As a result, those people found themselves a little expose and decided to tell their own side story about her. Thus, Yo is described from point of views of different narrators in each chapter creating a unique personality and character of her and providing the readers a unique insight about Yo, the protagonist. The author successfully created a protagonist “who never tells her own story yet one who comes to life vibrantly through the miscellany of impressions and observations that people make about her” (Shuman, “¡Yo!,” par. 2). In this novel, Julia Alvarez manages to capture and express the true feelings of women which deconstructs the stereotypes through Yo.
As an example two influential short stories will be discussed in depth in order to shed light into the lives of the two authors and their stories. The short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) and Angela Carter (1940–1992) both sideway the same idea; the confinement of women in particular roles and positions in both personal and professional lives, posed on them by patriarchal figures. Toril Moi quotes in her examination of feministic criticism, Sexual/Textual Politics (2002), Elaine Showalter’s idea that “women writers should not be studied as a distinct group on the assumption that they write alike, or even display stylistic resemblances distinctively feminine” (Moi, 2002: 49), which comes across when reading the two stories which are stylistically already very different. It might be so that a feminist reader of both times (there’s some 80 years difference between the two stories) did not only want to see her own experiences mirrored in fiction, but strived to identify with strong, impressive female characters (Moi, 2002: 46), and looked for role-models that would instil positive sense of feminine identity by portraying women as self-actualising strong identities who were not dependent on men (Moi, 2002, 46). The two stories bring out two female characters, very different by position and character; the other a new mother, scared and confused of her own role, and the other a young newly-wed girl, still a child, being fouled by a much older man, mainly as a mark of his authority over women in general.
The speaker presents examples of the roles of women in order to set a standard of comparison between the three generations and to show the differences in expectations of women within them. This poem confirms that women fall under stereotypes, depending on when they were born. Though these expectations of being a woman remain relatively the same through time, Mirikitani’s writing illustrates how each generation undergoes changes, and how the drive for rebelling against society grows within each later generation. The speaker in “Breaking Tradition” uses the metaphor of “separate rooms” to demonstrate that each generation is inevitably different from the previous one and that the desire to be free of societal norms and expectations increases within every one. From the beginning of the poem, there is an obvious separation of generations, hence the “separate rooms”.
Before her story even begins, Marie de France contests the idea of female inferiority. She believes the women deserve as much respect and power through literature as men. Guigemar’s lady herself is a representation
She shows how women can only be categorised as either an angel or a whore. It shows the way that women can only be judged at the time. She also frequently alludes to the “bad” women in literature to show how women could only be categorised in those binary opposites like Lady Macbeth or Eve. She uses rhetorical devices to explain how bad women are needed to disrupt the static order which is Patriarchy. Atwood also shows her opposition to the extreme feminism that existed in her time where feminism was influencing the creation of literature at the time.
Without diction Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies, would never be able to further develop her characters, Dede, Patria, and Mate. Alvarez uses many different writing techniques in order to develop her three characters above. Alvarez develops Dede's character using figurative language. Dede's chapters are full of similes, juxtapositions, personification, and metaphors to develop who she is. When Dede is talking about her sisters after they die she makes the comment that she is "the grande dame of the beautiful, terrible past" (65).
Lastly the actual phrases represent a feminist perspective, all phrases are extracts from some of the most renowned feminists to date, these include Harwood has written the poem under the pseudonym of Walter Lehman This suggests that Harwood had a considerable political temperament as well as an ability to poke fun or mock the social constraints of her time. Her point was about editors' prejudice against women poets, thus emphasizing her intelligence at the time, and the frustrations she must have felt within her context. In “Triste, Triste”, Harwood explores the tensions between the creative spirit and the limitations of the temporal. The concept of the artists’ imagination as a separate entity, able to transcend the
Stierle 1 Stephanie Stierle Mrs. Ritter Honors 10 English 9 February 2009 House of Splendid Isolation Research Every country has its own internal issues. Countries also have external issues. Ireland had them both in the time period of House of Splendid Isolation and Edna O’Brien made them on display for all to see. (O’Brien Scholieron) The struggles going on in her homeland of Ireland played a key part in the base of the novel. O’Brien used her own life experiences, like her novels being banned and the effects of that, and personnel preferences to round out the rest of House of Splendid Isolation.
(Joyce). Writing on nationalism in early 20th century Ireland, one historian wrote “In Ireland in the early Twentieth century, concerns about national identity and political independence were inseparable from and often expressed through ideas of gender and sexuality” (Nash). In The Dead, Joyce not only writes along lines of gender but uses gender as a source of subtextual conflict. This paper explores the interpretation that gender-based conflict in The Dead serves as a metaphor for Joyce's views on Irish nationalism and its issues. The reader’s first introduction to a character is a woman.
In Gish Jen’s “Who’s Irish”, the tone is the buttress for the underlying theme of the story, which contrasts the differences between generations, race, and culture. Through her use of point of view, rhetorical questions, and syntax, the author conveys a tone that is persuasive, confiding, and slightly humorous. The first person point of view is used to bring the reader inside the main character’s mind. Throughout the story, readers are exposed to the protagonist’s thoughts and experiences, tinted with opinions and comments, and reacting to events as she reacts to them. She “cannot understand [her] daughter’s husband John, who has no job but cannot take care of Sophie either.” She “grew up with black bean sauce and hoisin sauce and garlic sauce, [and] always feels something is missing when [her] son-in-law talks”.