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. Within “The Bloody Chamber”, based on the fairy tale of Blue Beard, the dualism Carter builds is evident in the young girls’ character. Firstly, the fairytale depictions portray the girl as innocent, weak and naive with the use of lexis such as “girlhood”, “bony hips, my nervous pianist’s fingers” and “I thought I must truly love him” – therefore conforming to the gender constructs of gothic literature. Nonetheless, Carter’s use of sexually explicit language such as “young girl’s pointed breasts” and “now teasingly caressed me, egregious, insinuating, nudging between my thighs” provides the character with a sexually adventurous nature, and as a result the story moves away from the usual depictions of women and thus gothic conventions. Carter’s use of the narrative in first person gives a foresight into the girl’s mind, therefore suggesting due to the hyperbolic and romanticising language of “that magic place” when describing her wedding night that she is not entirely victimised by the male character but by
For example Laura’s severe craving for the precious fruit could symbolise an addicts withdrawal symptoms, and the exchange of a lock of hair and ‘’tear more rare than pearl’ describes the basic principal of prostitution. As suggested by Barfoot ‘Laura is lured by these strange vendors because she fails to realize that in the market women are not the buyers, but the “bought”. In fact the merchandise is not fruit but the female body’ . This statement clearly examines the underlying sexuality of Rossetti’s poetry, the link to prostitution and also the divide between men and women in the Victorian age. Women were used as chattel to secure alliances with wealthy families and to produce an heir.
Grace Marks, in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, is a young woman accused of murdering her master and his mistress, and is based on a true case. Grace Marks is a complex woman, as most of her personal traits are distorted because they are recorded by unreliable sources. These sources are mainly found in the media, such as newspapers, that tend to include inaccurate information rather than facts. Although the novel seems to be about the question of whether or not Grace Marks was guilty or innocent, it is truly about the Victorian notions of femininity. Women were seen as mortal, yet at the same time they were seducers and manipulators.
This challenges Macbeth emotionally causing him to reconsider his manhood, ‘’Prithee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man’’. Lady Macbeth would have startled the audience considering that women in the Elizabethan society were seen as sub servant. Women were expected to have good manners and obey their husbands, since Lady Macbeth does have a high social status, she would be expected to be gentle and dignified. Whereas the Lady in The Laboratory has another approach to manipulating the person making her poison sexually, ‘’You may kiss me old man’’. This suggest she is using physical sexual attraction to manipulate the person because a ‘’kiss’’ is
We are introduced to a majorly significant and complex character, named Curley’s wife. Steinbeck shows us that Curley’s wife is flirtatious, mischievous (despite the patriarchal society of the 1930’s) but most of all she is an isolated character. Her hasty marriage to Curley proves to be failed attempt to escape her own spiral of disappointment of not fulfilling her ambition of becoming an actor. This ironically is a main theme in both texts. 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.
In Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, Women’s are vicious, cruelled, unfaithful, disloyal. The betrayal begins of Shahzaman's wife and it ends with Shahrazad’s trying to save women’s of King Shahriyar's kingdom. Shahrazad’s uses these stories to convinced King Shahriyar’s, who thinks his wife is the same as every other woman. Shahrazad’s stories have women are just as spiteful and sneaky as the King Shahzaman’s wife, but they also have women of great integrity and kindness. Shahrazad’s wanted to show King Shahriyar’s that not all women are the same, and she’s also to bring the King back into perspective.
Harker’s provocative description of these women turns the Victorian ideals into alluring acts of human sexuality. “I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girls went on her knees, and bent over me, simply 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” (Stoker 39).The description of the women vampires illustrates the lust and weaknesses that men have for controlling women. The sisters are a prime example of how Victorian men are weakened by aggressive sexy women.
Then appears Scheherazade. She is described in the story as a woman who was “intelligent, knowledgeable, wise and refined” (Nights, 1575). Scheherazade, the daughter of the man who kills the king’s wives each morning, chooses to be given in marriage to King Shahrayar in an effort to save the people with her plan to keep Shahrayar from killing her. Some commentaries attempt to portray Scheherazade as a woman who disproves the king’s thought that women are so deceitfully cunning. But, according to Eva Sallis, “sleight and even profound trickery are an obvious part of her plan” (Sallis, 155).
They had the perception of nurses that they were bimbos and objects of extracurricular activity. Developing through the years the media have also shaped the stereotype of nurses as the battle-axe or matron figure an overweight, asexual, fearsome female who was of a tyrannical nature (Hall and Ritchie, 2009). They have also presumed that nurses were very bossy, stern and firm in their position, like a matron figure that Hattie Jacques acted in the Carry on Film (Carry on nurse, 1959). It seemed that nurses were more worried about working in a clan and tidy ward than caring for patients and making them feel comfortable or showing empathy towards their
It was a place of slave labor laundries from the 18th to the late-20th centuries to house "fallen women", a term used to imply female sexual promiscuity. Asylums for such girls and women and others believed to be of poor moral character, such as prostitutes and teenage pregnancy. Harwood critiques her society for its oppressive treatment of women who are unprotected by marriage or respectability. So then she uses imagery to emphasize the hypocritical nature of the Christian Institutes that perpetrate it. Harwood recalls to our mind the sympathy for the young women portrayed in the poem and wants the readers to contemplate the sexism within