Arthur Miller does not sympathize with his female characters and shows this through the personality and actions given to Abigail Williams. Nathaniel Hawthorne, on the other hand, sympathizes with women, which he shows through his character of Hester Prynne. Literature is a chance for authors to make their opinions on certain topics evident to their reader through their use of language. This concept is also present in everyday life, where individuals must rationalize and debate in order to make their opinions
English: Ancient Epic traditions Free essays Do the female portraits of the ancient epic tradition reflect woman’s nature or merely the perception of a woman’s nature as the male mind perceived it? Discuss. Every writer has his or her own perception of people and societies and a unique motivation for writing. It is in human nature that the things we value most we try to present them in best light to others. Many writers have influenced their surroundings and changed beliefs of people.
Fitzgerald openly shows his opinion that women generally have low moral qualities, and demonstrates this by the actions and speech illustrated by the three main female characters in the novel; Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson. His portrayal of them appears to expose a disturbing, misogynistic view of women in the 1920’s. Others would say this is not the case and his approach to how he presents the women has a much deeper meaning therefore implying that Fitzgerald could in fact be a feminist. In my essay I will discuss how I feel that Fitzgerald’s experiences with women are mirrored throughout the novel and undoubtedly display his general ‘underlying hatred’ for the female kind in the Jazz Age through his constant implications of the negative characteristics women possess. Like the central character of The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald had an intensely romantic imagination; he once called it "a heightened sensitivity to the promises of life."
Compare and contrast the presentation of women in contemporary society in Wilde’s ‘A Woman of No Importance’ and Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’. Consider alternate viewpoints of both presentations in your answer. Both Wilde and Ibsen present Woman in contemporary society to be of lower importance to men. In both plays the main female characters are shown to be weak and rely solely on a man to look after them. However as both plays progress we begin to see that Nora and Mrs Arbuthnot are not like the stereotypical woman of this society when they begin to show courage and independence.
Margaret Atwood’s speech “Spotty Handed Villainesses” explores Patriarchy, feminism and “bad” women in literature. She uses wit and humour to disarm the audience and often uses anti-climatic statements to grab the audience’s attention. Margaret Atwood’s speech resonates through time with her critical study of feminism in a social context and the impact that feminism has had on literature. In the speech Atwood explores the moral dichotomy that exists in Women at the time. She shows how women can only be categorised as either an angel or a whore.
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.
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
Explore the ways disturbed characters are presented in Shakeapeare’s Macbeth and Browning’s My Last Duchess, The Laboratory and Porphyria’s Lover. This is essentially a “use of language” essay, you need to show HOW the disturbed natures of the characters are conveyed, not just say how they show themselves. The essential point of this essay is to demonstrate what Shakespeare and Browning DO to convey the disturbed nature of the characters – not just saying what disturbed things the characters say or do, but what poetic and dramatic techniques the authors use to show their distrurbed natures. You MUST use quotations to back up every point you make. If you are hoping for the highest grades (B and above) you must make comparisons between the characters in the poems and Lady Macbeth.
She undoubtedly wanted to emphasize this phrase to influence the audience into understanding and relating to the topics she spread across the floor. This being the title of the speech shows readers the importance of the phrase before even reading or listening. Truth used repetition along with many rhetorical points that she shuffled in between the crevices of her speech. Stating her strengths, sorrows, weaknesses, and personal conflicts, she kept the connection her audience throughout. The rhetorical questions asked by Truth were influential to many, which also resulted in support of her audience.
In Katherine Wilson’s “Dude Looks Like a Lady,” she begins with a powerful introduction saying “this is about hair, breasts, and identity” (Wilson 21), insinuating it is going to be a gender identity piece. Reading more of the first page, you assume the thesis is about the common misconceptions of how a woman is supposed to look and how not looking that way could take away from a woman being a woman. Wilson gives the example of her hair being buzzed and people looking at her differently. Although she tries to argue the hardships of not looking like the normal female, Wilson’s argument fails to meet the rest of her story. She claims her argument is about “hair, breasts, and identity,” she is really just ranting and raving her being disrespected and her own issues of being black.