This shows Ralph’s ability to prioritize for everyone. Jack said “I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them. We’re not savages” (p.42). This quote shows that Ralph represents social order.
And last, the language of different scenarios, i.e. battles vs. joyous occasions, lends itself to glorifying deadly and gruesome struggles. Homer has a unique way of devising the plot, giving mixed signals and paradoxes, but it all just gives to the realism of this amazing piece of literature. Odysseus’ faithfulness for his wife is questionable. In the first book, you find that he is sleeping with a woman named Kalypso, a sea nymph.
Shakespeare quite obviously plays with the conventions of Petrarchan characters and their views of desire throughout the play but most significantly towards the beginning. Romeo is introduced as a character that seems to be blinded by love, his desire for Rosaline is over powering, shallow and foolish – “He that is strucken blind cannot forget / The precious treasure of his eyesight lost” (1.1.225-226). Shakespeare has created Romeo to resemble the typical ‘Petrarchan lover’ speakers that are found in Petrarch’s sonnets, we hear Romeo obsessing over Rosaline whom like ‘Laura’ from Petrarch’s sonnets is unattainable to Romeo, as she is choosing to remain celibate - "She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow / Do I live dead that live to tell it now” (1.1.216-217) Shakespeare has purposefully created Romeo and Rosaline with these similarities to Petrarchan conventions in mind as he is able to successfully critique the discourse of desire through the growth of Romeo in the play and the introduction of Juliet. Shakespeare also relies on the fact that his audience are aware of ‘what’s in store’ for Romeo, allowing him to create a clichéd and conventional character - “The theatre audience knows that
Marie de France does this to criticize and combat the societal expectations and inherent inequalities in Norman England. The poem begins by Marie immediately introducing and defending herself as a writer. She declares that in her culture, People should praise anyone who wins admiring comments for herself but anywhere there is a man or a woman of great worth, people who envy their good fortune often say evil things about them. (5-10) This introduction reflects the negativity her society has against female writers. Where Marie de France comes from, many people disagree with women having power through literature.
Furthermore, this role can be understood as fearful of the criticism that society (during that time period) has when a woman is seen with a man. Likewise, the peculiarity of this aspect can be comprehended within the Egyptian poem “The Beginning of the Song that Diverts the Heart”. This ancient poem is centered upon a recalcitrant woman. Her undertaking was to sway the man she loved to engage in an ascetic relationship. The similarities can be evidently understood and recognized within “Zhongzi, Please,” and “The Beginning of the Song that Diverts the Heart”.
Machado way of expressing his ironical approach to writing gives the women characters a dilemma attitude especially when he infers that the best way to define love in the world is not worth one kiss from the girl you love(pg 60). Allende on the other hand foreshadows much of the sensuality of the stories in the Prologue, as the Carle and Luna rest after love making, and in the painting that is their images, their skin gleaming moistly and lying in intimate complicity. Onetti portrays love and women as geared by unreasoned sexual desires and so women presents a distorted image of men, but Allende depicts women as the main cause of suffering irresponsible men inflict left to rear the children in
Morgan le Fay, Lady Bertilak, and the Virgin Mary, help develop the overall themes of the work by forcing the Gawain to question his ideals. Morgan le Fay and Lady Bertilak, the magical old woman and the beauty, are characterized as the male hero’s opponents. They manipulate but rely on his final choice, and are protected by their social status in Bertilak’s court. Both Morgan and Lady Bertilak are condemned in Gawain’s angry speech for stepping outside what he expected and for challenging his conflicting ideals. Gawain’s lady love, Mary, on the other hand, is the constant guide and source of comfort to which he may always turn.
The poem’s theme appears to be about unrequited love and a man wooing his “coy mistress” to sleep with him, but this poem does has a deeper meaning, which is really impressive and therefore is striking. The theme of mortality is highlighted in this poem through word choice and by using imagery which reinforces the idea of death. Words relating to death such as “ ashes” and “grave” are used to emphasise the lack of time that we have and the stark contrast between the slow, idyllic first stanza and the sped up, heavier second stanza shows the difference between the idealistic eternity and the reality that we are all mortal and have to die at some point. Another deeper theme introduced is the idea of “carpe diem” which is shown through the lustier language in the poem, word choice such as “time devour”, and also through the quickened pace of the second stanza. The speaker is not simply asking the “coy mistress” to sleep with him, what he is saying is if there was all the time in the world then life would be ideal but there is not so they have to live for the moment.
“To His Coy Mistress”: An Explication In his lyrical poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” Marvell focuses on a subject that still baffles minds today, nearly 300 years later-sex. The poem was written by Andrew Marvell, a celebrated 17th-century metaphysical poetry writer. Marvell shows a world where women are seduced. Women and men have focused on the issue of sex for centuries. The most ironic thing that the reader should notice while analyzing this poem is that even though they are in two different time settings, the same persuasions are used as an argument in Marvell’s time as well as the present.
With Donne’s Elegies being intended for reading between discrete, small and private groups of males otherwise known as a coterie readership it is not surprising that he explores desire from a male perspective (Cousins, 2014). An interesting extraction that can be made from his Elegy 19 is how men view the role of the woman in a sexual relationship as a reflection of their society’s values and beliefs. There is a lack of mutuality as a theme in his texts, and instead there is misogyny and Donne’s innate desire to shock his audience. Donne’s Elegies were written in England in the 1590s when a female ruled the monarch. The context of Donne’s writing indicates a time that females had power despite being subordinate to men in every day life.