In “A Rose for Emily” the narrator has an obvious bias against women. “Only a man of Colonel Sartoris’ generation and thought could have invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.” (par. 3). This bias is a vivid contrast separating the narrative approach in both stories. The narrator in “A Rose for Emily” doesn’t waste any time when illustrating a bias or marginalizing characters.
What is significant about this extract at this point in the novel? You should comment closely in Bronte’s uses of form structure and language as well as subject matter. In this extract we are presented with a softer side to Mr. Rochester. He trusts Jane enough to confide in her about his ‘Grande Passion’ towards Céline Varens and how Adele came to be reliant on his care. In the Victorian era this would be seen as a scandal, so the very fact that Rochester is telling Jane, means she is of significant importance to Rochester, and he has placed a large amount of trust in her.
This would suggest that women had a great deal of power within Lawrence’s stories, and prove they are not completely male dominated. The story I am going to analyse is Lawrence’s ‘England, My England’. ‘England, My England’ is interesting when addressing my title as the man ’Evelyn’ in the story is immediately portrayed as a lazy character that is not aware and does not care a great deal about his surroundings. The woman in the story ‘Winifred’ appears to be the more dominant and masculine one on the relationship. This is unusual in Lawrence’s stories.
In The Catcher in the Rye however, despite the fact women are also presented as materialistic at times, through Holden Caulfield J.D Salinger explores women as largely innocent and independent, rather than shallow beings who’s existence solely relies on the men in their lives. Ultimately, as both novels are seen through the eyes of men they share a patriarchal view on women in society, but they also explore the representation of women in quite different ways, reflecting their standing in society at the time. The first time women are mentioned six pages into the book is through Daisy. However, interestingly she comes second best to her spouse, and Nick references their family as the “Tom Buchanans”, rather than 'The Buchanans' or 'Tom and Daisy Buchanan'. Daisy is Nick's family, whereas Tom, as well as being her husband, is just someone Nick knew from college.
Literary criticism: ADH Critique Henrik Isben is one of the more well-known early drama writers and is an individual who has been studied for his excelling playwrights. The prime example being A Doll’s House and its wide array of controversial issues. One of those issues primarily being the lower treatment of women as a group instead of as individuals. He, as a writer, shines the spotlight on these issues with full intent to inform and not to reform. Isben wants to highlight how crude not having equality for women is, especially when a portion of them are smarter than a portion of the opposite gender and vice versa.
Woe to the man who describes women as frail, naïve, and out of touch in today's world. In the early 1900s, however, females were still cast in inferior roles to men, and unfortunately, Conrad, although progressive in his critique of imperialism, reflected the traditional treatment of women in Heart of Darkness. His five women characters were kept unnamed and their speech limited, highlighting the belittlement of women in the male-dominated society. Thus, Conrad offered no advancement to the cause of women by following convention and minimizing the agency of females through the creation of two separate, engendered spheres. Depicting women as unnatural entities, voiceless and agent less, to their male counterparts destroys any shot of redemption for the fairer sex, so Conrad aligns all the women in the narrative with unreality to evolve the importance of separate realms.
women's lives are individually trivial, and their only strength and/or success can come from banding together" (1). Such assertion construes women through male social law and endorses the masculine value system. But, as illustrated in the ironically-named Trifles, where male calumny proved misfortune as the women used domestic intuition and invisibility to supersede the law in the name of justice, Susan Glaspell shows that during this time period, women held a kind of power. This “power” is delicate and one of the key themes in Trifles. Although critics disagree on how the vastly different gender perceptions within the play are used to portray the theme of women’s power within law and justice, all of their arguments tie back to the fact that the women in the story act as a surrogate for the female society of that time, showing them that they have more power than they realize.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream has many relationships between men and women that show women as both submissive and self-assertive, indicating that even in that time, it was not considered impossible to Shakespeare that a woman can and will go against the approval of her male dominant figure. The relationship between men and women exists across both the mortal and fairy worlds in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. More specifically, both the fairy and mortal plots in the play deal with an attempt by males to control women. Though Theseus and Hippolyta appear to share a healthy loving relationship, it is a love built upon a man asserting power over a woman since Theseus won Hippolyta’s love by defeating her in battle. But Hippolyta appears to be happy with this arrangement and does not seemed concerned that she will be forever under the rule of Theseus, even though she didn’t get to pick him for her husband.
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.
The Cat in the Rain and The Chrysanthemums Both of these beautifully written stories are about unfulfilled women. Interestingly, both are written by ‘manly’ men, each of whom we would refer to as “a man’s man”. Both The Chrysanthemums and The Cat in the Rain are allegorical stories, having a simple plot which is meant to hold one’s interest on its own, but with deeper intended meanings which reveal truths about the heroines and the lesser characters. I will discuss each one, and then compare them. Steinbeck uses both nature and descriptive devices to convey a tone and a reality which enhances the underlying message of his story.