Issues of Women’s Liberation from the Oppression Found in Society and Marriages Sherry Heide ENG 125 Introduction to Literature Instructor: Louise Becker 09 January 2012 Issues of Women’s Liberation from the Oppression Found in Society and Marriages What is said of women suffrage is not always true today in America or other countries, what is the truth, is that it is based largely on the perception of the woman experiencing the suffering. Women throughout time have suffered from oppression in society and in their own marriages. Gender roles are not something we are but instead something we do. It is completely unnatural for women of today to be the money makers, everything to the children (taxi, disciplinarian, etc..),take out etc cook, housekeeper and so on yet still their husbands will is forced upon the entire family instead of taking his place with his wife as partners. Did the verse found in Genesis chapter 3 vs. 16 cause centuries of women's suffrage?
The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, takes place in The Republic of Gilead where reproduction rates are declining. To counteract this, the remaining women with viable ovaries, called Handmaids, are assigned to high class households with hopes of conceiving a child. Feminism, a topic that is central to the novel, is the ideology of equality for women. However, the society in the novel is depicted as the exact opposite of feminism. By utilizing the Handmaids as a representation of the females in the Gileadean society, the author exposes the flaws of an anti-feminist society through objectification and the absence of agency.
The Invisible Cage Pride and Prejudice In the nineteenth century society, the options of choosing husbands for unmarried women are limited due to the reason that the society has prescribed a set of values for them. The English society associated the entrance of a woman into the public with a reprehensible loss of femininity. Jane Austen, the author of the novel Pride and Prejudice herself suffers in this era by not allowed to be acknowledged as the author for her books. In Jane Austen's book Pride and Prejudice, she depicts how young men and women behave in the society and how they set up their life and social position for their own desires. With this background, Jane tries to deliver the message that the people were restrained and they suffered by the rules set by the society such as family reputation, women’s position, and class division.
The female characters in these stories offer a universal representation of women as being the weaker sex through marriage, and are characterized by having evil intentions for which she is justly´ punished for in the end. The setting for “The Necklace” and “The Story of an Hour” take place during the 1800s when men played the dominant role over women. In both stories the protagonists are each yearning for a better life and each struggle to find it in a slightly different way. During the 1800s the only expectation of women was to cook, keep house, bear and raise their children. During this period women were not even allowed to vote (Wan, 2009).
For example, cultural feminists look to the different values associated with womanhood and femininity as a reason why men and women experience the social world differently. Other feminist theorists believe that the different roles assigned to women and men within institutions better explain gender difference, including the sexual division of labor in the household. Existential and phenomenological feminists focus on how women have been marginalized and defined as the “other” in patriarchal societies. Women are thus seen as objects and are denied the opportunity for self-realization. Gender Inequality: Gender-inequality theories recognize that women's location in, and experience of, social situations are not only different but also unequal to men's.
In the novels, women are treated like second class citizens when compared to men and are expected to be content with this Victorian idea of patriarchal domination. In Jane Eyre, Jane develops throughout the novel moving from Thornfield to Gateshead, to Lowood and to Marsh End. Each location challenges her identity and her integrity as she desperately tries to maintain her dignity with the different conflicts she is confronted with. The three main male characters in the novel are Edward Rochester, Mr.Brocklehurst and St. John Rivers. Each male, in their own way, continuously get in her way of trying to achieve equality by oppressing her into a submissive position.
No, but it helps. Does the protagonist have to be an ideal type? Not if the novel represents a complex character engaged in conflicts she experiences through living as a woman in a social milieu that “inhibits instinctual aims” (that is, any medium of social organization: marriage, work, The Law, etc) “GYNOCENTRISM” IN THE PLOT OF EYES: 1. The narrative is a female “bildungsroman”: a novel of education, initiated in the unsatisfactory social goals envisioned by the older generation (“mother”) for the younger (“daughter”) 2. Janie’s sexual identity emerges from an exploration of her own desires: her discovery of sexual feelings is not prompted by the presence of a man; and the acquisition of her “voice” emerges from the creation, in the field of her desire, of egalitarian dialogue with a man 3.
For example, turning down Mr. Collins may demonstrateher as a no-brainer woman among the society at that time. But by rejecting him, this suggests that Elizabeth places her own judgment over social pressures to comfort. In spite of the fact that she has been forced to get married with Mr. Collins by her mother, she persists to her strong position of rejecting his proposal. Plus, although Lady Catherine tries to strong-arm her into rejecting any proposal from Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth gets angry and asks her to get away. Hence, it can be noticed how Austen stresses on the empowerment of women through Elizabeth’s
Shirley Chisholm state that “The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says it’s a girl” it is no surprise that women are looked down upon by society. For thousands of years it has always been said that women are weaker than man. Feminist criticism is a type of literacy criticism where were asked to examine society’s unfair treatment to women. Judy Brady’s essay “I want a wife” explores how married women are conditioned and their expectations in a patriarchal society. In “I want a wife”, Judy demonstrate how women are conditioned to be care takers for their home and family.
Woolf interprets the contrast between the women in fiction and the real women of the period as evidence that the famous characters are nothing but impossibilities imagined upon by men. She argues that only a female writer could have created characters endowed with women’s hindered possibilities. But perhaps the women portrayed in Elizabethan fiction weren’t just men being conveniently portrayed as women like Woolf claims. Perhaps Shakespeare and other authors created these strong characters as symbols of what women could’ve been, barring the legal and social injustices they faced. Lady Macbeth is undoubtedly Shakespeare’s most vicious and cunning female character.