In The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter reverses gothic traditions so that the males become the victims instead of the females. Consider at least two of the stories in the bloody chamber in the light of this view. The gender constructs of passive, young, virginal woman who are victimised by dominant, strong and wealthy males is a common trait throughout gothic tales including many of Angela Carters short stories from “The Bloody Chamber”. However, Carter received the criticism of “[extracting] latent content, conjuring up a new exotic hybrid” in which she challenges the typical stereotypes of gothic conventions, influenced by her feminist nature. 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.
Blanche is driven by sexual desire but is condemned by it for being a whore. She is promiscuous but isn’t supposed to be. Since she doesn’t fit the stereotype, she lies to herself that she is still a Southern Belle. When we first meet Blanche she appears to be a respectable lady. We can see this in Williams’ choice of costume colour,
'Violent passions lead to violent ends', therefore the romance becomes a tragedy. Philip Larkin however deliberately downgrades romantic ideas of love and is, is much more cynical in his poems like ‘Love’, ‘Sad steps’, and ‘Love songs in age’,‘ An Arundel tomb’ and‘ Talking in bed. His poems are filled with unconventional ideas of love and in some ways, he is more truthful about it than Shakespeare. However, people may say that Larkin is narrow-minded and critical. Even though there are some similarities between the two writers, there are also many differences.
Indeed it is this tradition that both writers attempt to disrupt at various points in the two texts with varying degrees of success. At the time of writing women were often disregarded as second class citizens and were presented as inferior to men. In this way, these two texts present the difficulties that women experience when trying to assert themselves in male society. Specifically, their identities often suffer due to lack of communication and voice. However the traditional role of femininity that was enforced upon women by a stringent and somewhat vigorous society was changing and these two texts challenge the traditional role of femininity both directly and indirectly throughout.
Response Paper #1 September 23, 2010 Female Sexuality Sexuality is often a word that when heard people often feel uncomfortable talking about, or believe it should just be kept to yourself. However, female sexuality has been a huge theme in history, women have battled discrimination, sexual tourcher, been labeled with derogatory names and have been seen as objects rather then people. In the novel Dracula, female sexuality is a major reoccurring theme. Taking place in Victorian England women were given two options set by societies firm expectations, she was either an innocent virgin or a marred mother, anyone who didn’t follow these guidelines was labeled a whore. In the novel we are presented with very different examples of female sexual expression and are brought with the idea of the “new woman”.
Even in a story which purports to be filled with moral values, such as Homer’s Odyssey. Judging by modern standards of moral and ethical treatment of women, Homer’s Odyssey is insanely sexist. As thousands of advertisements and magazines will tell you, the worst thing a lady can be is ugly. After all, good witches are beautiful, but if you’re a bad witch, God help your complexion. Women in Homer's Odyssey are judged mainly, if not exclusively by their physical appearance.
Word Count: 1493 How far do you agree that Shakespeare’s portrayal of gender relations is more sinister than comic? Shakespeare’s depiction of gender relations in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ distinguishes the female and male stereotypes during the Elizabethan era in 1599. Shakespeare accomplishes this through the contrasting couples of Benedick and Beatrice and Hero and Claudio. The relationship within father and daughter is likewise used to demonstrate the sinister and slightly comedic relations between men and women. To a great extent, modern audiences would find the portrayal objectification of women very much ominous, especially in the case of Hero.
This idea lead Puritan men too many justifications. Not be a single vocal Puritan man, but a group of Puritan men with differing mindsets and ideas especially with their view on the role of women. If women were physically weak then they are certainly spiritually weak against Satan. If a woman was older and single she was a witch, if she was widowed she was a witch, rich witch, poor witch, quiet witch, loud witch, or talked back most certainly the devils work. The problem was a damned if she does and damned if she does not.
Whether woman are perceived as weak and feeble victims, or sinister seductresses (or not included at all), writers of this genre present this gender to the audience as either of these options which makes us question how innocent are women? Or are women significantly absent and therefore not an influence at all? Popular texts which introduce these aspects in this genre include; Mary Shelley’s classic, Frankenstein; Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus and The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. It’s been argued these writers portray woman in different ways which outset onto society they’re role as a whole: Gothic literature can have an inclination towards female writers but also accumulate a patriarchal nightmare in which violence is constantly sanctioned on the female body. Mary Shelley is significant herself; being the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the first feminists; who lived in an era of women’s writing that openly condemned patriarchy.
78). Even Lily realises that she is racist and is very surprised by this. She struggles with this, and in the end overcomes her racist self. Lily realised she is racist when she is surprised how handsome Zach is and that she could be attracted to blacks too. Lily is also very surprised when she finds out that Zach wants to become a lawyer rather than an athlete like Lily stereotypes him for.