One of the ways this is illustrated through is in the second stanza he describes her as being ‘slapped up’. The onomatopoeic phrase suggests men’s sarcastic prejudice view on women as sexual objects; it also emphasizes the challenges the girl is facing in men’s attitudes toward her. Larkin also humiliates the girl by describing the obscene disfigurement to the image of her ‘huge tits... A tuberous cock and balls’. The taboo language helps to demonstrate more than just adolescent immaturity but deliberate and repeated attempts to degrade her by a kind of visual rape. However one could also argue that Larkin seems to justify violence against women by suggesting that access to women is something men have been unfairly deprived of.
In one of her more revealing moments, she threatens to have the black stable-hand lynched if he complains about her to the boss. Her insistence on flirting with Lennie seals her unfortunate fate. Although Steinbeck does, finally, offer a sympathetic view of Curley’s wife by allowing her to voice her unhappiness and her own dream for a better life, women have no place in the author’s idealized vision of a world structured around the brotherly bonds of men. In Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men women are portrayed as discriminated. In the times John Steinbeck lived in women were not held in high regard but they were just present to serve men.
Joel Arpin Prof Karl Anderson English Com & Lit 102-05 March 3, 2013 A Feminist Theme Comparison of ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ & ‘Trifles’ This exposition should convince the reader that there are clear underlying feminist themes connecting Trifles and The Yellow Wallpaper. The foremost common themes in these stories address the patriarchal dominance of an earlier -turn of the century- society and the demoralizing effect it has on the lives and emotional wellbeing of the women in the stories. The male characters are portrayed as domineering yet clueless authority figures who maintain their position certainly by virtue of their gender. Being a product of Victorian mores, the men are almost subconsciously dismissive of the female intellect, regarding it as childish and inferior. The women are casualties of a domestic prison, a prison for the mind, created by society and their husbands, who are victims themselves in their own way, of a Gilded Age mindset.
‘Women must creep’ (Elaine R. Hedges) illustrates the thought that women shouldn’t be heard, but do only what they’re required to do, reinforcing how women were demeaned. The lack of power women had was not only present within their marriage, but also in society as males were perceived as the more significant gender, so women were patronised and dismissed by patriarchal control. Patriarchal control is represented clearly by John, the protagonist’s husband, which increases complexity within the novel as the isolation and ‘The resting cure’ he enforces upon her, causes her mental state to degenerate further, despite John believing it is helping his wife. There are a number of methods used to increase the characters complexity in The Yellow Wallpaper. For example, the use of epistolary displays a 1st person narrative and is in the present tense, “I never used to be so sensitive.” This is present when the protagonist writes to herself, Gilman uses this technique in order to show the
A door that once kept her shut-off from the outside world, not shuts out society’s view of women and their place in the world. “Iv got out at last...in spite of you!” (70). The narrator of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' has been driven into psychological madness through the imprisonment of male dominance. Gilman's use of symbolism to portray patriarchal dominance, through locked doors and bared windows, has been an effective way to communicate the suffering and trapped feeling of women during the 19th century. While many women would be to afraid to question their role in society and in marriage, Gilman has created a strong female protagonist who overcomes her husbands authoritative
In this instance, John’s social standing as a husband and a doctor conspire against the narrator’s enunciation of her illness. A metaphor is offered that serves as a reverberation of the author’s paradigm. Elaborating on the woman’s vision, “she is ... always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight” (Gilman 10). In its generality, the role of the married woman is obstructed by the public eye. The need to obey societal normality hinders a couple from venturing astray from the fray and furthermore, seeking independence.
Power in Charlotte Perkin Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman explores the idea of inequliaty between men and women. The story shows how power affects one person which is portrayed through the narrator and her dominant husband John. "The Yellow Wallpaper" suggests that a male dominant relationship leads to a downfall in marraige. John's dominant power over the narrator suggests she is incapable of expressing herself. The narrator says "There comes John, and I must put this away,- he hates to have me write a word (79).
Women were still viewed as being inferior to men and did not have a voice to air their concerns or displeasure. In the beginning of the story, the main character hints to this oppression as she comments “perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster” when describing John’s occupation as a physician (Gilman 82). Her husband John is expanding her level of depression by keeping her from the outside. Confining her to one room within a house that was viewed as being “a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate” is symbolic (Gilman 82). It shows that she is trapped within a small portion of a large house, similar to being trapped to adventure the outside world thus forced in to a land of fantasy not reality.
Different from other women, who obey men and follow orders, Shelley represents Safie as a rebellious female figure in an attempt to convey her hostility toward sexism. Safie’s strength is shown when she disregards her father and escape to join Felix instead. Because of Safie’s mutinous characteristic, Safie is able to criticize a male dominant society where women’s rights are often neglected. Furthermore, Shelley argues that confinement is nauseating because it is a form of oppression toward women. Victor’s two years of alienation between himself and society during his process of creating the monster parallel the period of a woman’s confinement before labor.
Euripides has been accused of being a misogynist as well as the world's first feminist. In your view, do the portrayals of Medea and Jason allow such contradictory interpretations? Euripides' Greek tragic play, 'Medea', depicts a wife's desire to right the wrongs done to her by her husband and in the pursuit of satisfaction, she commits the heinous of crimes, infanticide. The play is set in a patriarchal society, where women are treated as mere tools to satisfy their male partners. Euripides' portrays Medea as both a weak and strong woman, being able to stand up to some of the male characters and simultaneously succumb to their presence.