A Woman’s Portrayal in “To the Troops at Tilbury”, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130, and The Tragedy of Mariam As the Renaissance began, we find that, much like the ancient days, women gain and then lose rights as the historical and political faces of Europe change. Even during Queen Elizabeth’s rule, as the de facto King of England, she was forced to uphold the standards given to a woman during the time. However, as we see in her speech “To the Troops at Tilbury” Queen Elizabeth also blurred the lines of masculinity and femininity as she to the role of a true king and all the masculine responsibility and strength that came with the title. As a male writer Shakespeare was able to quietly ask for change in society’s view of women in his satirical sonnet 130. Throughout the entire sonnet he mocks the ideas of women’s perfection in the Renaissance, and shows that no woman is perfect.
Alisoun uses scripture, certainly the most influential and anti-feminist literature of the Middle Ages, to justify her own feminist philosophy; which is evidence of Chaucer making a medieval attempt at feminist writing. To this point, Patricia Clare Ingham (2002) argues, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath is arguably among the most ingenious readers in the history of literature. Critical reception of the Wife’s prologue stresses the agency of her aggressive re-reading of scripture as a means for displaying and resisting the medieval anti-feminist tradition. (p. 41) To Ingham’s argument, in the Prologue to The Wife of Bath, the Wife compares having five husbands of her own to the life of King Solomon, who, according to the King James version of the Bible, had seven-hundred wives and three-hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:3). According to the Wife’s logic, if holy men of the Bible can marry more than once, it
Powerful Beyond Measure: The Women of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an epic poem written during the Middle Ages, a time in which women played a negligible role in society and, as such, were considered too unworthy for real consideration. Men were the dominant sex; they controlled not only women, but also the laws, religion, and morals of the time. However, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is somewhat different from that reality in regards to women. Females have significant positions throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where they move the plot and espouse the values of the characters and medieval society, A “good” woman during medieval times was a meek, beautiful mother and wife. While some aspects of sexuality were considered evil, most people during the Middle Ages agreed that sex was appropriate for procreation, applying God’s command to have children (Harksen); so while being a virgin was an ideal, it was unrealistic for the majority of the population.
‘The Eve of St. Agnes’ is widely considered to be amongst Keat’s finest poems and was influential in 19th century literature. This lengthy, 42-stanza poem is based on an old superstition that young virgins are able to discover the identity of their future husbands in a dream if they perform certain rituals on the eve of St. Agnes. The poem describes the experiences of a girl called Madaline who endeavours to see her husband by following the practice on the eve of St. Agnes. Keats’s work touches on the love between young men and women and attempts to decipher the difference between what is real and what and what features in Madaline’s dreams. The characters in ‘The eve of St. Agnes’ are typical of those in many classic fictitious romantic stories of the period.
How do Friel and Frayn present the role of women? In the novel 'Spies' and the play 'Making History' the authors Michael Frayn and Brian Friel portray the roles of women in different ways throughout each of the texts. They do this because they are trying to present both of these women in the stereotypical role of women but then also showing that they’re different. In the novel 'Spies' the women are presented as women who are dependent on men but they can also do a lot for themselves and they do have a bit of independence. Whereas in 'Making History' the women are a lot more dependent, although they do have to marry a man while they are quite young to fill the stereotypical purpose which was to be a housewife, so they would just cook, clean and have children.
Fairouz Hussein Naranjo 07/02/2014 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer The portrait of Chaucer’s female pilgrims and their tales: gender, social status and narrative decorum. Canterbury Tales are considered to be unique and a landmark world literature among other medieval texts due to the attention paid to various portrayals of women and how this depiction in many cases widely differs from that presented in the literature of that time. In such a way, it is an opportunity to explore issues of gender from both historical and a contemporary perspective. There are two basic approaches towards women’s depiction in The Canterbury Tales: on the one hand, there are women featuring as storytellers, telling their stories to other pilgrims. On the other hand, women appearing as title or side characters in stories told by men, as Anne Laskaya states (1995: 166) “the representations of women included in the male pilgrims´ tales are filtered through several layers of male perception”.
The Wife of Bath, without a doubt is Chaucer’s most memorable character. In the General Prologue, long before her tale is presented Chaucer provides us with insight about her personality while painting a vivid picture of this aged, but lustrous woman in our minds. The Wife, as a storyteller in the Canterbury Tales represents only one of two females, which is a separate estate of its own. She wastes no time in contradicting the proposed stereotypes of what women of this time should think, feel or even how she should present herself. In her own words she suggests even during the middle ages women then, may have wanted the same thing that many women strive for today; to be known as a woman of strength, that is not only fierce because of her words, but because of the power of her sexual instrument.
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.
Some of these depictions can be found in Ruth, Oliver Twist, East Lynne, and Tess of the d'Urbervilles. In the Victorian novel, women were stereotyped to ensure the dominance of the patriarchy. Presented as a role model and ideal for the family fireside readers, the sweet and beautiful angel is the arbiter of domesticity in the face of an uncaring world. In return for her loving devotion, she is rewarded by a marriage that provides her security and identity. In contrast, those women who are too willful or intelligent
Explore the presentation of women in The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye. With emphasis on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ (1925) and wider reference to J.D Salinger’s ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ (1951), explore how women are represented across both novels. Fitzgerald largely ignores the experience of women in The Great Gatsby, which is symbolic in itself, but explores the representations of women in society at the time through its three main female characters - Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker and Myrtle Wilson. Fitzgerald often portrays women in the novel as corrupt, materialistic and reliant on men, exploring this idea through Daisy and Myrtle in contrast to the supposed independence women were experiencing during the 1920s, which is represented through Jordan Baker. 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.