Chloe Freeman 20th November 2011 Chloe Freeman 20th November 2011 The ideas and themes I get from the reading this the extract from The Wife of Martin Guerre are of gender identity and of the oppression of women in the patriarchal society of the 1960s. Gender roles played an important part in the structure of the society of the 1500’s, which instigated many problems concerning the male authority of the Guerre family. Males were seen to have power that was unquestionable by anyone as that was the way their society was built, without questioning of roles and hierarchy that made up the values and beliefs of the town. “The anger of Monsieur Guerre was terrible, as she had known it would be, and she was thankful that Martin’s shoulders were beyond the reach of his father’s heavy whip.” This passage is an insight of the way that men’s roles affected the function and order of a family’s name. “ Apprehensively Bertrande listened to the approach of every passer-by, started and turned cold each time the door to the house creaked.” With the disappearance of Martin the threat to the family’s name and honour is seen, by the way in which family members, in particular Bertrande deal with the criticisms.
Olaf was a merchant sailor just like Jim when he was younger; the only problem with Olaf was the color of his skin and his intimidating size. While a merchant sailor, Olaf did not have a problem with what race his fellow sailors were on the ship. Jim’s sheer size and race set off his racial hatred towards Jim. Olaf feels helpless because of his age. Before Jim departs, he puts his hand on Olaf’s neck; Olaf thinks Jim will snap off his head any moment now.
The Victorian sexual mores of that period meant that Jameson was only going for implication with female witnesses. With male witnesses, Jameson adopted a more direct approach, like when he forced Powell to admit that Celia did say that Newsom did force her to have sexual intercourse with him; and that no one was going to stop him. Interesting enough, Celia's fate may have been different if Newsom was exposed as a dominator with his daughters being totally submissive to him (McLaurin 98-99). While white men enjoyed patriarchal power in the antebellum South, white women on the other hand, held little power. White women had to accept slavery no matter what their opinion was.
It is a known cultural difference that men usually dominate the world. There are many times when women are abused that they do not file charges against their assailants. Some of the governing assumptions that strengthen the mainstream explanation of the intimate abuse that many women face are as follows: First, men batter women because they are privileged, physically, financially, and socially; it is under the assumption in this belief that we need not understand the violence behind men’s violence beyond that point of the patriarchal explanation. Second, women stay in abusive relationships because of patriarchy. Third, the criminal justice system is sexist.
When she is caught by her husband, Hugh, she is told “If you give a nigger an inch, he’ll take an ell”, as if to discourage her actions. Of course, in the long run, those words did discourage Sophia’s attempts at educating Frederick, and her entire personality and attitude toward Frederick changed. She became meaner, more brutal, and just overall indecent toward Frederick. The power that her husband encouraged her to possess took away the only kindness Frederick had ever encountered. Frederick never let the discouragement from Hugh or the sudden rise of power from Sophia change his outlook; he instead taught himself how to read.
All of these characters are kind beings and as can be seen by Tom in the courthouse he ‘felt right sorry’ for Miss Mayella. Unfortunately, the idea that a black person could feel sorry for a white person refutes all of Maycomb’s social assumptions. Tom’s omission cannot be tolerated by Maycomb’s current social hierarchy as it suggests that someone is inferior to a black man, when in fact all that Tom is doing is expressing a natural emotion –
society conflict. It also evokes, again, the importance of courage when facing conflict; in this case it shows courage in the face of adversity. Ruth is a white woman in the 60’s, a time of high racial tension, who marries a black man, twice, and mothers 12 mixed race children. In her society, and even to a lesser extent in today’s society, mixing races was severely looked down upon and caused her to be the victim of many injustices. But the remarkable thing about Ruth was…she didn’t care!
He manipulates everything around him including all the key women in his life (Caruthers, 2006). In contrast Vivian is a prostitute who is a victim of circumstance. During the film Edward plays a hand in almost every aspect in Vivian’s life where she has very little control over his life putting him in the more dominant position of the relationship. Therefore reinforcing the ideology that both sexes sustain the notion that males are superior to that not only of woman but society in general (Ortner, 1989; Donaldson, 1993). “The possession of erotic desire for
Some of the tactics they employ include starvation, beatings, rape, and gang rape. Also, the traffickers are not the only ones to perpetrate violence. Reading ahead, I noticed we will be learning about Power and Social Justice and this subject fits in perfectly because there is no answer to why people hurt one another. Our previous assignments focused on issues in society such as the one in Enrique’s Journey and Loaves and Fishes and George Orwell’s 1984. Most humans have fear in speaking against something that is unjust and a violation of our dignity because it gives power to the higher authority to control.
Rape has affected many cultures and women’s life that we cannot imagine. In E.J. Graff’s article, he puts makes a lot of points that we should think about and change about our world. What exactly is rape? For men, it is simply a means to enjoy women’s bodies.