The men are supposed to be sick with love, vehement about it, and so sweet a woman would have to accept his advances. The woman’s role is very much a broad, sweeping statement. This allows for the notion that women are property to be claimed to run as the undercurrent to the courtly love system. This is evident in the way that Arcite and Palamon, Theseus, and even the Gods force Emelye into a marriage she wants no part in. The Knight tries his best to maintain a noble and romantic air to his story but the tale itself contradicts that.
We are introduced to a majorly significant and complex character, named Curley’s wife. Steinbeck shows us that Curley’s wife is flirtatious, mischievous (despite the patriarchal society of the 1930’s) but most of all she is an isolated character. Her hasty marriage to Curley proves to be failed attempt to escape her own spiral of disappointment of not fulfilling her ambition of becoming an actor. This ironically is a main theme in both texts. This essay will analyse and compare the presentation of Lady Macbeth and Curley's wife through the structure, themes, what is said about them, their actions and what they themselves say.
Shakespeare uses language, structure and dramatic devices to convey and create the effect of strong emotions through his ambitious characters, which is similarly portrayed in laboratory with the narrator’s strong and bitter emotions towards her husband’s infidelity. These characters can also be compared to the narrator of Porphyria’s lover whose intense emotions of love become too overwhelming for him to handle. Both Shakespeare and Browning show Elizabethan society as patriarchal, where men were considered to be the leaders and women subservient. Women were regarded as the weaker sex not just in terms of physical strength, but also emotionally. Women were also depicted as kind and caring as well as being the perfect mother and housewife, on the other hand men were portrayed as brave, strong and loyal.
Gwendolen wants to marry a man called Ernest, not caring whether he possesses the qualities that comprise earnestness. This is evident as Gwendolen quickly forgives Jack’s deception and Lady Bracknell quickly forgets her earlier disapproval of Jack’s suitability for Gwendolen. Jack, the central character, is initially neither ‘Ernest’ nor ‘earnest’. Through forces at times beyond his control, he becomes both: a symbol of Victorian hypocrisy. Both Jack and Algernon lead a double life, known as ‘Bunburying’, the practice of creating an elaborate deception so as to misbehave whilst maintaining expected social standards of duty and responsibility, essentially, pretending to be earnest.
Alex Williams Mrs. Elrod AP English 12 March 29, 2013 “The Importance of Being Earnest” and the Victorian Era Society The Victorian Era was an excellent time in the English history, when classical music was at its peak and sophistication was very important. During this great era, men and women searched for the ideal partner based on the expectations in this demanding society. After researching the society of the Victorian Era and relating it with the society found in Oscar Wilde’s play “The Importance of Being Earnest,” the reader can acknowledge the humor found throughout the Characterization and the social satires of this era and play. With its subtitle “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,” The IBE jokingly criticizes the Victorian morals and manners but also pokes fun at the wealthy. Men and Women of the Victorian Era had very distinct roles.
According to the book “Women, Art, and Society”, men can achieve nobility because they are good in art, but women can only be allowed to practice act when she was of noble birth. It showed that people in the past believed women’s success in art was base on the nobility in her family; it means women’s success in art was just part of the property of her family, but not because of her. It was hard for women to prove her ability when everyone believed both males’ and females’ success were credited to male. On the other hand, the economic valuing of Western art was also one of the obstacles which females’ artists had to face. In the text book “Women, Art, and Society”, author mention that “Our language and expectations about art have tended to rank that produced by women as below that
They bring in a lot of content which fits into to comedy criteria as well as enable the plot to develop fully. Firstly, the aspect of comedy ' servants and masters' is one where The Importance of Being Earnest fits perfectly as Lane and Merriman are both butlers of Jack and Algernon-the main characters of the play. They show the contrast between the lower and upper class in the Victorian Era which is a theme often found in comedic plays. Additionally, the relationship between Lane and Algernon could possibly represent the theme of youth and age-the generation gap. This is shown when Algernon asks Lane, " Is marriage so demoralising as that?"
Awakening Essay Freedom In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Edna Pontellier is bound to a life of perfection and social status. Her husband, Leonce Pontellier controls her life and expects her to do everything he asks. Leonce’s expectations aren’t unreasonable because in that era wives were suppose to make their husbands look good, which meant tending to everything and doing whatever their husbands requested. Edna has an “awakening” and realizes that the strict social life is not what she wants. Being free and in control of her own life is what Edna craves.
As you can imagine, the pressure to marry well is high. When Elizabeth is slighted with the opportunity to meet a ravishing young fellow named Mr. Darcy, she is drawn in by his wit and charm. Mr. Darcy is by far the passionate choice in the war between passion and responsibility. Elizabeth didn’t much like Darcy at the beginning of the novel but once he admits what he does for Elizabeth’s younger and older sisters, she realizes that he couldn’t possibly be a bad man. The conflict begins with Elizabeth’s parents.
Both Jack and Algernon are admired by two young ladies who mistakenly believe the men's names to be Ernest, and who adore the men for this very reason. In relating the story of mix-ups and mistaken identities, the ideals and manners of the Victorian society are satirized in a comedy where the characters "treat all the trivial things of life seriously and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality" (Wilde back cover), in the words of the author himself. Oscar Wilde’s comical scenes often take their source in social satire and non-conformism (Baselga 15). Throughout his play, In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde satirizes education, women, and morality. Oscar Wilde satirizes the British education by using Lady Bracknell.