There is definitely a tendency to mock the remarks made by the females of the play just because they are women. This conduct aids as the backdrop of the play: a male-dominated society which does not respect the rights of women and will never consider their needs as valid. This is what leads the men to take value away from the women's thoughts and opinions. The conflict between justice and law can be seen when the woman start to consider the actions of Mrs. Wright as appropriate. Exposition: -Characterization George Henderson: Mr. Henderson is the county attorney who has been called to
And if a woman succumbs to acts adultery, this is seen as a great threat for the Oikos as the women can no longer be seen as honourable or chase, casting doubt on children’s legitimacy. It suggests that women tend to be seen as weaker and therefore potentially victims in need of protection through the law. Athenian men such as Ischomachus thought women were physically weak to an extent, believing ‘work.. indoors are women’s tasks’ and the ‘outdoors are the mans’. However, he justifies this indoor role he has given to his wife by different characteristics the gods have given to the sexes including women’s physical weakness however through the bee analogy he stresses the requirement for women to be assertive and strong in management in the internal roles of the oikos which makes her distinct from other women through her superior expertise she gains from managing the oikos. This suggests that Athenian men thought women were weak because of what they believe or what they’ve been taught to believe rather than see what women might be able to do.
In Jacobean times women were seen as inferior and even in the Victoria era, thus she required external forces to crush her conscience to allow her to fulfil her ambition. Yet she is afraid her feminine qualities will prevent her from achieving the murder of King Duncan. Which would gradually lead to her mental breakdown. Regicide was considered a mortal sin in Jacobean times, one God couldn't forgive. Whereas Browning’s protagonist in The Laboratory sustains her feminine qualities this is reflected in the line “The colours too grim” in which she is referring to her dislike of the colour of poison and that it needs to be 'brightened' up in order to convince her victim to drink it.
Both Carol Ann Duffy and Dorothy Molloy convey a theme of loneliness through their characters of their poems. Carol who wrote 'Medusa' conveyed a message of how life has mistreated her and she is lonely due to in medusa's case having snake hair and turning people to stone and therefore she has enclosed her self within a cave, she conveys this message through a dramatic monologue. Dorothy who wrote 'Les Grands Seigneurs' had a message of how he distance her self from men and due to that she is is lonely but in the end gets married but has lost all authority as she is a female and in the past men had greater authority no matter what the status was of the female, she conveyed this through four stanzas and the the fourth stanza is the turning point where she has become married also she has written the poem in the past tense showing how she misses her old self and is lonely now even though she is married. I would also compare these poems to the world war one poet Siegfried Sassoon 'the soldier' as it also conveys a theme of loneliness. I will show how these two poets convey the theme of loneliness through their poems.
The metaphors found in this poem bestow upon the reader a sense of the overdramatic; “the world drops dead” is an overstatement of the desperation she is feeling. Nothing exists but her lost love. The first line of the first stanza reads: “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead:” (1) When she closes her eyes everything in existence fades from her mind and she is no longer thinking of the many problems that exist in the world, she can only think of her former lover. This line carries throughout the poem showing the significance of emotions. The second
Through this, Charlotte Bronte implies that the women who rebelled against their role in society had a hard time finding people to relate to or be friends with. It is also clear that Jane’s desire to have an equal power relationship, which has homosexual undertones, with another masculine personality, is another reason for Jane’s failed female relationships, especially her negative relationship with Mrs. Reed. By showing Jane’s inability to have a female friendship with any women of her acquaintance, Charlotte Bronte implies that equality in Victorian society is rare or even impossible. Jane’s female cousins are not capable of having an intense relationship with Jane that fulfills the criteria of Jane’s ideal relationship. While Jane and her cousins appear to have a strong relationship with each other as they enjoy participating in the same activities and having the same opinions in their conversations, which Jane claims to find “a reviving
In correcting this image, women are writing themselves and their stories. At the ferment of feminist literary criticism in the West, proponents like Kate Millet, Mary Shelley, Julia Kristeva and Elaine Showalter agitated for women’s work to be included in the literary canon this included women writers who wrote under male pseudonyms. Again, they criticised the acquisition of language in itself bringing out the biases which make it gear towards patriarchy more than being universal. Showalter also introduced the angle of Gynocriticism which she says is developing new models that are based on female experiences and not adapting male theories. The stereotypical images they talk of ranges from the women been represented in literature as a shrew, a cute-like angel, a nagging wife, a mother and other representations which continually aids the subordination of women in all spheres of life.
Although, it has been disputed that Duffy's poetry is misandrist due to her dismissive persona towards men. This dismissive persona that Duffy adopts may be used as a vehicle to place significance on the autonomy of women as Deryn Rees-Jones argues that she moves beyond 'a straightforwardly feminist poetry' and show the difficulties that patriarchy presents to both men and women.' Therefore, Duffy can be said to explore the gender restrictions for men as well as women through her depiction of male power. Duffy's reversal of gender roles in Little Red Cap challenges the view of the woman as 'cute but essentially helpless' through repositioning the reader’s understanding of feminine qualities, separating females from their male counterparts. Initially, Little Red Cap takes a domineering role throughout the poem, adopting the cultural stereotype of an 'immoral and dangerous seductress' which successfully reverses the socially constructed gender roles of woman as being 'naturally timid' and subverts the reader's expectations of the typical damsel in distress, 'a pursued maiden'.
Medusa is told in the first person as a dramatic monologue by a woman who is insecure and worried that her husband is cheating on her. The poem begins: ‘A suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy’ and it is this jealousy which has turned the woman into a gorgon and now everything she looks at turns to stone. This feeling of doubt resonates throughout the poem, exemplified in the line, ‘but I know you’ll go, betray me, stray from home’. Unlike our feelings towards the traditional monstrous character, this poem evokes empathy for the character as she is clearly distressed and suffering. Especially when she reminisces in the final stanza about the time she was young and beautiful, illustrating her complete lack of confidence.
Life Without Love or Independence? In Jane Eyre and Hard Times, women are portrayed in a negative light throughout their respected novels; females are represented as being second class citizens to their male counterparts, and are unable to have a thought of their own. The traditional views of Victorian era gender roles are both enforced through the outside portrayal of the women that do not fit the mold of the ideal Victorian women yet is also subverted by the feelings the women feel when they left their bonds, or the consequences of living in the suffering of the gender misogamy they endure over their lifestyle. By expressing the men through traditional Victorian masculine characteristics such as being powerful and dominant to their meek and loyal female counterparts, the novels establish early on the barrier that the protagonists struggle with merely being female. In the novels, women are treated like second class citizens when compared to men and are expected to be content with this Victorian idea of patriarchal domination.