Gender Roles In The Once And Future King

While some themes of The Once and Future King include maturity and knighthood, another prominent theme in the novel is gender roles, specifically female roles. Curiously, in many biographies of T.H. White’s life, it is stated that he did not have the “capacity for love,” and never married. This means that while gender inequality is prominent in White’s novel, he never had a close relationship with a female in his personal life. In the novel, The Once and Future King, many female figures are written to be stereotypical, mean women. Through his use of gender roles in The Once and Future King, T.H. White demonstrates the belief that women’s rights in the 1940-60s should mirror those of Medieval times.

Women’s rights in the early 1900s were

As England recovered from the effects of the war, America’s stock market crashed in 1929, causing world trade and commerce to plummet. World War 2 began in 1939, causing more death, panic, and financial issues for twentieth century England (British Library). Due to these events, women’s roles changed from rearing children and taking care of the household to working outside the home, to not only support their families but the war effort as well. Carol Harris states that "During World War One, women volunteered for essential work in order for men to join the armed forces. Some 25 years later, as World War Two loomed, campaigns emphasized the need for women to volunteer in similar fashion." In other words, women were able to take jobs that were previously were reserved for men. Women openly adopting male jobs was crucial to the survival of early twentieth century England, because their economy would have crashed without an active workforce, as there would have been little to no English production. Next, Harris agrees when she writes, "With the onset of war, everything changed. Fathers perhaps joined the armed

It is cited in many sources that White led a lonely life and was homosexual. Sadie Stein even states this in her biography of TH White when she says "Townsend Warner speculates that White was “a homosexual and a sado-masochist,” ...In any case, he was profoundly alone; Townsend Warner wrote, “Notably free from fearing God, he was basically afraid of the human race.”" (Stein, The Paris review). Stein uses terms such as “homosexual,” and “basically afraid of the human race” to establish the fact that White was indeed very isolated and did not have many relations, especially those concerning women. Andrew Liptak adds in his article concerning TH White’s childhood, that White grew up with an “emotionally distant mother.” Growing up with no prominent female figure, and living an incredibly isolated life, White did not have much experience with women. This could explain why he tends to characterize women to be so harsh and stereotypical. Did White have some sort of animosity towards women? Because his mother was so distant, White grew up with a bad connotation of women. This could be the reason he illustrates so many women in the novel to be so