Portrayal of Women in James Joyce's Ulysses
The novel, "Ulysses", by James Joyce shows the reader hour by hour a single day in the life of one man. But this epic which specifically deals with Leopold Bloom and has reference to Stephen Dedalus, holds so much more appendage to other areas of life. One, is the portrayal of women in Ulysses. A common speculation is that men seem to have a more dominating status over women. However, in Ulysses that theory dwindles due to the women who play significant roles in the story. Although the women in the novel all use various tactics to entice the men to succumb and cower to them, it all ends up that the men do heed to the qualifying factors.
The first woman of purpose that we become aware of is Stephen Dedalus's mother. Even though she is dead, her presence is accounted for in Stephen's night and day dreams. His refusal to pray at her bedside while she was dying triggered an immense amount of guilt that he cannot shake. His undeniable brooding over her was shown when he remembered the song by W.B. Yeats, " and no more…the brazen cars." In the annotated text it claims that, "The song, accompanied by a harp, is sung to comfort the countess, who has sold her soul to the powers of the darkness that her people might have food." That song is important because he is trying to lift the blame from his heart by reaching out for forgiveness. The book then tells of a "bowl with bitter waters." That bowl implies what is told in "Portrait of a Young Man", which is that his mother was an adulteress, and that recollection was bothering him. He even goes as far to say aloud, "No mother, let me be and let me live." It seems that he wants to escape her clutches, yet is clinging...
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... get away with acting disdainful and speaking to Bloom with a harsh tongue, but he does not leave her. In fact, he does cower, and takes her, illicit affairs and all.
The men in "Ulysses" are viewed as the warriors, or bread-winners, yet they are only characterized as that due to the women in the novel. Many of the women are able to be looked upon as the "hierarchy" in a sense because of the way the people around them reacted. It is said that whenever there is an action, there is a reaction. As cliché as that may be, the women were the ones that created the "action" and the men rebutted with the "reaction". Despite the social conventions that most of us are familiar with pertaining to men and women, "Ulysses", can surely counteract with notable arguments.
Works Cited
Joyce, James. Ulysses. Ed. Hans Walter Gabler. New York: Random House, 1986.
Water Resources Group, D. o. E. a. N. R., 2013. fact sheet 1. Whats What About Salinity and the River Murray, pp. 1-4.
There is a quote that goes "behind every successful man there is a woman”. This implies that the sexes are not credited equally, and gender shadows over success. Men and women are separated not only physically, but in other aspects. A male-dominated culture exists although women are capable of performing just as well as men. There are different situations where men overpower women. There is a stereotype that divides the sexes, ultimately harming both genders. Literary works brush upon the subject of men versus women, touching these components as storyline progresses. There is not a black and white division among the sexes; however, novels such as Geek Love by Dunn and Maus by Spiegelman expose the underlying power struggle among the genders,
This is connected to my subject of women roles in literature because even though the women in this story are very independent they are all gullible and insecure qualities, which flaw capabilities of being dominant or at least equal to men. Reading and comparing the Odyssey, Sakuntala, and Good Country People can see the changing role of women in literature. The women in all three works are highly valued by the men close
James Joyce uses sexuality throughout his works to establish an intimate and relatable bond between the reader and the characters in his works. All of Joyce’s works address issues in sexuality, which presents the idea that sexuality was of upmost importance to him. Given that sex is a large part of human existence, it is a good way to get the attention of the reader. A substantial amount of characters throughout Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man are driven by sexual desire. In fact, there is so much sex throughout in Ulysses that “early publishers and critics refused to publish it because of its vulgarity; the sexuality featured in Ulysses was part of the claims that the novel was obscene” (Ivie). Sex is a wonderful way to connect the reader to the character, and Joyce is talented in being able to bring the reader right into the sexually suggestive minds of the characters. Each character in all of Joyce’s works are defined by their sexuality and are in search of some type of self-identity, and through that idea is how Joyce best portrays that sexuality itself may be defined by adultery, prostitution, and masturbation and other bodily functions.
Bytwerk, Randall. "On the German People and Its Territory." Calvin German Propaganda Archive. Calvin College, n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.
In Ancient Greek times, women were considered to be inferior to men. They were never part of the action, nor were they given significant roles in a world dominated by men. However, in Homer’s The Odyssey, women were not downplayed to weak, helpless beings blended into the background, dependent on men to survive. In fact, together they shaped Odysseus’s journey and contributed to such a strong feminine attitude that have led some scholars to believe that a man could not have possibly have written such an epic.
Throughout the Novel F. Scott Fitzgerald establishes gender roles through women being seen as the second sex. The female characters throughout the novel follow the pattern of being unspoken, plain and proper, proving true to the social dynamics of the 1920’s and therefore further influencing men to be the greater sex:
Research projects in down syndrome. (2014). Retrieved January 26, 2014, from Center for Mind and Brain website: http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/labs/Rivera/research-areas/down-syndrome
NASMHPD. (2014, Accessed April 27). Retrieved from NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM DIRECTORS: http://www.nasmhpd.org/About/AOMultiStateDisaster.aspx
Many different depictions of gender roles exist in all times throughout the history of American culture and society. Some are well received and some are not. When pitted against each other for all intents and purposes of opposition, the portrayal of the aspects and common traits of masculinity and femininity are separated in a normal manner. However, when one gender expects the other to do its part and they are not satisfied with the results and demand more, things can shift from normal to extreme fairly quickly. This demand is more commonly attributed by the men within literary works. Examples of this can be seen in Tennessee Williams' “A Streetcar Named Desire”, where Stella is constantly being pushed around and being abused by her drunken husband Stanley, and also in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper”, where the female narrator is claimed unfit by her husband as she suffers from a sort of depression, and is generally looked down on for other reasons.
The direct relationship in the artistic practices and methodologies of Trisha Brown and Steve Paxton played a role in facilitating new ways of appreciating and developing movement.
Women roles have changed drastically in the last 50 to 80 years, women no longer have to completely conform to society’s gender roles and now enjoy the idea of being individuals. Along with the evolution of women roles in society, women presence and acceptance have drastically grown in modern literature. In early literature it was common to see women roles as simply caretakers, wives or as background; women roles and ideas were nearly non-existent and was rather seen than heard. The belief that women were more involved in the raising of children and taking care of the household was a great theme in many early literatures; women did not get much credit for being apart of the frontier and expansion of many of the nations success until much later.
All throughout the early part of history women were portrayed as the inferior sex, because at that point in time, women were seen as beings only born to have children. Men didn’t think that women were capable of being anything other than a typical housewife. It was unthinkable that women would actually need an education, let alone earn a living, or become a leader. These ideas are revealed all throughout classical literature. Rarely was a woman seen as doing anything but being dominated by males in some form, whether she was a man’s submissive devoted wife, a sexual object, or a woman being punished for wanting her freedom. We finally begin to see women trying to break free from these traditional expectations and barriers through the lives of Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, John’s wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Louise Mallard in “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, and Songlian in Raise the Red Lantern by Su Tong.
Challenging gender roles has been an arduous task. As Virginia Woolf notes, “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” The structure of history, particularly that of war, has placed women as useless in comparison to men and as having no purpose beyond pleasing their partner. Euripides, for example, places women in the aftermath of the Trojan War as helpless in the face of the victors. Moreover, Macawen’s adaptation of the tragedy Trojan Women and Evans’ Trojan Barbie both discuss the docile attitude of women after a period of war. Aristotle signals diction and plot, two of the six parts of tragedy, which interprets events through the language and the actions that take place. Through the use of diction and plot, both Macewen and Trojan Women and Trojan Barbie, both Macawen and Evans challenge gender roles through the character of Helen, shows she will do whatever it takes to survive an atmosphere of male dictated war.
Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.