Gender Roles and Gender as a Role in Farquar’s The Recruiting Officer and Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
The notion of gender may be in the process of breaking free of binaries in the present day, but not so long ago it wasn’t considered separate from the biological ‘sex’. While having to choose one over the other, each gender had their own assigned roles, restrictions and prohibitions. That basic understanding of the active and lively men versus passive and gentle women ideal has only started to change for the last century or so. However, subtle challenges had been made before, and surely this has found its place in literature as well. As a literary form meeting the audience not just in text, but also as a performed means of
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Rather than going all the trouble of becoming a man to possess men’s liberties, the very universe they exist in seem to have reversed the roles for them, so “this inverted relationship is the norm of the play” (Jordan 102). The difference between the restoration comedy and this late Victorian one is that at the time it is now “the age of the New Woman” (103), and Gwendolen and Cecily don’t lose anything from their female identities even when the roles are reversed. They don’t act, but their whole life is the stage, their performance a reality. According to Foster, they both “bear the marks of the romantic Female” (22), so they are still submissive to their superiors in the social hierarchical order, but they are also “the worldliest of schemers”. They play with their lovers like playing chess (Foster 22-23). They “turn out to be hard-headed, cold-blooded, efficientand completely self-possessed and the young gentlemen simplv crumple in front of them” (Jordan 102). They are genuine women with the assumed qualities of men. Moreover, even though they are not performing their gender-roles, they are peculiarly interested in making their relationships staged-like. While the switched gender roles are a norm, these inverted roles allow other performances to take place. Gwendolen makes Jack propose to her, forces him to say the complete lines as if the whole thing is …show more content…
According to Jordan, Lady Bracknell “exemplifies feminine strength” (184). Throughout the play, Lord Bracknell’s only name is mentioned. He is in a sense “dominated by his female relatives” (Jordan 103). Gwendolen even goes to say that, “Outside the family circle, papa, I am glad to say, is entirely unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not?” (p. 39). As parents their roles are also inverted and while Lord Bracknell spends his time at home, Lady Bracknell becomes the one to interrogate their daughter’s potential husbands. This issue of domesticity of men is not just raised here, but also when Gwendolen talks about the name Jack. She asserts “Jack is a notorious domesticity for John” (p.
The male characters act as catalysts in implementing this change, as they alter the lives of others yet are not themselves changed. However, it cannot be said that men are entirely responsible for this degeneration- to a certain extent, the fate of the women rests in their own hands. A comparison between the two texts, considering both the male characters’ responsibility, and the women’s own responsibility for themselves, will be decisive in determining how and why the women degenerate and the consequences of this deterioration.
Knowing this you would think women would portray themselves more seriously, but the exact opposite is happening. These continuous loops of failure have severely weakened women’s physical presence, and because of this, are continuously singled out in world discussions on topics such as war or threats to national security, and are constantly burdened with tasks regarding health and family life. In my research I read many books from the nineteenth-century onwards, such as, Stuart Mill’s book ‘The Subjection of Women’ (1869) to Butler’s ‘Gender Troubles’ (1990), both of these and many more books has helped in my quest to conjure up a personal concept of women, but out of all of them I found Berger’s ‘Ways of seeing’ the most fruitful in terms of a literal explanation of women.
Accordingly, I decided the purposes behind women 's resistance neither renamed sexual introduction parts nor overcame money related dependence. I recalled why their yearning for the trappings of progression could darken into a self-compelling consumerism. I evaluated how a conviction arrangement of feeling could end in sexual danger or a married woman 's troublesome twofold day. None of that, regardless, ought to cloud an era 's legacy. I comprehend prerequisites for a standard of female open work, another style of sexual expressiveness, the area of women into open space and political fights previously cornered by men all these pushed against ordinary restrictions even as they made new susceptibilities.
When the play was set in 1912, women had lacked empowerment and rights, while men had a higher status in society, despite women had no important role in society. By using Priestley’s Inspector Calls we can identify how women were portrayed in the early 20th century. Priestley has explored this in a variety of ways, by customizing the different types of female character to show an insight on how they have viewed upon the world and importantly on how they were treated differently based on several factors like class, money, and age. For an instance, Priestley uses traditional women and transitional women to contrast their lifestyle when it was set in the Edwardian Era.
Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens into solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman…Nature provides exceptions to every rule (Fuller 293-4).
In his play, The Winslow Boy, Terrence Rattigan explores the formidability of the patriarchy in London in the early 1900s by following Catherine Winslow’s relationships with Sir Rogers, John Watherstone, and Desmond Curry. Through Catherine’s internal conflict, “Rattigan is careful to trace the play of male proprietorial gazes through which women have to pass.” Branded a “New Woman” for her commitment to women’s rights, Catherine faces adversity when seeking a role outside the home (9). Regardless of her strong-willed attitude, Catherine still feels pressure to adhere to the social norm of marriage. When her will to get married conflicts with her desire to pursue her intellectual passions like political advocacy, Catherine resolves to exercise
Both Phillip Ross' novel As For Me and My House and Sharron Pollock's "Blood Relations" address the ideological gender roles Mrs. Bentley and Miss Lizzie are up against and how they resist and comply to them. Miss Lizzie refuses for as long as she needs to because carrying out a facade of female compliance allows for a bit of rebellion and Mrs. Bentley's marriage to Phillip, who is not entirely playing his role, allows for a small amount of freedom to arrange things closer to her own desires. In this essay I will focus on the relationships the main characters of "Blood Relations" and As For Me and My House have with other characters. Both Pollock and Ross are able to point out the restraints in women’s lives because of their gender by having the main characters be in charge of telling their stories. These techniques create ambiguity as well as addressing the ideological gender roles Mrs. Bentley and Miss Lizzie are up against. They are not stories of liberation but of how these two women navigate within these roles and stereotypes. Miss Lizzie refuses to do things for as long as she is able while carrying out a facade of female compliance regarding her father while at the same time getting her way and Mrs. Bentley's marriage to a man who is not entirely playing his role allows for a small amount of freedom to arrange things closer to her own desires.
Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen Fairfax, and Cecily Cardew are all female character’s who challenge gender roles. In the case of Lady Bracknell, she is presented more as a father figure to her daughter, Gwendolen, then a mother. In a scene in Act I, Lady Bracknell takes on the role of the f...
Nevertheless, there are passages in which the female characters in this play take up men’s roles and are presented as the reflection of the figure ‘New Woman’. The concept of ‘New Woman’ referred to the feminist women of the 1900’s who rejected and challenged the prevailing male hegemony and, as a consequence, attempted to challenge the Victorian society’s expectations of female demeanour and morality. For example, throughout the character of Lady Bracknell, who is Gwendolen’s mother, in the following text.
...ve been suffering mental abuse by their husband. This play presents the voice of feminism and tries to illustrate that the power of women is slightly different, but can be strong enough to influence the male dominated society. Although all women are being oppressed in the patriarchal society at that time, Glaspell uses this play as a feminist glory in a witty way to win over men. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters solve the crime by reflecting on Minnie Wright’s unhappy marriage that leads her to murdering. Using the relationship between female and male characters throughout the play, Glaspell speaks up to emphasize how the patriarchal society underestimated women’s rights and restricted women’s desires.
Up until recently, the definition of what a man or a woman should be has been defined, with boundaries, by society; males should be strong, dominant figures and in the workplace providing for their families while females should be weak and submissive, dealing with cleaning, cooking and children. Any veering away from these definitions would have disrupted the balance of culture completely. A man playing housewife is absurd, and a woman being the sole provider for the family is bizarre. In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls” and Bobbie Ann Mason’s “Shiloh”, conflict arises when expectations based on gender are not fulfilled by the characters. According to “Boys and Girls”, there are certain things women should not be doing as defined by their gender.
Webster based his play on a real-life 16th Century scandal where a widowed Duchess remarried for love and did so beneath her class. The widowed Duchess had certain advantages and freedoms that the younger and unmarried Beatrice in The Changeling did not. The Duchess had significant wealth and independence, and she need not answer to a father or a husband. She no longer had the burden of protecting her virginity and the stigma attached if it was lost. Beatrice, on the other hand, had little sexual freedom, and she had to answer to her father and to the man to whom she was engaged. However a the Duchess, and Beatrice were doomed to subject to a patriarchal and male-dominated society. Upon her capture the Duchess declares: “I am Duchess of Malfi still” (4.2.141). She is a duchess only in name. In the end in both tragedies, it is the men –fathers, brothers, suitors, and the Church—who rule by physical force and by law.
As a newborn a gender is assigned, this gender being what you will be brought up as until you decide you want to bend the rules and change the roles, once more children realize they do not need to conform to the roles they develop a sense of love, confidence, and understanding for themselves and others. In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” the theme of gender is an anchor that gives the story a deeper meaning and gives the reader insight on stereotyping and gender assignment among children. The genders are what develop the main character, her assumed gender or lack of show how she grows and acts throughout the story. Moreover, gender roles are very prominent and these stereotypes show the setting where the family lives. Lastly, the roles reveal
Bibliography Callaway (1978) ‘ The most essentially female function of all’ in Ardener (ed) Defining Females Cornwall & Lindisfarne (1994) ‘Dislocating Masculinity: gender, power and anthropology’, in Cornwall & Lindisfarne (eds) Dislocating Masculitnity Hoskins (1998) Biographical Objects MacCormack & Strathern (1980) Nature, Culture, and Gender Moore (1986) Space, Text and Gender Ortner (1974) ‘Is female to male as nature is to culture?’. In Rosaldo & Lamphere (eds) Women, culture and society
The relationship between sex and gender can be argued in many different lights. All of which complicated lights. Each individual beholds a sexual identity and a gender identity, with the argument of perceiving these identities however way they wish to perceive them. However, the impact of gender on our identities and on our bodies and how they play out is often taken for granted in various ways. Gender issues continue to be a hugely important topic within contemporary modern society. I intend to help the reader understand that femininities and masculinities is a social constructed concept and whether the binary categories of “male” and “female” are adequate concepts for understanding and organising contemporary social life with discussing the experiences of individuals and groups who have resisted these labels and forged new identities.