For this project, I will be summarizing three different articles that pertain to the argument that there is an apparent double standard for what is acceptable behavior in men versus women in Tom Jones. In addition to summarizing these articles, I will also be adding my own views and comments throughout this paper.
The first article is by April London, entitled Controlling the Text: Women in Tom Jones. London begins by stating that Fielding uses a metaphor between property and women throughout the text in Tom Jones. She states that "Fielding plays with the multiple meanings of property, undercutting the equation of female and helplessness, to offer versions of power unconstrained by gender which are. . . contradicted by . . . Sophia's subordination [at] the novel's happy ending" (323). London argues that although Fielding seems to put aside the gender bias, he actually enforces it by the way his character Sophia changes at the end of the novel. I think this is an interesting observation that has some merit. London does a good job of providing examples to reinforce her argument.
London claims that throughout the novel Sophia steps over the bounds of authority in order to maintain her own integrity, something rather uncommon for women to do back in the 18th century. The most outright example of this, of course, is when Sophia refuses to marry Blifil and runs away after her father locks her in her room, intending to keep her there until the day of the wedding. London says that "the structure of authority . . . arose from property" (325) and that Sophia is testing her father's power of acquisition of that property. Because she decides to place herself in her aunt's care, Sophia takes control of her own life.
Accord...
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...' than females and allowed them (unofficially, at least) more sexual freedom than it permitted women" (7).
Again, Fielding seems to maintain a double standard for what is acceptable behavior in men versus women. This is highlighted through endless examples and situations throughout the novel which would provide formidable arguments for anyone who sought to argue otherwise.
Bibliography:
Works Cited
Carlton, Peter J. "The Mitigated Truth: Tom Jones's Double Heroism." Studies in the Novel XIX, no. 4 (Winter 1987) : 397-409.
Fielding, Henry. Tom Jones. New York: Bantam. 1997.
Koppel, Gene S. "Sexual Education and Sexual Values in Tom Jones: Confusion at the Core?" Studies in the Novel XII, no. 1 (Spring 1980) : 1-11.
London, April. "Controlling the Text: Women in Tom Jones." Studies in the Novel XIX, no. 3 (Fall 1987): 323-333.
In her article “‘But is it any good?’: Evaluating Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Fiction,” Susan Harris provides methods and criteria for examining Women’s Fiction in what she calls “process analysis” (45). To apply Harris’ guidelines to Catherine Maria Sedgwick’s A New England Tale, I must first “acknowledge the ideological basis of [my] endeavor” (45) as a feminist/equalitist critique of the text. Furthermore, I identify the three-fold approach that Harris describes as historical, in distinguishing early nineteenth-century from mid- to late-century attitudes, rhetorical, in labeling Sedgwick’s communication to readers didactic, and ideological, by understanding my objections stem from twenty-first-century attitudes. Harris also explains, “If we look at them as both reactive and creative…we can understand [texts’] aesthetic, moral, and political values” (45); I consider A New England Tale to have a sentimental aesthetic, a Christian morality, and a support of female subordination.
John Moss, Sexuality and Violence in the Canadian Novel. p. 103 Robertson Davies. The Fifth Business. p. 217.
Writing a journal from the perspective of a fictional eighteenth century reader, a mother whose daughter is the age of Eliza's friends, will allow me to employ reader-response criticism to help answer these questions and to decipher the possible social influences and/or meanings of the novel. Though reader-response criticism varies from critic to critic, it relies largely on the idea that the reader herself is a valid critic, that her critique is influenced by time and place,...
Fisher, Jerilyn, and Ellen S. Silber. Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print.
The World Book Encyclopedia. 2000 ed. : p. 78. Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. The "Scarlet Letter" The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors. Ed.
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
Women and men are not equal. Never have been, and it is hard to believe that they ever will be. Sexism permeates the lives of women from the day they are born. Women are either trying to fit into the “Act Like a Lady” box, they are actively resisting the same box, or sometimes both. The experience of fitting in the box and resisting the box can be observed in two plays: Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” and Henrick Ibsen’s “A Doll House”. In Hansberry’s play, initially, Beneatha seems uncontrolled and independent, but by the end she is controlled and dependent; whereas, in Ibsen’s play Nora seems controlled and dependent at the beginning of the play, but by the end she is independent and free.
Sexism is a highly talked about issue read about online, seen in the news, and experienced in the day to day lives of many. The importance of this issue can be found in many writings. Authors such as Sandra Cisneros, Linda Hasselstrom, and Judy Brady have all discussed the topic of sexism in writings and how they affected their lives. Although each writer addresses the issue of sexism, each author confronts a different type of sexism; the kind we are born into, the kind we learn growing up, and the kind that is accepted by society at the end of the day.
In the first half of the book, “Half-changed world”, “Half-changed minds”, the author argues about how social and environmental factors influence the mind on the gender differences. She also includes the history and impact of the gender stereotypes we see and how science has been used to justify the use of sexism. In the first chapter in the “Half-changed world” section of the book she uses an example of if a researcher tapped you on the shoulder and asked you to write down what males and females were like if you would write down things such as compassionate for females and aggressive for males or if you would look at the researcher and tell them that every person is unique.(Fine,3) Based on the information in the book most people would pick up the pencil and write down descriptions of each gender based on the way the world perceives gender. She also talks about marriage and how “the husband is the breadwinner and works outside the home to provide financial resources for the family. In return, his wife is responsible for both the emotional and household labor created by the family…” (Fine,78)
These women authors have served as an eye-opener for the readers, both men and women alike, in the past, and hopefully still in the present. (There are still cultures in the world today, where women are treated as unfairly as women were treated in the prior centuries). These women authors have impacted a male dominated society into reflecting on of the unfairness imposed upon women. Through their writings, each of these women authors who existed during that masochistic Victorian era, risked criticism and retribution. Each author ignored convention a...
The years between 1890 and 1930 witnessed fundamental changes in sexual mores and practices, the reorientation of marriage toward companionate relationships, the emergence of distinct sexual taxonomies, and a shift from Victorian silence about the body and sexuality to the emergence of a new psychological language about sex. Despite the prevailing social attitude of sexual repression in the Victorian era, the movement towards sexual emancipation began towards the end of the nineteenth century and brought with it profound shifts in the attitudes towards women’s sexuality, homosexuality, pre-marital sexuality and the freedom of sexual expression. New norms of pleasure exposed a rhetoric of regulatory conceptual frameworks posited by “sexologists” who delivered psycho-medicalized sexuality to the masses of largely uninformed readers, thirsty for information and explanation. Men and women, reading the work of sex theorists such as Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud had different views on sex than had their parents before them. Victorian sexual counterculture contributed to the awareness of radical change that became the social matrix of sexual liberalism. Sexual liberation, then, can be seen as an outgrowth of a process which witnessed the significant loss of power by the values of early nineteenth century moral tradition, and the rise of a more socially and sexually permissive society. Tolerant attitudes of greater sexual freedom and experimentation spread, and were captured in the concept of modernization.
But, let’s focus more towards the gender equality which occurs nowadays. Gender equality plays a big gap in terms of the role of women in the Elizabethan era and the present days. Furthermore, it is an important role of every woman since they gain their justice for having a job or profession they liked or wanted, they are respected by their loving husbands, and they could speak courageously and bravely since they had their freedom; the right to speak up which was not usual or present in the Elizabethan era. Today “anyone could be anything” in many
Today in our society we are expected to present ourselves in a certain way, so, when a person goes against the average society tends to notice. We are expected to put on a costume and act different when in front of the audience, but when were alone we can act ourselves. Over time this theory shown to be accurate. In this generation boys are meant to act a certain way, as are girls. Although some people choose to act different as opposed to how they’re “supposed to act”. Men and women have been the same for decades, although many things have changed, there are still things that are the same and will remain the same. In the essay “Unfair Games” the author explains some encounters with men that would approach her in public and hit
A. “Reading Little Women.” Temple University Press (1984): 151-65. Rpt in Novels for Students. Ed. Elizabeth Thomason.
Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993.