A Feminist Look at The Descent of Odin
It is obvious that there are many differences between men and women. Throughout history women have been taught to dress, act, and speak differently than men. These differences are so common that they can sometimes be overlooked in everyday life and in reading. By taking a closer look at poems and stories one can begin to see how frequently gender differences occur. Thomas Gray’s “The Decent of Odin,” read from a Feminist point of view can reveal many examples of these differences through the use of dialogue.
The Marxist Feminist view looks at the relationship between class and gender (HCAL 202). This poem was written in 1761, a time when women were considered second to men. Men spoke down to women and controlled them, especially women of a lower class. In this poem Odin is the chief of the Norse gods and the Prophetess is but a lowly god of the underworld (Grey 61). This gives Odin control over her. The poem shows a good example of this control that men Odin has. When he is asking to find out who killed his son he commands the Prophetess to, “Once again my call obey” (51). Three times he orders the Prophetess to obey. This continual order to obey is also a clue to the reader that Odin is of a higher class than the Prophetess. He not only commands the Prophetess, but also insults her. After she discovers who Odin is, he lashes back at her by saying, “No boding maid of skill divine art thou, nor prophetess of good; but mother of the giant brood!” (84-86) At the time that this poem was written chivalry was very important. Although a woman was not considered equal to a man, she was treated with some respect if she was of an upper class. The Prophetess, however, was of a class of gods below Odin and, therefore, she was spoken to like a servant.
Gender differences are further woven into the tone of each of the characters.
Odin speaks forcefully as men do more often than women. He is also more direct in what he is saying, where as the Prophetess takes four lines to ask who wakes her from her sleep. Odin interrupts the Prophetess at one point in the poem, which is an action associated with men more than it is with women.
If it can be determined that the depressed prices for lean hogs are only temporary, inventories could and should be kept at cost basis. In this case, adjusting prices to match current market prices would not be necessary. Future prices indicate a recovery before the end of the fiscal year. Futures prices will surpass cost in February and remain above cost for the remainder of the fiscal year. The future prices support claims that the price fluctuations are only temporary in nature, and do not reflect a permanent downward shift in hog prices. Since inventories once impaired cannot be marked up to reflect changes in market conditions, this strategy could be beneficial to the company later on. In this case inventory would not be shown on the books at an unfairly low value.
Traditional female characteristics and female unrest are underscored in literary works of the Middle Ages. Although patriarchal views were firmly established back then, traces of female contempt for such beliefs could be found in several popular literary works. Female characters’ opposition to societal norms serves to create humor and wish- fulfillment for female and male audiences to enjoy. “Lanval” by Marie De France and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer both show subversion of patriarchal attitudes by displaying the women in the text as superior or equal to the men. However, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” also incorporates conventional societal ideas by including degradation of women and mistreatment of a wife by her husband.
The last two decades of the twentieth century gave rise to turbulent times for constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, eventually leading them to split apart. There were a number of damaging aspects of past history and of the political and economic circumstances that contributed to the breakup and eventually caused the situation to snowball into a deadly series of inter-ethnic conflicts. Yugoslavia was reunified at the end of the war when the communist forces of Josip Broz Tito liberated the country. Under Tito, Yugoslavia adopted a relatively liberal form of government in comparison to other East European communist states at the time and experienced a period of relative economic and political stability until Tito’s death in 1980. In addition to internal power struggles following the loss of their longtime leader, Yugoslavia faced an unprecedented economic crisis in the 1980’s. As other communist states began to fall in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, some former Communist leaders abandoned communism and founded or supported ethno-national parties, blaming the economic suffering on the flaws of communism and other ethnic groups. The ethnic violence that followed would not have been possible without the willingness of politicians from every side to promote ethno-nationalist symbols and myths through media blitzes, which were especially effective due to low levels of education in the former Yugoslavia. Shadows of the events of World War II gave these politicians, especially the Serbs, an opportunity to encourage the discussion and exaggeration of past atrocities later in the century. The ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia can be traced back to a series of linked damaging factors such as the de...
As the poems of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight show, women have always had power, yet not as overt a power as wielded by their masculine counterparts. The only dynamic of women’s power that has changed in the later centuries is that the confines and conditions in which women have wielded their power has become more lax, thus yielding to women more freedom in the expression of their power. The structure, imagery, and theme in the excerpts from Beowulf (lines 744-71) and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (lines 2309-30) support the concept of more power in the later centuries, by contrasting the restriction of Wealhtheow and the power she practices in Beowulf with the Lady’s more direct assertion of power in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight five centuries later.
A new leader arose by the late 1980s, a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic, a former Communist who had turned to nationalism and religious hatred to gain power. He began by inflaming long-standing tensions between Serbs and Muslims in the independent provence of Kosovo. Orthodox Christian Serbs in Kosovo were in the minority and claimed they were being mistreated by the Albanian Muslim majority. Serbian-backed political unrest in Kosovo eventually led to its loss of independence and domination by Milosevic. In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia both declared their independence from Yugoslavia soon resulting in civil war. The national army of Yugoslavia, now made up of Serbs controlled by Milosevic, stormed into Slovenia but failed to subdue the separatists there and withdrew after only ten days of fighting. Milosevic quickly lost interest in Slovenia, a country with almost no Serbs. Instead, he turned his attention to Croatia, a Catholic country where Orthodox Serbs made up 12 percent of the population. During World War II, Croatia had been a pro-Nazi state led by Ante Pavelic and his fascist Ustasha Party. Serbs living in Croatia as well as Jews had been the targets of widespread Ustasha massacres.
...y protect their tribe or community, women maintained peace and order in the absence of the men. In reading Beowulf, the portrayal of women could be as servants to the men. In reality, this was just the custom of the culture, and as seen throughout the piece women are addressed with respect and praise on many occasions. Women that received isolation and opposition were those that stood on their own without men to do the “dirty work” of violence. With regards to this, one can assume that women of this time period were seen to hold purity, delicacy, and compassion. In serving men and remaining home, men protected women from the inhumanity in war and loss of beauty in grace. This could all be seen rather than women having the mere role of insignificant slaves. In the Old English tale of Beowulf, the customary position of women in society is in respectfully serving men.
Yugoslavia was a very diverse, ethnic, and peaceful place under communist rule ("Genocide in Bosnia--1992-1995"). For 40 years it stayed this way ("Genocide in Bosnia--1992-1995"). Provinces declared...
“Culture does not make people. People make culture” said Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer and educator, in a presentation on feminism in a TedTalk. The culture in which Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written was misogynistic and it shows in the writing of the poem. Medieval cultural misogyny manifests itself in multiple ways in SGGK. This paper will examine the negative relationships between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and gender by discussing: the representation of female characters, gendered violence, and Christianity in the Middle Ages.
This essay explores the role of women in Homer's Odyssey, James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) and Derrick Walcott's Omeros (1990), epics written in very different historical periods. Common to all three epics are women as the transforming figure in a man's life, both in the capacity of a harlot and as wife.
Beowulf is an epic tale written over twelve hundred years ago. In the poem, several different female characters are introduced, and each woman possesses detailed and unique characteristics. The women in Beowulf are portrayed as strong individuals, each of whom has a specific role within the poem. Some women are cast as the cup-bearers and gracious hostesses of the mead halls, such as Wealhtheow and Hygd, while others, Grendel's mother, fulfill the role of a monstrous uninvited guest. The woman's role of the time period, author's attitude, and societal expectations for women are evidenced throughout the poem.
For one, Tolkien is not a sexist because he illustrates his female characters as growing individualists. Three of the most prominent of these female characters are Eowyn, Galadriel, and Arwen from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Once Eowyn is knocked on her back from the rejection of Aragorn, she “must search for healing” (Enright 93). Because Eowyn is forced away from a companionship, she must learn to become an individual in order to be successful. The power of leadership is a motif throughout the stories of the Lord of the Rings and “Galadriel is a stronger embodiment of this power than her husband Celeborn” (Enright 93). In this time period, this is looked upon as a rarity, but back in the time period where Tolkien wrote it, it must have been an absolute outrage that a female character could be more dominant than the male king of a society since women did not have much power or choice. With the third character, Arwen, she is able to overcome the separation between herself and...
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.
Imagine waking up one day to the thundering of blows given at the door telling you to “open up or be shot down.” It is the Serb police, and they are telling you that you and your whole family had to leave your home immediately. This is how it went for many Albanian people during what some Serb extremists called “demographic genocide.” This was the beginning of what many would call the Kosovo War, and it lasted from March to June 1999. After NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, something strange happened. Now the people being victimized were the Serbs and anyone who was “friendly” to them. In this paper, I will speak about what happened before and after the war in Kosovo.
What political factors contributed to the idea of Albanian nationalism after the breakup of Yugoslavia that contributed to the Kosovo Crisis of 1999. To determine the political factors that contributed to Albanian nationalism, this investigation will focus on the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the social landscape of Kosovo after the breakup and the Kosovo Crisis of 1999. The views of the Albanians and Serbs will be examined to help develop a more contextual understanding of the rise of Albanian nationalism. Only the events that are relevant to the Kosovo War will be explored in this investigation.
The Serbs were looking for protecting the cradle of their culture, the Serbian civilization and its identity against the Albanians’ battle for an independent territory of Kosovo. When the peace agreement could not be reached, the NATO2 countries, in order to protect Albanians from a massive « ethnic cleansing, » launched a missile bombing campaign over former Yugoslavia on the 24 March of 1999. The bombings lasted for 78 days. And NATO’s intervention in what came to be known as “the Kosovo conflict” injured and murdered thousands of civilians. It destroyed the local factories, workplaces, schools, and hospitals.