One of the works of art that particularly stood out to me from the chapter 4 online power point was Speechless, from the Women of Allah Series, in 1996 by Shirin Neshat. This piece was crafted with pen and ink over a gelatin silver print. Being middle eastern with an islamic background myself this piece really stood out to me. I will be analyzing this piece of work through feminist criticism as well as
Feminist criticism is a literacy form of criticism that gives the perspective of writing through a feminist perspective. It is a political form of literature that analyzes the questions of how male and females relate to each other and the world, the repression of women and how women are portrayed in literature. From a feminist perspective
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“Speechless” is a black and white photo. To me the choice of colors from the artist already shows the type of tone that they want to set. Typically black and white photos set a more dramatic serious tone to me. The photo appears to be very heavy. The photo has Farsi text written all over the woman 's face along with a gun to the side of her face. The setting in “Speechless” by Shirin Neshat is effective an plays a very important role in creating the atmosphere and theme of the artwork. Without knowing the background of the artwork the person viewing it from the outside perspective might be a little confused with whats going on. The artist however has incorporated cultural aspects and cues to make the audience more aware of what is going on. In the artwork there is a woman covered with a veil. You can see half of her face and see that she has distinct characteristics that can lead the audience to interfere she is of middle eastern descent. Dark hair, dark eyes, thick dark eyebrows. She is also covered in various amounts of Farsi/Arabic text that also give cultural cues to the overall message that the artist is trying to convey. Giving these cultural cues to the audience give the audience context to the overall message of the piece. The character of this piece is the woman portrayed in the piece. She is the main part of the artwork as everything else surrounds her. The symbols in the piece extend
I’ve always liked the picture Prevalence of Ritual: Tidings by: Romare Bearden (pg.5). Honestly this particular art work I picked has somewhat of a love story. It has a hidden message in it. You have to look very closely to understand why he created something so special. This picture is based
Often times when we read a piece of literature little pieces of information are overlooked, not capturing the true meaning of the story. Feminist Criticism is the focus on the relationship between men and women. In the story "The Chaser" by John Collier, feminist criticism was well hidden. When I first read the story, I didn't see anything that lead to feminist criticism but as I reread the story I started to see a few examples. In "The Chaser", Alan, a young man was seeking for love in all the wrong places. He went to an old man who was said to have a love potion. He wanted his partner, Diana, to be completely in love with him. He had a perfect image of what love should be and how she should treat him and that is what he wanted, he wanted
An artwork that stood out in the exhibition was School of Beauty, School of Culture (2012) . It portrays women and two children standing in a beauty salon and school with green walls and a red floor. The walls have posters promoting black beauty with one that reads, “it’s your hair” and under this statement are the words love, dark and lovely. There are mirrors against the wall and in the reflection a camera flash is shown from a person who is taking a picture of those in the salon. Red, black, and green, the colors of the Afro-American flag, border the top of the wall, symbolizing the black power movement . The focal point of this piece is a woman who stands in the center, posing for the person taking a picture. To her right, towards the floor, is a “floating” head of a white woman which is compressed and 2-dimensional. This is a tribute to Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533) because in Holbein’s piece, there is a 2-dimensional skull painted in the same fashion. Just how the skull in The Ambassadors is a reminder of death, the head in Marshall’s
One definition of gender is the membership of a word or grammatical form, or an inflectional form showing membership, in such a class. Gender critics take masculinity and feminism, as well as male and female, and use those theories to analyze writings. In books, or other writings, masculinity and feminism are used in order to describe how a character is seen by other characters. Feminism is the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men. It is also a feminine character. After the women’s rights movement, women began to write works and put in their own views and beliefs. This era became known as the feminist writing era. Women felt that by writing their feelings and then getting their works published, that people would see why women should be equal to men.
The pictures say a lot, however, with petite information. The artwork she displays are somehow complex, and one gets to understand their meaning over time as she uses vivid imagination to bring out facts and fiction together.
To understand feminism in the novel, one must first understand the feminist lens itself. OWL Purdue describes the lens as “the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Purdue). Feminism acts as both a commitment and a political movement that wants to end sexism in all forms. Most feminists generally disagree on many topics of the subject, however all have one common goal. These aspects affect The Things They Carry in a plethora of ways, mostly due to the fact that gender roles is a main theme. There are negative and positive aspects of the feminist lens. Positive contains the empowering of women and equality, whereas negative pertains to oppression and unequal rights. Both are covered in The Things They Carried from sex symbols to battle tor...
Throughout the texts we have read in English thus far have been feminist issues. Such issues range from how the author published the book to direct, open statements concerning feminist matters. The different ways to present feminist issues is even directly spoken of in one of the essays we read and discussed. The less obvious of these feminist critiques is found buried within the texts, however, and must be read carefully to understand their full meaning- or to even see them.
This piece is acrylic, oilstick, and spray paint on wood panel that is 186.1 centimeters in height and 125.1 centimeters in width. This piece features a human-like figure in the center that is mostly half red and half black. This figure has a gray head with one yellow eye and one light gray eye and above its head is a black halo. The background consists of patches of various colors such as light blue, black, dark red, light green, beige, turquoise, pink, and yellow. On the bottle left corner there is a figure drawn that looks like a fish and has a strip of mustard yellow painted through it. Also towards the bottom right of the artwork, there is some drawn on letters that almost look like words but are messily painted over with a desert sand color. This piece is my favorite because I find it aesthetically pleasing. There is a lot going on in this piece that makes looking at it genuinely interesting. The colors that Basquiat choses for the background go very well together and overall compliment the figure in the center. I like how incredibly expressive this piece is and it makes me want to buy a canvas and start painting that I desire. I also like how the human-like figure is drawn. One could see what looks like an outlined ribcage on the figure, which makes me believe that the head is actually a skull. Upon further research I learned that Basquiat was
In many ways, feminist criticism has grown out of a creative synthesis of Marxist and Freudian approaches, liberated further by the insights of structuralist and post-structuralist readings of literature which have probed ever deeper into the hidden depths of texts. Feminist criticism has emerged as a school in its own right only during the last quarter of the 20th century; as recently as 1986 Mario Praz (in his introductory essay to three Gothic novels) was able to pose the question ‘why in the most polite and effeminate of centuries… should people have begun to feel the horrible fascination of dark forests and dismal caverns, and cemeteries and thunderstorms?’ and come up with the rather patronising answer: ‘just because of its feminine character.’
Feminism as we know it began in the mid 1960's as the Women's Liberation Movement. Among its chief tenants is the idea of women's empowerment, the idea that women are capable of doing and should be allowed to do anything men can do. Feminists believe that neither sex is naturally superior. They stand behind the idea that women are inherently just as strong and intelligent as the so-called stronger sex. Many writers have taken up the cause of feminism in their work. One of the most well known writers to deal with feminist themes is Margaret Atwood. Her work is clearly influenced by the movement and many literary critics, as well as Atwood herself, have identified her as a feminist writer. However, one of Atwood's most successful books, The Handmaid's Tale, stands in stark contrast to the ideas of feminism. In fact, the female characters in the novel are portrayed in such a way that they directly conflict with the idea of women's empowerment.
Feminist criticism focuses on girls and their relationships between the girls and their males. It is important to use this lens because the issue I used is over domestic violence and how they are used. In my essay I was explaining how abusing people isn’t a good thing in the essay. Some people always thought that abusing others was a good thing because they have been abused for so
Peterson, Linda H. "What Is Feminist Criticism?" Wuthering Heights. Ed. Linda H. Peterson. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992. 330-337.
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional or philosophical dissertation. It helps to explain the main nature of gender inequality. It further explains the social roles of women in the society such as education, communication, philosophy, sociology and so on (Chodrow, Nancy 1991).
Being a Feminist and having a Feminist point of view in observing every cultural, social and historical issue had been translated as having a feminine centered and anti-masculine perception. Unlike the general and common knowledge about feminism, it is not only an anti-masculine perception towards social and individual issues. Feminism according to Oxford dictionary is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes that more commonly known as the pursuit of equality for women’s rights. On the other hand, in studying literary books as it will be in this paper, the mentioned definition is not applicable. Therefore, in this paper Feminist criticism will be used in order to study some characters’ lives in “Like water for chocolate” and “Season of Migration to the north” novels. Feminist criticism according to Oxford dictionary is a type of literary theory that points out different genders, races, classes, religions that are depictured in literature and will be used in this paper.
Feminism has negative connotations in popular culture. When people think about feminism or feminists, they envision angry women who absolutely hate men. This may be true for some feminists, but not all. It may surprise a few people that feminism is integral in all facets of life. Its roots lie in a social and political movement, the women’s liberation movement, aimed at improving conditions for women. Feminism has many definitions, but one common definition features the concept of equality, such as the belief that women and men should have equal opportunities. Feminism also examines women's social roles, experiences, interests, and politics in a variety of fields. Common themes explored in feminist theory are discrimination, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, patriarchy, stereotyping and so forth. These themes have developed over time and have created feminist theory. This section of paper will describe the three waves of feminism, the feminist rhetorical pioneers and their critics, and will explain how to use feminist criticism.