Anatomy of Criticism by Northrop Frye
In Anatomy of Criticism, author Northrop Frye writes of the low mimetic tragic hero and the society in which this hero is a victim. He introduces the concept of pathos saying it “is the study of the isolated mind, the story of how someone recognizably like ourselves is broken by a conflict between the inner and outer world, between imaginative reality and the sort of reality that is established by a social consensus” (Frye 39). The hero of Hannah W. Foster’s novel, The Coquette undoubtedly suffers the fate of these afore mentioned opposing ideals. In her inability to confine her imagination to the acceptable definitions of early American female social behavior, Eliza Wharton falls victim to the ambiguity of her society’s sentiments of women’s roles. Because she attempts to claim the freedom her society superficially advocates, she is condemned as a coquette and suffers the consequences of exercising an independent mind. Yet, Eliza does not stand alone in her position as a pathetic figure. Her lover, Major Sanford -- who is often considered the villain of the novel -- also is constrained by societal expectations and definitions of American men and their ambition. Though Sanford conveys an honest desire to make Eliza his wife, society encourages marriage as a connection in order to advance socially and to secure a fortune. Sanford, in contrast to Eliza, suffers as a result of adhering to social expectations of a male’s role. While Eliza suffers because she lives her life outside of her social categorization and Sanford falls because he attempts to maneuver and manipulate the system in which he lives, both are victims of an imperfect, developing, American society.
Though Eliza’s ...
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... comic hero. This flaw seems to be a result of the greater defect of the society in which he functions. Certainly not an innocent and having his own characterization of the same fatal flaw as Eliza – a decisive determination for independence -- Sanford shares in the traditional tragic conclusion of isolation and loss.
Despite an attractive interpretation that Eliza Wharton deserves her tragic fate because she is too scandalous of a seductress, her fall is actually a result of her desire for autonomy in a society that denies women that right. Also, to view Sanford as a heartless villain would be reductionary. He too, like Eliza, is subject to the judgements, constraints, and values of a flawed society in which he is separated from his true love. Both characters fall as a result of their desire for relational freedoms that early American society denies them.
The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton narrates the tribulations of an unmarried woman in post-revolutionary America. The author Hannah Webster Foster uses the story of Miss Wharton as an allegory of female moral decay. The highly patriarchal demands that women be submissive, domestic, and married. However, the protagonist Eliza Wharton has conflicting ideas of her expectations within the society. She is highly intelligent and yearns for self-determination. Though the novel is about seduction, Foster significantly altered the basic structure of novels at the time by relating it from the female perspective. The result is a novel that explores several significant themes in post-revolutionary America among them, the existence, and the need for female education.
The lives we lead and the type of character we possess are said to be individual decisions. Yet from early stages in our life, our character is shaped by the values, customs and mindsets of those who surround us. The characteristics of this environment affect the way we think and behave ultimately shaping us into a product of the environment we are raised in. Lily Bart, the protagonist in Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, is an exceedingly beautiful bachelorette who grows up accustomed to living a life of luxury amongst New York City’s upper-class in the 20th century. When her family goes bankrupt, Lily is left searching for security and stability, both of which, she is taught can be only be attained through a wealthy marriage. Although, Lily is ashamed of her society’s tendencies, she is afraid that the values taught in her upbringing shaped her into “an organism so helpless outside of its narrow range” (Wharton 423). For Lily, it comes down to a choice between two antagonistic forces: the life she desires with a happiness, freedom and love and the life she was cut out to live with wealth, prestige and power. Although, Lily’s upbringing conditioned her to desire wealth and prestige, Lily’s more significant desires happiness, freedom and love ultimately allow her to break free.
On various occasions, the girl is depicted as having an almost toy-like quality, in which she can only be controlled and manipulated by her husband. On page 10, the text remarks, “he had invited me to join this gallery of beautiful women” (Carter 10). Such is only one instance in the story when the female character is being demonstrated as an object simply for show and display to the rest of the world. When the couple is about to have sex, the description of the wife in terms of her husband’s actions, corresponds to the qualities of other objects. For example, it is described, “as if he were stripping the leaves off an artichoke,” and that “he closed my legs like a book” (Carter 15). Both of these examples are in regards to inanimate objects, which can be utilized and controlled. This mimics the assertive and manipulative quality that the husband male figure has over the objectified woman. Nevertheless, in both stories, the classic by Perrault and the modern by Carter, this idea of objectification reaches it’s culminating point in the sense that the husbands’ murders of their wives are a way of literally collecting them and holding them in a room for their
Besides the female characters’ perspective of personal freedom, the readers can also see how Major Sanford denotes the customary patriarchy that demoralizes his female counterparts. Throughout the novel, Major Sanford is a character that typically exhibits the social characterization of patriarchy and an ominous oppression of class. He superimposes various critical judgments upon Eliza Wharton as he devises ways to approach her and to win her over Reverend Boyer. Mr. Boyer, on the other hand, represents the appropriation of a male individual in this society, who allows societal pressure to mold him into a hypercritical person. He fears that Eliza’s expressive femininity can deter him from socially sustaining his prestigious status, so he shuns and avoids her. Both characters dissuade Eliza from regaining her female
In “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, the story starts out with a distinctive split between the motivations of men and women: “The men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity” (Faulkner 121). At the funeral of Emily, the narrator appoints men in the category of attending out of respect, and women attending simply because they are curious and nosy. The immediate distinctive division between men and women suggests the story has a “stance towards patriarchal societal structures” (Curry) in which men are dignified and women are shallow. An additional example of how women are treated as sub-par to men is when the women complain of the smell from Emily's house but are not taken seriously until a man complains; women are portrayed as unheard. Although Faulkner compares the jurisdiction between men and women, the main component of the story is the expectations society has on a “lady”(Curry). Even after the men and women have complained about the smell from Emily's house, confronting Emily about the issue would invalidate her status as a lady; “a 'lady' would not have such a house” (Curry). In a patriarchal society, it is never the goal to destroy a lady. In such a society, ladies are entitled to act a certain way. Later in the story, Emily is able to illegally purchase arsenic without a valid reason, but the cashier assumes she is committing suicide. After Homer, Emily'...
In her final letter to her mother, Eliza admits her wrong doings. She tells her mother she ignored all the things she was told. All their advice fell on her deaf ears. She explains that she had fallen victim to her own indiscretion. She had become the latest conquest of “a designing libertine,” (Foster 894). She knew about Sanford’s reputation, she knew his intentions, and she knew that he was married, yet she still started a relationship with him. And her blatant disregard for facts and common sense caused her unwed pregnancy and premature demise. Eliza Wharton had nobody to blame for her situation but herself. She ignored warnings, advice, common sense, and other options available to her. She chose her ill fated path and had to suffer the consequences.
During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...
Marriage is a powerful union between two people who vow under oath to love each other for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. This sacred bond is a complicated union; one that can culminate in absolute joy or in utter disarray. One factor that can differentiate between a journey of harmony or calamity is one’s motives. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners, where Elizabeth Bennet and her aristocratic suitor Mr. Darcy’s love unfolds as her prejudice and his pride abate. Anton Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” explores class distinction, as an impecunious young woman marries a wealthy man. Both Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Anton Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” utilize
...ces them outside of the normal perception of society. They both are seen as non-conventional or troublesome women, Vivie for her distance from traditional interest in romance and art, and Mrs. Warren for her moral choices in profession, and as such are treated as other from the more traditionally set men in the play, who question each woman’s value. The interesting fact of this though, is that they both look down upon each other – instead of bonding over their rejection of societal expectations in unique ways, they stigmatize each other in a imbalanced relationship, not only alienating themselves from societal norms in the process, but also from each other.
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.
In his Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye offers a complex theory that aspires to describe a unifying system for literary criticism. It can be argued, however, that in attempting to delineate such an all-inclusive structure, Frye's system eliminates identity in literature. The present essay takes up this argument and offers examples of how identity is precluded by Frye's system as outlined in Anatomy of Criticism. Structure Vs. Identity
Eliza seems to have stood up for herself against Higgins and support Shaw's theory of Victorian women breaking the ideals of the housewife and child-rearer but once she is married to Freddy, or to anyone else, and starts a family she will have to go behind the scenes and keep the house and tend to her children. Pulling Eliza from the gutter and making her into a duchess revolves around a friendly bet between Higgins and Pickering. Eliza is passed off as a duchess but as the play draws to a close the bet is uncovered and Higgins and her squabble. The play ends ambiguously, we are told she is going to marry Freddy but their marriage is left up to the reader. However, it is with the understanding of Victorian ideals the reader can hypothesize what is going to happen once they are married; which is taking on the original roles of men and women in the Victorian era.
each present a story in which the precariousness of social class and the perniciousness of love constitute a central conflict. Both the protagonist from Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, and the protagonist from Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet, share a confident, yet stubborn demeanor; however, there are many characteristics and events that distinguish each of them as strong central characters in their own right.
The first thing to start with is the title. In order to understand Arnold’s essay we should first understand the title of the essay. As we notice that Matthew Arnold associates criticism with one function not many functions, but which function? He also mentions that this function of criticism is limited within a specific and particular time which is the present time and the past or the future time. Therefore, answering the questions of function and time of criticism goes with analyzing Matthew Arnold‘s essay through my reading of his essay. It becomes clear that Arnold defends the importance of criticism. That’s to say he tries to display that the critical mind is of a paramount importance as well as the creative mind.
Eliza knows that she can't go back to her old life, but otherwise, she has no firm position in society. Instead of fetching Higgins's slippers, she marries Freddy who has a weaker character. Perhaps Freddy would fetch her slippers, but she is keen to work, too. Her rebellion becomes more obvious in comparison to Higgins. She shows that she is not a mere subject, but a freethinking individual. In a realistic manner, she finds Higgins' weak point and overrules his subjections. She doesn't want to be intimidated.