Catelyn Stark portrayed by Michelle Fairly is first introduced to the audience in the first episode of the series. She is standing alongside her husband looking down at her three sons. She defines the stereotype motherly figure kind heart and warm to everyone. This has been portrayed in the first scene the audience is shown of her that she is looking down at her child at her pride and joy. “A women who defined herself by motherhood” (Wood, 1994, p34). This is relevant to Catylen as she is defined as a mother because of the children she has and the duty of proving an heir for Winterfell. Catelyn has fulfilled this by giving birth to three sons and two daughters.
During the game of thrones, she has been portrayed as the caring mother fitting into the stereotype of a mother figure. Thomas points out that, “Catelyn is too much of a stereotypical mother, putting the welfare of her children above other concerns.”(Thomas, 2012, ‘online’) This has been represented as Catelyn puts her children needs above her own. A scene which represents this is when she
…show more content…
“Catelyn stark does fail to mother Jon, but the notion of the horror and impossibility of a mother failing to take pity on an innocent child” (Gjelsvik, 2016, p157). This supports that the character falls the traits of the fairy tales of stepmothers. "In popular culture, the stepmother caricature is wicked, selfish, and cruel. She is a monstrous, abusive, and a hated villain. She is greedy for fortune and attention. She is jealous of her stepchildren." (Silver, 2015, P4) Gjelsvik, also points out that, “Catelyn Stark may be a devoted mother, but she is also a hateful stepmother to Jon Snow” (Gjelsvik, 2016, P6). This supports that even though she as devoted to her own children but not any other child that she did not birth. This is shown by her treatment towards Jon Snow and Theon Greyjoy who she doesn’t
Step Mother (second wife of fathers and mother to the youngest children) was only a young girl when her parents were killed. After a series of unfortunate events she was bought from a village clan and sold to become someone’s “companion”. None of this was her choice. “She was taken to a mission house, then taken away again, reclaimed by the village clan, and eventually sold into fathers canton merchant family” (13). Objectified and forced to be what someone else wants, stepmother is told to be exactly how the father wants her. She is forced to be submissive, and acts as a mother to the children, a wife to the husband, and a servant to the grandmother, or Poh-Poh. Throughout the novel her life is not hers to live, and her children are taught to treat her differently because of it. She is father’s second wife and not his first and because of this the children-even those who are biological- are expected to call her stepmother: “Poh-oh insisted we simplify our kinship terms in Canada, so my mother became “step mother.”… What the sons called my mother, my mother became… Father did not protest. Nor did the slim, pretty woman that was my mother seem to protest, though she must have cast a glance at the old one and decided to buy her time” (15). Stepmother is forced to be a third party in the raising of her children. She is only able to step out of
You can obviously see this in the way she addresses her husband Sir Percy Blakeney. She uses some obvious sarcasm when describing her husband’s “...witty sallies that would disarm even the Comtesse herself.” (Orczy 11), and she even describes her husband as a “dull englishman”, a “demmed idiot”, and a “fool” (Orzy 12). Others may think that she is kind because she bought a meal for a poor homeless man; however, this is the only nice deed we see her do throughout the first few chapters of the book. She is rude to the Comtesse and mimics her after she forbids her daughter Suzanne from speaking to her. Sir Percy Blakeney loves her, so much so the he literally kisses the ground she walks on, yet she still treats him bad. She, also angry of her brothers rejection to the family, bad mouthed Marquis de St. Cyr, a friend of the Comtesse, so badly that the whole family was sent to the
beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality
how her personality changes from act 1 scene 5 to act 5 scene 5 and
They have no power to choose for themselves and are considered to have a lack of ability to be independant, forcing the need to rely on men in their lives like fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. As a representing character, Stepmother did not control her life. Bandits killed most of her family when she was young, but she survived by hiding between two trunks of clothes. Then she was taken away from a Mission House and “reclaimed by the village clan, eventually being sold to her Father’s Canton merchant family” (Choy 6). So clearly, Stepmother has no right to choose for herself like an individual; she is just an article that belongs to others and a good that can be sold. In addition, in this family, Stepmother has a very low position even though she gave birth to two kids. Stepmother is Jook Liang and Sek Lung’s birth mother, but she can only be called “Stepmother”. Third Uncle explained, “Stepmother” was a ranking much more respectable than a “family servant,” more honourable than “concubine,” but never equal in honour or respect to the title of First Wife or Mother, Stepmother remained silent (Choy 147). This illustrates Old Chinese Seniority Rules; no matter what a female dedicates to the family, if she is not the first wife, she will never get the respect that she deserves to have. Normally, in Old China, women cannot get fair treatments. They must follow the rules without any doubt, even if they are unequal. Also, Stepmother
Are all mothers fit for motherhood? The concept of motherhood is scrutinized in the stories “The Rocking Horse Winner” and “Tears Idle Tears”. In “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H Lawrence the mother, Hester, unpremeditatedly provokes her son into providing for her through gambling. In the story “Tears Idle Tears” by Elizabeth Bowen, Mrs. Dickinson disregards her son’s emotions and puts more emphasis in her appearance than her son’s wellbeing. Hester and Mrs. Dickinson both were inadequate mothers. Both the mothers were materialistic, pretended to love their offspring, and their dominance hindered their children’s progress in life.
This characterization of the woman shows how she overpowers her husband, as opposed to the first wife (Snow White’s mother) who is characterized as being obedient and “sitting and sewing by a window with a black ebony frame” (Grimm 249). This characterization contrasts starkly with the dominant woman who plays the archetype of the evil stepmother. The original mother’s wishes came true as she wished for “a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window frame” (Grimm 249). In this imagery, we are given a color palette that represents a beautiful woman (pale white skin, red rosy cheeks and black ebony hair). Anne Sexton never offers a description of Snow White’s real mother, perhaps showing the reader how it is less important whether the mother is evil or good, but rather how the stepmother and daughter relationship became muddled by the fear the stepmother had to have beauty surpass her own. As Snow White finds herself in the home of the seven dwarfs, she falls asleep and wakes up surrounded by the dwarfs who are interrogating her about her life. Snow White is very obedient, speaking only when spoken to and agreeing to do household chores in return for their protection of her. The dwarfs specifically tell her not to let anyone in the house while they are
This is typical of antagonistic characters written during the time Perrault was alive and writing. In a certain variation rehashing of Cinderella, “Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister” by Gregory Maguire, even though the setting is a long time ago like Perrault’s version, the writer is of modern times and it is a book instead of a short tale. Because of these factors the characters are more fleshed out and person-like. The reader sees that these ‘ugly stepsister’ are merely girls in poverty trying to have a happy life. They are not evil or cruel; if anything Clara, the Cinderella of this story, can be very cruel despite her beauty. One factor that is similar in both the modern and old tale is the eventual antagonism the stepmother directs at Cinderella. In Maguire’s version even though (stepmothers name) does not force Clara to become a maid(it is in fact Clara’s own choice), the reader finds out that the evil stepmother actually poisoned Clara’s mother so that she could marry Clara’s rich father. In Perrault’s version, the stepmother isn’t shown to be evil to that extent, but she is much more cruel to Cinderella. In both the old and new stories the stepmother remains an evil character, which is a common trop in fairy
It is apparent in ancient society that women were seen as lesser than men, that their value was based off of who they were married to or who their father was. There was no way for a woman to have her own power, they could not do anything alone. The series Game of Thrones is set to be in medieval times, though not in our universe. It very blatantly shows themes of the time period, which are still seen in society today to a point. Blatant misogyny is shown throughout the series as the stronger female leads have to deal with this prejudice as they grow.
She gets dressed up for a car trip so that, on the off chance that they would be in a car wreck and that in that wreck she would be thrown from the car and laying on the pavement, she would be happy because the people passing would think that she is a lady. This represents us as humans because daily we choose to be way too self-conscience. Think about females and make-up. Make-up is a perfect example of us caring a great deal about what others think of us. She is also very selfish in her endeavors. Instead of caring about what is best for the family, she wants to go to Tennessee because she has friends there whom she would like to see.
noticed that in a number of films the father is dead thus it is impossible to protect his children, such as in Cinderella. Also stepfathers seem to not be portrayed in pop culture as evil thus stepmothers are the only ones that receive such hideous flack. Because stepfathers are not portrayed in a negative way, when it comes to real life they have less difficultly finding their place in their new family. (Church 1994) (Hall and Bishop 2009)
basically serves as a building block to her being admirable. Certain examples through out the play
In the following essay I will seek to establish the construction of feminine gender roles in ‘Game of Thrones’, the HBO television adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s series of novels ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’, which is played out in the fictional kingdom of Westeros. Consequently I will analyse these feminine gender roles from a materialistic viewpoint and discuss how a number of characters, principally female (since we will see how patriarchy is the favoured practice in Westeros), both conform to and reject preconceived ideas of gender performance and representation. To begin with it is necessary to establish an understanding of what ‘gender’ is. “Gender is the range of physical, biological, mental and behavioral characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and femininity. Depending on the context, the term may refer to biological sex (i.e. the state of being male, female or intersex), sex-based social structures (including gender roles and other social roles), or gender identity” (Urdy 1994). Martin himself acknowledges De Beauvoir’s (1973) suggestion that gender is unnatural, ‘a social construction’, “I regard men and women as all human- yes there are differences, but many of those differences are created by the culture that we live in, whether it is the medieval culture of Westeros, or 21st century western culture” (Salter 2013). The characters portrayed and developed in ‘Game of Thrones’ are no different in that they too are subject to the culture that has been created around them and the experiences by which they progress “as De Beauvoir puts it, consciousness exists one’s body, which, in the context of ...
Daenerys is also a character who sees herself as purely good. She is the rightful heir to the throne of Westeros (main city in the show) and the protector of her people. She has used her strength, and her dragons, to liberate both literal slaves in the East and the people forced to live under the rule in the West. She agonizes over decisions that would harm any of her people, even if they seem to be for the greater good, and she
Setting the tale in Nazi Germany creates an atmosphere of fear and anxiety, and establishes a set of circumstances in which it is possible for people to act in ways that would be unacceptable under other circumstances. The stepmother is a good example of this. She is the force in the family – it is she who decides that everyone in the family will have a better chance of survival, if they split up – the children going off alone together and the parents going in another direction. Unlike the portrayal of the stepmother in the Grimm fairy tale, this stepmother is not wicked. She is strong willed and determined, but not evil, although she is protecting herself and her husband by abandoning the children.