Through two instances of the diamond image-- from Clarissa’s first reflective moment with Sally to the present moment, we can notice how Clarissa has shifted her identity from being a purely individual one to a more socially constructed one. After her youngster years when Clarissa spent more time in the domestic space and was not as affected by the outer world, she is supposed to enter the “symbolic order” which, according to Lacan, is the world of social interaction where a person further develops an autonomous identity through language, knowledge of ideological conventions, and acceptance of laws and dictates. However, as Clarissa enters the social order, she appears to be dissuaded to further develop a wholly autonomous sense of self. The …show more content…
Indeed, Victorian women are molded into the socially calibrated model of The Looking-glass self, a structural theory in which Cooley proposes that people shape their identity largely based on their understanding of how other perceive them, and the social environment thus serves as the “mirror” that reflects desirable images of themselves. According to Cooley, the stages of The Looking-glass self involves imagining how one looks to others, imagining how other are judging her, and finally developing herself through such possible judgement. A hypothesis can be formed here, that Victorian women must develop this looking-glass self by concealing socially or individually unacceptable impulses from their consciousness. In the case of Clarissa, she represses her rather primitive sexual feelings toward Sally for fear of social judgement, and must construct an identity reflective of the feminine qualities desired by the society. But Clarissa’s looking-glass self is quite problematic, because it is only a manifestation of her attempt to repress real emotions. All forms of repression, according to Freud, cause disease within the mind and body— they will gradually boil inside the beings and finally explode. Interestingly, Clarissa never “explodes” her repressed feelings …show more content…
Clarissa sees herself grow old and tends to lock her feelings inside the privately nurtured rooms of her mind, just as the lady who rattles alone around the rooms of her house. This solitary woman is both Clarissa's double, a reflection glimpsed in a figurative mirror that implies Clarissa's potential future, and a separate individual whose life beyond the frame of the mirroring window Clarissa does not have access to. As Clarissa sees her neighbor walking upstairs, she realizes beauty in this act of preserving one’s interior independence. “Let her climb upstairs if she wanted to,” Clarissa says, praising the woman’s autonomous and deliberate movements while being “quite unconscious that she was being watched.” By catching the woman who believes that she is unobserved, Clarissa witnesses the woman's true self, unaffected by any social frameworks that mold people into desired human subjects. The elderly woman's poignant representation of individuality coupled with a sense of serenity and isolation is something that Clarissa herself does not have in the moment. Furthermore, Clarissa also laments the power of love, religion, or any other socially shared conventions to crush one's critical thinking and try to convert people into believing a certain set of truths, thus
Both Vanity Fair and A Room of One’s Own explore and challenge the idea that women are incapable of creating a name and a living for themselves, thus are completely dependent on a masculine figure to provide meaning and purpose to their lives. Thackeray, having published Vanity Fair in 1848, conforms to the widely accepted idea that women lack independence when he makes a note on Ms Pinkerton and remarks “the Lexicographer’s name was always on the lips of the majestic woman… [He] was the cause of her reputation and her fortune.” The way that a man’s name was metaphorically “always on the lips of the majestic woman” and how he was the source of “her reputation and her fortune” expresses this idea, especially through Thackeray’s skilful use of a sanguine tone to communicate that this cultural value, or rather inequality, was not thought of as out of the ordinary. From viewing this in a current light and modernised perspective...
Another issue that the writer seemed to have swept below the carpet is the morality of women. First, women seemed to have been despised until they started excelling in mass advertising. Also, the author seems to peg the success of the modern woman to clothing and design. This means that women and cloths are but the same thing. In fact, it seems that a woman’s sex appeal determine her future endeavours, according to the author. It is through this that I believe that the author would have used other good virtues of women to explain
"Her name was Connie. She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right" (1). This quote shows the reader an astonishing truth about Connie. It shows her true insecurity that is rarely demonstrated to the outside world. Although she does not necessarily show this to the average bystander, by taking a closer look at her premature idea of acceptance, it also shows her constant yearn for approval from others to help boost her ego. At only the young age of fifteen, she is already attempting to prove her maturity and show that she can be independent. She does this by showing off her sexuality and strutting around. By showing off her
In Arcadia, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Look Back in Anger, the women characters play distinct roles in the dramas. However, the type of roles, the type of characters portrayed, and the purpose the women’s roles have in developing the plot and themes vary in each play. As demonstrated by The Importance of Being Earnest and Look Back in Anger, the majority of women’s roles ultimately reflect that women in British society were viewed to be unequal to men in love and in relationships and generally the weaker sex, emotionally, physically and intellectually. However, I have found an exception to this standard in the play Arcadia, in which Thomasina Coverly plays the role of a young genius.
Although the people surrounding Susanna feel perturbed towards her lack of social-conformity, which is demonstrated through others questioning her “self-image”, she knows that she is simply exp...
Humans mirror humans, as it is necessary to survive in a harsh social and political society. In the 1801 novel Belinda, Maria Edgeworth introduces Clarence Hervey, a suitable bachelor for the protagonist Belinda, as “chameleon-like” but humorous and empathetic. Edgeworth develops Hervey’s complex character through irony, a third person point of view and a critical yet mildly sarcastic tone.
From the beginning, Lynn Peril illustrates situations in which women have to deal with a bunch of admonitions to become more feminine and good-natured. And these tips are not just some other normal tips; they become famous and being rulers to evaluate the dignity of women. Then, the author goes on to relate her real “Pink Think” experience throughout her life and express her strong feelings, “I formed an early aversion to all things pink and girly” (Peril, 280). She also fleer some girls who feign innocence and pretend to look as if butter would not melt in their mouth.
In society, there has always been a gap between men and women. Women are generally expected to be homebodies, and seen as inferior to their husbands. The man is always correct, as he is more educated, and a woman must respect the man as they provide for the woman’s life. During the Victorian Era, women were very accommodating to fit the “house wife” stereotype. Women were to be a representation of love, purity and family; abandoning this stereotype would be seen as churlish living and a depredation of family status. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Henry Isben’s play A Doll's House depict women in the Victorian Era who were very much menial to their husbands. Nora Helmer, the protagonist in A Doll’s House and the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” both prove that living in complete inferiority to others is unhealthy as one must live for them self. However, attempts to obtain such desired freedom during the Victorian Era only end in complications.
Offred and a friend of hers were walking outside one day, saw a group of tourists and thought about how “[she] used to dress like [the tourists]” (Atwood 28). The tourists were wearing clothing and makeup such as skirts above their knees and red lipstick. Offred and her friend were fascinated and envious of these women. They couldn’t imagine themselves wearing clothes like the tourist were wearing. Even though they couldn’t imagine themselves wearing those type of clothes and makeup, they used to wear it in their past. Offred remembered herself going to the laundromat and putting “[her] own clothes, [her] own soap, [and her] own money” into the machines and “having such control” over what she used to do (Atwood 24). She doesn’t have that control over her life anymore. Some women, such as Aunt Lydia, feels that she should be grateful that she doesn’t have to do those things anymore. They feel that Offred is complaining about something that is actually a good thing. Society brainwashes these women into thinking that not having that kind of freedom is a good thing. Society also makes women think that they are just good for having children and sex. Therefore, women lose self-esteem because of the pressure that they are faced with on a daily basis. For example, in the story, Offred has low self-esteem. She “[avoids] looking at her body, not so much because it 's shameful or immodest but because [she doesn’t]
In today’s society it is not uncommon for women, especially teenagers or young adults, to hide their true sexual nature in order to avoid being scrutinized by their parents. Connie is a young teenage girl in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” who has a double-faced personality, “Everything about her had two sides to it…” (Oates, 826). When away from her family, she is very outgoing and has a sexualized attitude towards herself and men, which differs from the more childlike identity she displays at home. She has developed a completely different mannerism outside of her household, cultivating her own style of laughing, walking, and dressing in order to make herself more attractive to men. It is not until Arnold Friend, the antagonist of the story, arrives that she becomes more of mixture of her two personalities. Because of her provocative clothing and attitude, Arnold takes a liking in Connie and decides that he will stalk her and confront her at her home. Her wanting to attract older men causes her to become the center of attention of one which would ultimately harm her. Connie becomes te...
...pabilities as humans. This narrow-minded nature only succeeded in making women more and more determined to prove their "worth" to members of the opposite sex. Although Freud was leading the pack of male chauvinists in the late nineteenth century he has since been overpowered by females that are no longer afraid to say what they feel or act on their impulses.
Conchita, Charly Carlyle Ph.D. “Alice’s (& Lady Gaga’s) Sense of Self in Wonderland: A Psychoanalytic Formulation.” nymphobrainiac.wordpress. 5 March 2010. Web. May 2015.
Thackeray's theory of characterization proceeds generally on the assumption that the acts of men and women are directed not by principle, but by instincts, selfish or amiable--that toleration of human weakness is possible only by lowering the standard of human capacity and obligation--and that the preliminary condition of an accurate knowledge of human character is distrust of ideals and repudiation of patterns. This view is narrow, and by no means covers all the facts of history and human life, but what relative truth it has is splendidly illustrated in Vanity Fair. There is not a person in the book who excites the reader's respect, and not one who fails to excite his interest. The morbid quickness of the author's perceptions of the selfish element, even in his few amiable characters, is a constant source of surprise. The novel not only has no hero, but implies the non-existence of heroism. Yet the fascination of the book is indisputable, and it is due to a variety of causes besides its mere exhibition of the worldly side of life.
Foucault, Michel. "We 'Other Victorians'" and "The Repressive Hypothesis."The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction.Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage, 1980. 3-13, 17-49.
To give some suggestion of a background to this piece, The Bluest Eye is told from the perspectives of two reflective women, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer, as they reminisce about their childhood, and the images of their friend, Pecola Breedlove as they all grew up through the years at hand in this book. Is this a coming of age story? Quite literally, but it is a dissonant one, apart from so many others-- and serves to further the message as stated above. If only to compliment it, then, puberty and growing into sexual prowess are developed by the same things that make up one’s moral sophistication– parents, one’s school environment, and their social environment. Pecola’s parents, her home life; none of it is the least bit welcoming, the least bit inviting. She cannot express herself as she grows into her body because she will be beaten for it. Her mother thinks her a liar, and her father is too plagued by his own mental images to care much for anyone apart from himself. He takes out his stresses on Pecola, as the reader will see in the last leg of the book; Spring respectively. This environment that Pecola grows up in is indefinitely “not the right way.” She is denied too much of herself, and this is why she goes insane, partially.