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TMA 3: Compare and contrast the representation of women and female sexuality in The Tartuffe by Molière and The Country Wife by William Wycherley.
Because of its immense popularity during the 17th Century, the Theatre was employed as a powerful tool to denounce social injustices. In their satirical comedies Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molière and William Wycherley criticised the social expectations placed on women and the attitudes towards female sexuality during the period of the Restoration that considered women as the weaker gender.
In Tartuffe and The Country Wife, women are largely portrayed as rational and wise in contrast to the illogical patriarchy that oppress them. Female sexuality was viewed as a tool that could be employed by both men and women for economic, social and personal advantage.
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Molière and Wycherley sought to challenge the traditional vision of women in the 17th century that stated that “women were weaker or less rational than their male counterparts” (Greenberg, 2006). This essay will compare and contrast the representation of women and female sexuality in both plays. Molière, through the characterisation of female characters, portrays and contrasts both the traditional woman that gladly summits to her husband and the more dissident one that defies this conception and how their sexuality is employed by men as a tool to gain wealth and power. Mariane is portrayed as a conservative woman and dutiful daughter who accepts and lives under the patriarchal oppression. She overtly demonstrates this submission her subservience when she accepts, albeit grudgingly, her father’s wishes that she marry Tartuffe, despite her opinion of him as an man: “ a daughter must do as her father tells her even if he wants her to marry a monkey.” (2.3.74-75). Indeed, the object of her love is Valere; yet, she clearly expresses her acceptance of her father’s right of making decisions for her as the patriarch of the house implying that she has to accommodate to her father’s desires. She ,thus, expresses her displeasure with Orgon’s command that she marry a man she considers a “monkey” while acknowledging her role in the household and the need of obeying her father. Nonetheless, it is through the characterisation of Dorine, the maid, that Molière shows the dissident women in the play. Despite her lower status in the household, she is portrayed as a rational woman and she is rarely regarded as a sexual object, . Humour and irony are employed to criticise the foulness of Orgon’s decisions. She comments on Orgon‘s marriage plans for his daughter ‘With him? Do naught but give him horns, I’ll warrant.’ (2.2.114). ‘Horns’ suggests that Mariane will seek sexual satisfaction outside their marriage as they are not a good match; this is a fool decision. This shows the audience that Mariane will be ‘forced’ to find extra marital love or pleasure due to this unfortunate decision, showing an empathy with women denigratory treatment. Elmire is mostly portrayed as a submissive woman on the surface as she remains loyal to her husband – but is actually revealed to be the most canny of all the women and an object of desire for Tartuffe. However, she uses her sexuality against Tartuffe and sets a trap to reveal his real intentions to Orgon. The author employs rhetorical questions as Elmire tries to persuade Tartuffe about her feelings as Tartuffe demands a proof of her love. She asks Orgon to hide while she seduces Tartuffe so that he Orgon can hear how she unmasks him Tartuffe . She tells Tartuffe ‘Is there no escape from your pursuit? No respite even?—not a breathing space?’ (4 5 88-89) and ‘And so abuse by urgency the weakness. You may discover in a woman’s heart?’ (4.5.91-92). The word ‘urgency’ is addressing Tartuffe’s need of a proof of her love immediately if he is to believe what she claims. She is telling him that there is not need to advance into the relationship at that point - that he must believe her - while she is cleverly trying to dissuade him from asking her to prove her love for him. This shows the audience how she is employing her intelligence and her sexuality to deceive him and help her husband understand Tartuffe’s real intentions. The astutely planned strategy to manipulate Tartuffe shows the superiority of her reasoning skills over the men in the play to expose Tartuffe. This shows the audience that women are indeed capable of reason and that they may be as intelligent as men and in some cases, such as Elmire, even more intelligent than them. This represents a strong critique of the passive and submissive role that women played in the society of the 17th century and it suggests that their role and that treating them as sexual objects could or even should be subverted. Additionally, Molière seems to further emphasise the feasible dangers of irrational authority may have on women, their perception, and ultimately in society such as Orgon’s decision of marrying his daughter to the deceitful Tartuffe in the play. One of her major critics on Tartuffe is Collins James who judged the play as an injustice to both genders (James, 1989). According to him, Molière intends to reflect on and criticise the treatment of women in the society of the 17th Century. He further states that the portrayal of female characters that are capable of challenging the social conventions by subverting their symbolically assigned place in society, such as Elmire or Dorine, implies that women were subservient in the 17th Century exerting a negative influence on the vision of women nowadays (James, 1989). Despite the derogatory image of female characters in the play, women in Tartuffe reflect the values that pervaded in the 17th Century’s society and hence, they should not be hidden but shown to offer a reflection on the way they were treated to the contemporary reader. Those negative views on women might also encourage the reader to challenge traditional stereotypes on women that still prevail nowadays. In The Country wife, women considered capable of reason; yet, men seek for ignorant wives on the believe that they are easy to control. Marriages are a tool to gain power, social status and maintain the honour for both genres. Mr.
Pinchwife’s adopts a relatively relaxed attitude being ‘cuckolded’ despite his jealousy; he employs exaggeration to ridicule women in London; he tells Margery ‘Ay, my Dear, you must love me only, and not be like the naughty town women, who only hate their husbands.’ (2.1.79-80) ‘Ay’ show the distress he is experiencing due to his tremendous jealosy, He attempts to control the fool Margery by criticising women of the ‘town’ He describes women of London as ‘naughty’ as they cuckold their husbands. They are not ‘good’ wives and they are not controlled by their husbands. This gives the reader an insight on the role of women in the male social power exchange.
Different views on marriage reflect the way women were viewed by their husbands. Alethea, is a mere accessory to Sparkish; he employs metaphors to describe his feelings as he introduces Alithea to other men as “shewing fine clothes, at a play-house the first day, and counting money before poor rogues.” This contrasts with Mr Pinchwife’s jealous attitude who holds another view a conservative view on marriage. According to Sparkish, his wife is another possession that he owns to provoke envy in his
friends. Alithea shared this vision of marriage. Sparkish is a tool to maintain her honour as he is a fool and therefore, he is easy to control. She will adopt another attitude, as he is falsely accused of cuckolding by him. She wittily employs an epigram to demonstrate her new views on honour; she says ‘Women and Fortune are truest still to those that trust ’em.’ (5.4.390). Alethea shows the readers that she has changed - she now cares of what she thinks of her and Harcourt trusts her. Yet, the trust of certain characters, like Sparkish represents a negative trust has led to the end of his engagement. In fact, a false type of trust is shown at the end of the play when Horner’s is accepted on the belief that whether it is secret nobody will loose their honour. Wycherley employs irony to show how Margery that was innocent and did not comprehend her husband’s ‘jealousy’ now carefully plans ‘what lie I shall tell next.’ (5.1.62). The ‘silly innocent’ (5.2.26) according to Horner, has learnt how to deceive Mr Pinchwife. Margery’s husband is in part responsible for her new attitude towards her marriage. Her jealous husband lead her to think of the pleasures of London and ultimately to seek affection outside her marriage due to his explanations of the town women and the result of his cruelty. This shows how Orgon’s excessive control over Margery, ironically, provokes her change. Usually in Restoration plays, females are punishment to restore the social harmony. Yet, Margery and other unfaithful women are not punished suggesting that it is a product of the socially extended hypocrisy or, as according to Burke (Burke, 1988), is an ‘strategy of self-defence’ against male oppression. Women representations differ in both plays. In Tartuffe, women are considered less rational than men, less cunning; hence, the patriarch makes the relevant decisions and women adopt a more submissive role and act under his control. This leads Elmire or Dorine to attempt to subvert their social role. In The Country Wife, however, women are considered capable of reason as men. Thus, both genres seek fool partners to easily manipulate them. It is commonly believed that inexperienced women are loyal to their husbands and they are considered the ‘good’ wives in the play. Women are used as sexual objects by men for their own sake. Both genres need to maintain their honour that is based on women fidelity or alternatively, their public image in society since it is maintained in the play that what it is not known it can’t be punished. Another criticism made on the theme of women, was Burke’s views on the reasons of women behaviour in The Country Wife (Burke, 1988).She argues that women are viewed as a tool of power in men power exchanges. The problem according to her arises from the nature of the source of this exchange. She argues that this ‘homosocial discourse’ is what moves women in the play to seek their won pleasure and ‘assert their right to their own jouissance’. Women rebel against their social role such as Margery or Alithea. Margery after she is brought in from the town, learns how to use the ‘liberty of the town’ on her own benefit and ‘within prescribed limits’ as Alithea does. Alithea, ‘privately acknowledges her desire while publicly concealing it’ as ‘honour’ must be maintain in society. According to Burke (Burke, 1988), intelligence in women seems to have another interpretation which is not in relation to Mr Pinchwife’s representation but it seems to refer to women understanding of the conventions of the 17th Century and their desires and efforts to subvert them. Alithea’s marriage is an example of the social awareness of her own role in society dictated by the social conventions. Her commitment to Sparkish is ‘nothing but an strategy of self-defence’ and ‘ by picking a man who is not jealous, she can, she tells Lucy, have her ‘honour, her ‘quiet’ and not suffer ‘the loss of this Town’. Wisdom permits Alithea use the social conventions on her own benefit by maintaining a public and private life while preserving her ‘honour’. This proposes an alternative view of women that justifies their actions but also, highlights their hypocrisy. Females did not face their social constraints directly but accepted and subvert them by living a ‘public’ and ‘private’ life. Hence, the play does not represent a public women opposition to the ‘homosocial discourse’.
In the eighteenth century, the process of choosing a husband and marrying was not always beneficial to the woman. A myriad of factors prevented women from marrying a man that she herself loved. Additionally, the men that women in the eighteenth century did end up with certainly had the potential to be abusive. The attitudes of Charlotte Lennox and Anna Williams toward women’s desire for male companionship, as well as the politics of sexuality, are very different. Although both Charlotte Lennox and Anna Williams express a desire for men in their poetry, Charlotte Lennox views the implications of this desire differently than Anna Williams.
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...
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.
Thesis Statement: Men and women were in different social classes, women were expected to be in charge of running the household, the hardships of motherhood. The roles that men and women were expected to live up to would be called oppressive and offensive by today’s standards, but it was a very different world than the one we have become accustomed to in our time. Men and women were seen to live in separate social class from the men where women were considered not only physically weaker, but morally superior to men. This meant that women were the best suited for the domestic role of keeping the house. Women were not allowed in the public circle and forbidden to be involved with politics and economic affairs as the men made all the
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The movement for female right is one of the important social issue and it is ongoing reaction against the traditional male definition of woman. In most civilizations there was very unequal treatment between women and men with the expectation being that women should simply stay in the house and let the men support them. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, and Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, are two well-known plays that give rise to discussions over male-female relationships. In both stories, they illustrate the similar perspectives on how men repress women in their marriages; men consider that women should obey them and their respective on their wives is oppressed showing the problems in two marriages that described in two plays. Therefore, in this essay, I will compare two similar but contrast stories; A Doll's House and Trifles, focusing on how they describe the problems in marriage related to women as victims of suppressed right.
The female characters in Molière’s Tartuffe display feminist behaviors years before the feminist movement emerged historically. Many of their actions, words and behaviors are completely out of character for women of their time. Moliere makes a strong statement with this play by presenting female characters that go against convention. The gender inequality when the Enlightenment began was extreme. The women in this play try to fight against this inequality and in the end it is the patriarch of the family that is fooled by Tartuffe yet most of the female characters remain un-fooled throughout the play. Two of the female characters in this play, Doreen and Elmire play significantly different roles in the home. They have different personalities, different household duties and drastically different social standing. As different as these women are, they both show signs of early feminism. To various degrees they fight for want they believe is right. Dorine speaks her mind openly and does not hold anything back. Elmire is sneakier and uses her sexuality to get what she wants.
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In today’s world, men and women are perceived equally by the society. In the past, authority and control define men while women are given the characteristic of helplessness. Men are able to get hold of high positions while women usually are subservient to them. In movies, we would usually see women portray roles that are degrading due to the stereotypical notions they associate with this gender group. Moulin Rouge, a movie set during the 1900s narrates the story of a courtesan woman, Satine, as she undergoes hardships to earn money, experiences love but unfortunately, due to her irrational choices, faces tragic consequences at the end. Satine is a symbol of how women are being treated by the society during the era before post-feminism, where men have superiority over women. As the plot develops, Satine transforms from a worthless prostitute to someone who is courageous and willing to face her fears in order to attain her aspirations. Psychoanalyst theory and feminist analysis are apparent throughout the film. The male gaze, fantasy and feminism are three topics that will be covered in depth in this essay through relating it to the movie.
In the early twentieth century, the issue of gender inequality and lack of feminism was prevalent throughout society. Susan Gladspell’s play, Trifles, contains various instances of gender discrimination within the characters’ actions in the plot. Females in that society were subjected to great discrimination due to their sexuality and were viewed as insubordinate and only capable of obtaining menial jobs. This resulted in men constantly demeaning women in the form of mental and emotional abuse. Occasionally, this abuse gradually worsened and finally accumulated into some major disaster. In order to better the lives of women, the feminism movement was on the brink of starting a major revolution to restore equality in society. Throughout Susan Gladspell’s play, Trifles, the author incorporated elements of gender inequality and discrimination in hopes of bringing about the feminist movement.
In this novel, women are expected to be wonderful little wives, wives who don’t voice their opinions or disobey their husbands. Women who could only gain power through their marriages, preferably to a wealthy powerful man.
Evaluate and respond to the presentations of women in the Romantic period. Feel free to discuss presentations of women, by women (such as Austen’s Persuasion) as well as presentations of women by men (such as the “she” in Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”). Consider the following questions: are these presentations problematic? What do they tell us about the values and briefs of the Romantic Period? Do any of these presentations subvert (complicate, or call into questions) the time’s notions of femininity?
Gorham, Deborah. A. A. The Victorian Girl and the Feminine Ideal. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Martineau, Harriet.