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Gender Roles in Literature
Gender Roles in Literature
Gender and its roles in literature
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The Dominance Switch between Males and Females
In the novels, Madame Bovary and The House of the Spirits, the authors Gustave Flaubert and Isabel Allende demonstrate characterization in their texts to establish evolving gender dominance within the characters. In the book, Madame Bovary the setting takes place in the mid-1800s in France. In the novel House of Spirits, the setting takes place in the twentieth century in Tres Marias. This essay emphasizes on how characterization in these stories establish a change between genders. While reading this essay, the audience will expect a reversal affect of gender roles where women’s assistance presents opportunities to address the success of men. In addition, the authors highlight women’s inability to accomplish desires. Finally, the novel Madame Bovary uses Emma to present women using sexual desires to acquire physical and emotional needs.
In the novels, Madame Bovary and House of Spirits, scenes indicate different forms of translation to display reversal gender roles between men and women to explicate how women control over power has changed their roles in society. In Madame Bovary, the narrator states, “she had, like a man, thrust between two buttons of her bodice a tortoise shell eyeglasses” (Flaubert, 19). In this quote, the female character portrays herself as a man placing her eyeglasses through her shirt, which represents the style of a man in the mid-1800s. In the novel, when Emma is thinking of Rodolphe, she thinks of “his lowered long, fine, curled-up eye lashes. His cheek with its soft skin, reddened” (Flaubert, 220). In this text, Rodolphe is portrayed as a feminine character. Furthermore, in the novel House of Spirits, in the beginning of the book, the audience sees ...
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...e genders. Secondly, the authors reveal gender dominance to observe a reversal affect of gender roles. Next, characterization of women’s praises addresses many successes of men. In addition, the authors highlight women’s inabilities to accomplish their desires. In one novel, the characters present a woman using sexual desires to acquire physical and emotional needs. Although the audience observes the male figure depending on the female figure to survive in the novels, the same actions occur within today’s society. In most families, researchers contemplate female figures as “backbones” of their families. Female figures make critical decisions to assist their families with family conflicts.
Works Cited
Allende. Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York: Bantam, 1982
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Trans. Eleanor Marx-Aveling. Mineola (NY): Dover,
1996.
Gendered strategies, in the criticism of early fiction, made feminine fiction incapable of excellence. By using conventional heterosexual relationships in their prefaces, authors only succeed in supporting the masculine control over fiction. The appraisals women gained only reinforced their inferior status. "Criticism placed female authors in a specific and confined critical sphere, while it located male authors in an other, more respected field" (375). By aligning their works with popular male literature, women inadvertently strengthened male authority. Women were only granted recognition in terms of their limited social stature. It is these gendered values and strategies that makes the history of the novel and feminine achievement difficult to assess.
For centuries women have been perceived as overshadowed figures who remain in a separate sphere from men. The term “separate spheres” refers to the distinct, conventional characteristics associated with gender differences. The public sphere of men is associated with commerce whereas the domestic sphere for women is linked with the household. However, there is more than just one perspective on feminism. The feminist view is influenced by three main voices: the French, American, and British. French feminists focus their attention on language; American feminists analyze the literary aspects; and British feminists examine the historical processes (Murfin 296-299). Using these perspectives, we can see the oppression of women conveyed in many different texts throughout literature and in history. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for instance, exhibits not only a feminist view in the text, but also in society during Shelley’s time period as displayed by her negotiations with the separate spheres. Voltaire’s Candide also conveys powerful gender differences and reveals the oppression of women throughout the novel. Therefore, a correlation can be seen between the view of women in the two novels and how it reflects the culture and time period in which the novels were written.
In this dissertation, ideological systems considered to limit the creation of Western female identity were explored through feminist discourse: Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve (1977) and Kathy Acker’s Don Quixote (1986). The former discussed the extent to which gendered identities are founded on biological difference and binary structures, looking at how these dichotomies work to confine female identity to a concept of fixed ideals. With reference to the work of Butler, Carter undermines essentialist views which limit identity, demonstrating through multifaceted and changeable characters that identity is constructed as opposed to determined. By engaging in multiple discourses, Carter’s characters reject conforming to regulatory norms, and are consequently revealed to be living out simulacrums, as Butler suggests all people do. The motif of the mirror was explored with reference to the work of Lacan and Mulvey, looking at how the novel presents female identity as contingent upon male desires due to society’s preoccupation with the phallus. Female identity is therefore constructed to appease masculine appetites, with the mirror revealing the discord between unified appearance and incoherent inner identity. The lack of female representation was discussed with reference to speech and narrative structure, with patriarchal systems of communication shown to exclude women from representation. Carter uses the dual perspective of Eve(lyn)’s narration to destabilize gender identity, revealing it as cleft and uncertain. Lee suggests that the incongruity of the narration also works to mount a critique of the role of the gaze, with the fact that Eve(lyn) narrates in retrospect hindering the reader’s ability to know whether the narrator ...
According to “The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language”, the word “feminity” is defined as “the quality or condition of being feminine or a characteristic or trait traditionally held to be female.” Further speaking, feminity is formed by various socially-defined and biologically-created gender roles played by women influenced by a number of social and cultural factors. For example, the traditional gender roles of women include nurturer, birth giver, homemaker and caregiver. However, marked by a series of women's rights movements starting from the 19th century, women’s gender roles, as well as the ways how society and men perceive women, have been largely changed. This significant change, described as a process of female awakening, was widely reflected in many contemporary literature works. This essay will specifically focus on the construction of feminity in two short stories, “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway and “The Stoy of an Hour” by Kate Chopin through examining how the authors define “feminity” in their treatment of female characters.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, the reader is treated to an enthralling story of a woman’s lifelong quest for happiness and love. Although this novel may be analyzed according to several critical lenses, I believe the perspectives afforded by French feminists Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray have been most useful in informing my interpretation of Hurston’s book. In “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Cixous discusses a phenomenon she calls antilove that I have found helpful in defining the social hierarchy of women and relationships between them in the novel. In addition, Cixous addresses the idea of woman as caregiver, which can be illustrated through the character of Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God. On the other hand, Luce Irigaray discusses the different modes of sexual desire of men and women in her essay, “The Sex Which is Not One.” Many examples supporting and refuting her claims can be found in the novel. According to Cixous, the most heinous crime committed by men against women is the promotion of antilove. “Insidiously, violently, they have led [women] to hate women, to be their own enemies, to mobilize their immense strength against themselves, to be the executants of their virile needs” (1455). Their Eyes Were Watching God offers many examples of women in vicious contention with one another, usually involving or benefiting a man. Janie is confronted by the malice of her female neighbors in the very first chapter of the novel, as she arrives back in Eatonville after her adventure with Tea Cake. “The women took the faded shirt and muddy overalls and laid them away for remembrance. It was a weapon against her strength and if i...
Both novels are focused at a time, the nineteenth century, when the woman was unquestionably submissive to the man, otherwise, known as the era of the domestic woman. The settings for both novels give the audience insight as to why the protagonists wanted to liberate themselves from the traditional aspect of the woman. The authors also employ a healthy amount of symbolism in their work. For example, the caged birds who understand each other represent Edna and mademoiselle Reisz who are imprisoned by their communal beliefs. The actions of Edna are only understood by mademoiselle Reisz. In “Madam Bovary”, Emma’s appearance has great symbolic significance in the novel. It shows how her soul deteriorates as her focus on physical things increases. Her disgust on the blind man’s image emphasizes how she has lost herself to the
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, idea for the equality of women began to ignite a fire within the world. Women wanted to fight oppression and have a chance to experience the same rights as men. However, although suffragettes would not fight fire with fire until a couple of decades later, the idea of escaping societal roles and gain freedom within society and marriage possibly inspired literary works during this time period. These issues of the inequality between men and women in marriage and society plays strong roles in literary works. In “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen, “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell, and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman all have something in common: the women are oppressed by the men and society, and ultimately pull away from their societal roles and break free.
Society’s gender roles have been changing and evolving, though not necessarily a positive change. Women’s expected and defined role have changed and broken by women who refuses to follow their expected roles in society and decide to rebel against the norm. The pages of history have their own evidence of evolution of these female gender roles into the roles they are following now. Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles” and Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” both contain a female protagonist and make us observe and understand how society in their period of time expects of them and their roles. Both these plays let us rethink and compare a female’s role in their period of time with our modern time through points and events that led them into realization of their roles and identity.
Suggested roles of all types set the stage for how human beings perceive their life should be. Gender roles are one of the most dangerous roles that society faces today. With all of the controversy applied to male vs. female dominance in households, and in the workplace, there seems to be an argument either way. In the essay, “Men as Success Objects”, the author Warren Farrell explains this threat of society as a whole. Farrell explains the difference of men and women growing up and how they believe their role in society to be. He justifies that it doesn’t just appear in marriage, but in the earliest stages of life. Similarly, in the essay “Roles of Sexes”, real life applications are explored in two different novels. The synthesis between these two essays proves how prevalent roles are in even the smallest part of a concept and how it is relatively an inevitable subject.
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.
Throughout history, women have struggled to become equals with men. Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums” share a theme to their readers: feminism. The two authors placed their female protagonists in male dominated worlds of the 19th Century Norway and 20th Century America. They used these characters to rebel against the passive role of woman during their time. This theme is promoted through the narration of Nora and Elisa’s marriages, an epiphany that arose from initial disappointment in a male dominated society, and the use of symbolism throughout both works.
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
Women roles have changed drastically in the last 50 to 80 years, women no longer have to completely conform to society’s gender roles and now enjoy the idea of being individuals. Along with the evolution of women roles in society, women presence and acceptance have drastically grown in modern literature. In early literature it was common to see women roles as simply caretakers, wives or as background; women roles and ideas were nearly non-existent and was rather seen than heard. The belief that women were more involved in the raising of children and taking care of the household was a great theme in many early literatures; women did not get much credit for being apart of the frontier and expansion of many of the nations success until much later.
Madame Bovary, a novel by Gustave Flaubert, describes life in the provinces. While depicting the provincial manners, customs, codes and norms, the novel puts great emphasis on its protagonist, Emma Bovary who is a representative of a provincial woman. Concerning the fundamental typicality in Emma Bovary’s story, Flaubert points out: “My poor Bovary is no doubt suffering and weeping at this very moment in twenty French villages at once.” (Heath, 54). Yet, Emma Bovary’s story emerges as a result of her difference from the rest of the society she lives in. She is in conflict with her mediocre and tedious surroundings in respect of the responses she makes to the world she lives in. Among the three basic responses made by human beings, Emma’s response is “dreaming of an impossible absolute” while others around her “unquestionably accept things as they are” or “coldly and practically profiteer from whatever circumstances they meet.” (Fairlie, 33). However, Emma’s pursuit of ideals which leads to the imagining of passion, luxury and ecstasy prevents her from seeing the world in a realistic perspective or causes her to confuse reality and imagination with each other.
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert’s first novel and is considered his masterpiece. It has been studied from various angles by the critics. Some study it as a realistic novel of the nineteenth century rooted in its social milieu. There are other critics who have studied it as a satire of romantic sensibility. It is simply assumed that Emma Bovary, the protagonist, embodied naive dreams and empty cliché that author wishes to ridicule, as excesses and mannerisms of romanticism. She is seen as a romantic idealist trapped in a mundane mercantile world. Innumerable theorists have discovered and analysed extensively a variety of questions raised by its style, themes, and aesthetic innovations. In this research paper an attempt has been made to analyse life of Emma Bovary as a paradigm of Lacanian desire.