Gender Role In Radclyffe Hall's The Well Of Loneliness

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Protection – she could never offer protection to the creature she loved: Could you marry me, Stephen? She could neither protect nor defend nor honour by loving; her hands were completely empty. She who would gladly have given her life, must go empty – handed to love, like a beggar. She could only debase what she longed to exalt, defile what she longed to keep pure and untarnished. ( Hall 2978) Radicyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness explains that gender roles are confusing and bring about unhappiness in life. The protagonist Stephen Gordon, although born a female, strives throughout the novel to be socially accepted as a male. However, in order for her to be considered this ‘privilege’, society must first grant her a God like ability to provide protection. Within this novel emphasis is placed upon a gendered meaning to provide protection, which Hall translates as only being accessible to males, and solely accomplished through marriage and sexual reproduction. In this way, gender roles are restricted to males being the provider of protection and females the receiver of this gift. Therefore, Hall’s The Well of Loneliness illustrates social inequality of perceived gender roles as a form of social alienation that limits the freedom to choose alternative paths to happiness. Males have a God given power/ divine rights , while …show more content…

as experessed through Stephen Gordon a rich eras who seeks social acceptance and compassion from her peers. that is expressed within social isolation of homosexuality, and heterosexual male power that is established through marriage. Indeed as Anna marries Sir Gordon , Angela marries Ralph, so as Mary will marry Martin. Hall questions that validity of heterosexual normativity as key to happiness and instead promotes through the character Stephen Gordon

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