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Japan culture GENDER ROLE
Japan culture GENDER ROLE
Gender in tale of genji
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Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji, set in the Heian Period, gives a good idea of what the model Heian man and Heian woman should look like. Genji himself is like a physical embodiment of male perfection, while a large portion of the Broom Tree chapter outlines the ideal of a woman—that it is men who decide what constitutes a perfect woman, and the fact that even they cannot come to decide which traits are the best, and whether anyone can realistically possess all of those traits shows that the function of women in the eyes of men of that period was largely to cater to their husbands and households. Broken down, there are similarities and differences between the standard for Heian men and women, and the Tale of Genji provides excellent examples of characters who fit into their respective gender roles.
In the Heian world of the Tale of Genji, for men as well as women, beauty and elegance are important traits to have, as seen in the great amount of emphasis placed on Genji’s good looks and grace. As he is the model of a perfect man, examining Genji alone is enough to understand the standard of what a Heian male should be. At times, Genji can be persistent and aggressive to the point of being a nuisance who clearly is not used to being denied anything—this is most likely the result of his being so favored by everyone around him while growing up, especially his father. He is made a commoner, but still ranks higher than most people (pg. 37), and is thrown an elaborate coming-of-age ceremony. If not for the interference of the mother of the Heir Apparent, he would have been handed the title of successor as well. Nonetheless, despite his short-comings, Genji is quickly forgiven due to his charm and gentleness. An example of this is when h...
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...ic female figures in Ancient Japanese literature. His sentiment is basically that such acts are melodramatic and lead only to regret on her part (pg. 25). I took it to mean that Murasaki Shikibu was criticizing those old tropes used in Japanese literature, and the unrealistic standards (which the men in Chapter Two later admit are impossible) are a criticism of the expectations placed on women in Heian society. All in all, the book points at the despairing conditions of women in the Heian Period, and as for Genji, who is described by the author and other characters as “perfect” in every imaginable variation of words, it is made clear through his actions and decisions that he is not perfect, and tends to be quite selfish—signifying that the male ideal is also unrealistic and unattainable.
Works Cited
Shikibu, Murasaki. The Tale of Genji. New York: Penguin, 2006.
This literary analysis will define the historical differentiation of female gender identity roles that occurred in the Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong and the Tale of Genji. The modern gender values in the Joseon Period define a more elevated freedom for women in patriarchal Korean society that is defined in Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong. In a more progressive gender role for women, Lady Hyegyong exhibits an aggressive male trait in angrily denouncing the execution of her younger brother, which advocates a less submission depiction of women’s rights in early 19th century Korea. In contrast to this aggressive female gender role, Murasaki Shikibu writes a novel through the perspective of Emperor Hikaru Genji and his illicit love affair with his stepmother, Lady Fujitsubo. Lady Fujitsubo is a strong woman, much like the mother of Genji, but she is a concubine with little real power in the court. Historically, the patriarchal culture of 11th century Heian Period in Japan is different from the Joseon Period in that
Most classical society’s political and social organization revolved around the idea of patriarchy, a male dominated social system. This system exacerbated the inherit difference between men and woman and assigned gender roles based on these observations. Men were generally regarded as superior to woman therefore given greater religious and political roles as well as more legal rights. As the natural inverse, women were subordinated and seen as week; their main roles reproductive and domestic. Information about patriarchy in the classical era, though abundant, was, for the most part, written by men, therefore history does not give us an accurate depiction of women’s viewpoints. Four societies of the classical era, India, China, Greece, and Rome, adopted a patriarchal system, however, due to many factors, each developed identifiable characteristics.
This paper will discuss the well published work of, Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975. Print. Sarah B. Pomerory uses this book to educate others about the role women have played throughout ancient history. Pomerory uses a timeline to go through each role, starting with mythological women, who were called Goddesses. She then talks about some common roles, the whores, wives, and slaves during this time. Pomerory enlightens the audience on the topic of women, who were seen as nothing at the time. Men were seen as the only crucial part in history; however, Pomerory’s focus on women portrays the era in a new light.
Over the course of time, the roles of men and women have changed dramatically. As women have increasingly gained more social recognition, they have also earned more significant roles in society. This change is clearly reflected in many works of literature, one of the most representative of which is Plautus's 191 B.C. drama Pseudolus, in which we meet the prostitute Phoenicium. Although the motivation behind nearly every action in the play, she is glimpsed only briefly, never speaks directly, and earns little respect from the male characters surrounding her, a situation that roughly parallels a woman's role in Roman society of that period. Women of the time, in other words, were to be seen and not heard. Their sole purpose was to please or to benefit men. As time passed, though, women earned more responsibility, allowing them to become stronger and hold more influence. The women who inspired Lope de Vega's early seventeenth-century drama Fuente Ovejuna, for instance, rose up against not only the male officials of their tiny village, but the cruel (male) dictator busy oppressing so much of Spain as a whole. The roles women play in literature have evolved correspondingly, and, by comparing The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Wife of Bath's Prologue, we can see that fictional women have just as increasingly as their real-word counterparts used gender differences as weapons against men.
How are men and women depicted in The Tale of Genji, The Lays, and The Wife of Bath’s Tale?
Yet, despite the fact that no two women in this epic are alike, each—through her vices or virtues—helps to delineate the role of the ideal woman. Below, we will show the importance of Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, Clytaemestra, and Penelope in terms of the movement of the narrative and in defining social roles for the Ancient Greeks. Before we delve into the traits of individual characters, it is important to understand certain assumptions about women that prevailed in the Homeric Age. By modern standards, the Ancient Greeks would be considered a rabidly misogynistic culture. Indeed, the notoriously sour Boetian playwright Hesiod-- who wrote about fifty years before Homer-- proclaimed "Zeus who thunders on high made women to be evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil (Theogony 600).
One of the aspects of the Middle Ages which is explored by numerous scholars today is that of the antifeminist stereotypes which pervaded literature and cultural mores during the period. In an era governed by men, the fact that women were treated as inferior is unsurprising; archetypal visions of femininity fit neatly into medieval history. However, most people would like to believe that such pigeonholing has been left in the past, allowing for more liberated times in which women are portrayed realistically and as the equals of men.
The struggle for women to play an important role in history can be traced from the ancient Mesopotamians to the 1900’s. There has been a continuous battle for women to gain equal rights and to be treated equally in all aspects of life. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest recorded account of the roles of women and their importance in a functional society. Women have been viewed as anything from goddesses to unwanted servants throughout history, regardless of a variety of changes in rulers, religions, and simply time periods. The Epic of Gilgamesh might lead one to consider the roles of women a small and insignificant part compared to the man's role.
Women in antiquity did not have an easy lot in life. They had few, if any, rights. Surviving early records of the civilizations of antiquity from ancient Greece, Egypt, China, and Rome suggest the diversity of women’s roles differed little from region to region. There were a few exceptions, mostly concerning women of nobility and the city-state of Sparta. Excluding the rare instances mentioned most antique women were generally limited on education, mobility, and almost all possibilities interfering with domestic or childbearing responsibilities. The limited social roles of women in antiquity suggest the perceived c...
The male dominated society of the Heian and Tang periods led to the creation of biased ideals of men and women. Although the author of the Genji Monogatari, Murasaki Shikibu, was a woman, her perception of male and female ideals was also influenced by centuries of male dominated thought as conveyed through the vast amounts of Chinese culture which permeated the society she was a part of. Thus, one can read the Genji Monogatari as an example of gender ideals in Heian Japan as well its Chinese predecessor, the Tang dynasty.
The Tale of Genji is considered the first great novel in the history of world literature. Murasaki Shikibu’s actual name is unknown, however it was common to name women after the office held by a male relative. Her father admired her academic brilliance but wished she were born a man instead because in the Heian society, Chinese learning was only valued for men. Men and women were strictly segregated in Heian Japan. Typically, women were married around ten or eleven, and their role was to bear children. The purpose of marriage was to continue the family line and create alliances with other families. Heian women’s literature thrived in this world of gender asymmetries. As female authors, women voiced how they suffered from their dependence on their husbands.
The society in which classical myths took place, the Greco-Roman society was a very patriarchal one. By taking a careful gander at female characters in Greco-Roman mythology one can see that the roles women played differ greatly from the roles they play today. The light that is cast upon females in classical myths shows us the views that society had about women at the time. In classical mythology women almost always play a certain type of character, that is to say the usual type of role that was always traditionally played by women in the past, the role of the domestic housewife who is in need of a man’s protection, women in myth also tended to have some unpleasant character traits such as vanity, a tendency to be deceitful, and a volatile personality. If one compares the type of roles that ladies played in the myths with the ones they play in today’s society the differences become glaringly obvious whilst the similarities seem to dwindle down. Clearly, and certainly fortunately, society’s views on women today have greatly changed.
The Tale of Genji is one of the most important stories of ancient Japanese literature. Japanese scholar Sin Ohno said that there is no literature written during the Heian Era which is written in as precise language as The Tale of Genji. The author, Murasaki Shikibu, is a woman. In this tale, we can see the concept towards marriage of women during her period.
This tale portrays court ladies’ lifestyles in the Heian aristocracy. Women during this time period lived a life lacking privacy and were hidden psychologically and physically in a world within which indicates that the aristocratic society was patriarchal. They were not allowed to communicate with anyone but their family, husban...
Women were often subjects of intense focus in ancient literary works. In Sarah Pomeroy’s introduction of her text Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, she writes, “Women pervade nearly every genre of classical literature, yet often the bias of the author distorts the information” (x). It is evident in literature that the social roles of women were more restricted than the roles of men. And since the majority of early literature was written by men, misogyny tends to taint much of it. The female characters are usually given negative traits of deception, temptation, selfishness, and seduction. Women were controlled, contained, and exploited. In early literature, women are seen as objects of possession, forces deadly to men, cunning, passive, shameful, and often less honorable than men. Literature reflects the societal beliefs and attitudes of an era and the consistency of these beliefs and attitudes toward women and the roles women play has endured through the centuries in literature. Women begin at a disadvantage according to these societal definitions. In a world run by competing men, women were viewed as property—prizes of contests, booty of battle and the more power men had over these possessions the more prestigious the man. When reading ancient literature one finds that women are often not only prizes, but they were responsible for luring or seducing men into damnation by using their feminine traits.