Identifying Patriarchy in European Literature

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Recommended: Essay on feminism in literature

Benjamin Visscher Hole IV

An Essay: On Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

W KOINON autadelfon Ismhnhs kara, ar oisq o ti Zeus twn ap Oidipou kakwn opoion ouci nwn eti zwsain telei; (Sophocles I.i. 1-3)

Antigone asks Ismene, her sister, if she recognizes how Zeus fulfills them as they live the curse of Oedipus. Although this idea of fulfillment manifests itself specifically in the tragedy of Ismene's and Antigone's radical behavior, the myth also serves as an archetypical model of a woman's position in society, and its patriarchal elements. The influence of Oedipus' curse over his daughters, whether mythological or directly familial, lingers in the ethos of psycho-sexualized European mores. Culturally, this notion characterizes masculinity as being `large and in charge,' the provider and protector; thus, femininity necessarily involves a certain subservience. Such ethos associates femininity with certain gender roles. The story of Oedipus and his daughters, therefore, highlights the overshadowing efficacy of the male presence and it's effects on the female psyche. For instance, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, each paint a picture of the feminine gender role, which predominantly consists of becoming a proper wife, so as to secure a husband, or mother, so as to produce his heir. Essentially, the occidental woman of this period is confined to a life of marriage. In such a patriarchy, what happens to an Antigone, a vicious rejection of all social conventions? And to an Ismene, a passive surrender to patriarchy's nomos? A woman's relationship to society's oppr...

... middle of paper ...

...choice. These females ably fulfilled the biological gender role purely by their own volition. Therefore, a woman's struggle isn't with the biological gender role, but its patriarchal limits. All in all, the three texts describe the patriarchal tendency to posit the female in a gender role, the female's struggle with it.

Works Cited

SOFOKLOUS. ANTIGONH. Bryn Mawr, PA: Thomas Library, Bryn Mawr College. 1988.

Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1999.

Emily Bronte. Wuthering Heights. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1996.

William Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing. Great Books of the Western World: 26. Ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. The Plays and Sonnets of William Shakespeare Volume One. Eds. William George Clarke & William Aldis Wright. Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, INC. The Great Books. University of Chicago, 1952.

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