‘Rebecca’ and ‘The Bloody Chamber’ convey the gothic theme of isolation by employing the embodiment of dominant male characters. The femme fatal persona in ‘Rebecca’ creates a stigma about how Mrs de Winter should act. The Fairy-tale form causes development of female power and causes a sense of resilience throughout the collection of short stories. The use of controversial issues of feminine empowerment exercises the idea that women should have more power within heterosexual relationships. There are several Gothic conventions within both texts, for example setting is vital because the authors use immense, reclusive places like Manderly and the Castles causing physical entrapment for the feminine roles. Violent characteristics from Maxim and
the Marquis as well as in other stories like Puss in Boots represent the villainous behaviour within the dominant males. Within ‘Rebecca’ and the ‘The Bloody Chamber’ the characteristics of women are evidence of the Gothic genre. The gothic archetype ‘trembling victim’ represents female fears of imprisonment and extinction. Daphne du Maurier explores the social views of Rebecca, which in turn creates this dominant Femme Fatale. The constant movement of the Manderley drive “twisting and turning” accentuates Rebecca’s serpent characteristics. This supports the idea that the empowering figure broke social barriers despite having a hidden devious nature. Maurier personifies nature by bringing it “into (Rebecca’s) own” allowing her to shatter the social constraints and henceforth empowering her sense of control and authority. The “blood-red rhododendrons” enforce the dominant presence of Rebecca that enshrouds the “nameless shrubs”. This heightens the significance and the power of Rebecca throughout society; for example, on arrival at Manderley you are “entwined” with the “nameless shrubs”. The metaphor for these “shrubs” reflect how the unnamed narrator cannot live up to the expectations of Mrs de Winter as the pressures create anxiety on how she should behave when she can’t get over her “spurious origin(s)” and her true social identity. Consequently, we are aware that the nameless narrator is trapped within Rebecca’s constant presence at Manderly causing her pain and angst towards her existence there.
This essay explores the blurring of gender roles within Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Angela Carter’s The Lady of the House of Love, focusing on the presentation of a sexually assertive female and its threat to the patriarchal society, and the duality of the female characters as they are presented as enticing and thrilling, but also dangerous and somewhat repulsive.
The women in both Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness are seemingly presented with traditional feminine qualities of inferiority, weakness and sexual objectification. However, the power that they hold in male-female relationships, and their embodiment of traditional male roles, contests the chauvinistic views of society during Conrad and Hardy’s era. While Conrad presents powerful female characters through their influences over men, the reversal of traditional gender roles is exemplified more by Hardy’s character, Tess, yet both authors present revolutionary ideas of feminism, and enlighten readers to challenge the patriarchal views of society towards women.
...ife. After the discovery that Rebecca had wronged Maxim and caused unrest, Mrs. de Winter no longer addresses Rebecca as if she is comparing herself to her predecessor, severing ties. The narrator’s choice to stand by her husband finally places her in the upper class as Maxim’s equal, and she shares in the sin that he committed by her own choosing. In doing this, Mrs. de Winter proves that society’s expectation of her can find an equal balance with staying true to her sense of self in the choices that she makes, and her strength of character finally makes her a dominant female force in the story, all submissiveness cast away. Society’s expectations of someone’s role in a particular situation such as a relationship do not have to be dominant over the person’s sense of self, and to find any sort of stability, one would do well to find the fair balance between the two.
characteristics. In 'Les Quatre Sohais Saint-Martin';, 'The Chevalier Who Made Cunts Talk';, and 'The Miller's Prologue and Tale'; medieval women are portrayed in similar ways. Women are imaginative and therefor their thoughts must be controlled. They also, in the Fabliaux, crave sex and have sexually creative minds. These three Fabliaux texts present women that are similar and represent commonly held views about the female sex of the time.
In a world of manifest superheroes, Mrs. de Winter, in Daphne du Maurier’s novel, Rebecca, though quite an unanticipated heroine, proves to be selfless and courageous, the very definition of a hero. Her name never being mentioned, Mrs. de Winter, also the story’s narrator, stands in direct contrast to the story’s vilest character, Rebecca, and her sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. By observing the characters and setting of Rebecca, we manage to catch a glimpse of the author’s personal life and how it may have influenced the writing of her novel.
The gothic heroine can be easily defined as perfection; the best at everything she does, almost to the point of parody. She is often more intelligent, more beautiful, more accomplished, more chaste and more resilient than any other woman. These are the characteristics within the control of the young woman. There are, however, outside factors surrounding the behaviour of the gothic heroine. These women are faced with huge obstacles, particularly in their quest to maintain their perfection. Wolf-Alice is pure, chaste, and angelic; much more so than the other heroines of The Bloody
Generations of children have grown up with the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood; as a result, it is one of the most popular children’s fairy tale. This tale as well as all other tales, originated as oral tales centuries ago. Eventually, these oral tales were written down and ultimately transformed into famous literary tales by collectors of fairy tales, such as French writer, Charles Perrault (Zipes). Wolf by Francesca Lia Block is a twentieth century version of Little Red Riding Hood. It is set in sharp contrast to Perrault’s early sixteen century, literary rendering of Little Red Riding Hood. Block’s retold account is devoid of censorship aimed at the female gender. The wolf/man is clearly portrayed as debauched man who commits an atrocious act of violence against his stepdaughter. Furthermore, Block’s twentieth century tale of Little Red Riding Hood gives rise to equality of the sexes: eradicates male superiority and holds the male responsible for his actions inflicted upon the girl. scrutinizing Perrault’s version of Red Riding Hood
In faerytale literature, women are often seen as victims of male dominance. Because of this generalization, women are more likely presented as being passive characters. Carter is interested in the portrayal of women as victims of male authority factor in the feminist movement. Carter’s depiction of femininity is multifaceted, it is useful to bring into play a model, based on a very similar pattern presented by Paulina Palmer in her essay “Gender as Performance in the Fiction of Carter and Atwood” from 1997 (Holzhaeuser, 19). She plans to demystify the misconceptions of and to break free from standard cultural views on gender roles
Angela Carter was a writer in the 1970s during the third wave of feminism that influenced and encouraged personal and social views in her writing. This is demonstrated through her own interpretation of fairy tales in The Bloody Chamber. She combines realism and fantasy to create ‘magic realism’ whilst also challenging conventions of stereotypical gender roles.
In Daphne Du Maurier’s book, ‘Rebecca’, She uses contrasting features in her characters to emphasise their characteristics.An example of this is one of the main characters, Maxim de Winter. Maxim is portrayed as both attractive and forbidding, but also a mystery and an open book.In this essay I would like to explore the ways du Maurier portrays the character Maxim, and come to a conclusion on if he is either attractive or forbidding, and wither he is a mystery or an open book.
In Daphne Du Maurier’s book, ‘Rebecca’, She uses contrasting features in her characters to emphasise their characteristics.An example of this is one of the main characters, Maxim de Winter. Maxim is portrayed as both attractive and forbidding, but also a mystery and an open book.In this essay I would like to explore how true this is throughout the chapters two to six, and come to a conclusion on if he is either attractive or forbidding, and wither he is a mystery or an open book.
In a society unbridled with double standards and set views about women, one may wonder the origins of such beliefs. It might come as a surprise that these ideals and standards are embedded and have been for centuries in the beloved fairy tales we enjoyed reading as kids. In her analytical essay, “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tales”, Karen Rowe argues that fairy tales present “cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.” Rowe presents an excellent point, which can be supported by versions of the cult classics, “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. Charles Perrault’s “ The Little Glass Slipper” and the Brothers Grimm’s “ Snow White” exemplify the beliefs that females are supposed to be docile, dependent on the male persona and willing to sacrifice themselves. In many cases, when strong female characters are presented they are always contradicting in these characteristics, thus labeled as villainous. Such is the case of the Cinderella’s stepsisters in Perrault’s “Cinderella” and the stepmother in the Brothers Grimm’s “Snow White.” These female characters face judgment and disapproval when they commit the same acts as male characters. With such messages rooted in our beloved fairy tales it is no wonder that society is rampant with these ideals about women and disapprove of women when they try to break free of this mold.
Throughout literature, authors employ a variety of strategies to highlight the central message being conveyed to the audience. Analyzing pieces of literature through the gender critics lens accentuates what the author believes to be masculine or feminine and that society and culture determines the gender responsibility of an individual. In the classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood, the gender strategies appear through the typical fragile women of the mother and the grandmother, the heartless and clever male wolf, and the naïve and vulnerable girl as little red riding hood.
She attempts to accustom herself to living in a medieval society where women were believed to be inferior, a piece of property who need to depend on men to survive. CC befriends four women of that era who also uphold a stereotyped view of females and their role. “She remembered how cold and judgmental Isabel had been when they had first met, but CC had thought those days were over, that Isabel and the other women had begun to care for her as she had them” (Cast 248). This quotation depicts how CC diminished her old- fashioned friends’ mindset about women and how the women have become emotionally tied together. CC managed to help the women accept that they are not worth anything less than men, and transformed their outlook about CC’s courage and independence from a negative prospect to a positive prospect. The old women now care for CC as if they were family by maintaing their new belief that women demonstrate more power and strength together. The importance of this theme is to convince real world women that they are strong and are equal to men, and to change the views of bigoted people out there who emphasize the stereotypes of
Other critics have decided to see Dracula from a gender pondered perspective, and although their interpretations have provoked many critical discussions, such ideas cannot be overlooked. For example, Marjorie Howes perceived the novel to abet for “the mediation of the feminine, bisexuality and homoerotic desire”, and in her article she argued that “the novel’s anxieties about gender definition are related to an ambivalent pattern of expresion and repression that structures the treatment of its fantasies” (1988: 104). Thus, Howes’ critical view argumented that the text was fundamentally based upon a confluence of homosexual desire, and that the “feminine” role was used mostly to conceal such sexual fantasies. Matthew Brennan also points