More handpicked essays just for you.
Representation of women in literature
Representation of women in literature
Issues of gender equality in the literary profession
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Masculinity and the role of women in a male society is a central theme in Zora Neale Huston’s “Sweat”, Maxine Hong Kingston’s “Woman Warrior”, and Sandra Cisneros’s “Woman Hollering Creek”. The men in these stories are violent, degrading, and unfaithful. The protagonist in Sweat, Delia Jones, husband, Sykes, is an example of these three terms. He showed his violence towards her multiple time. His violence is so brutal that it has visibly changed Delia, not only in the physical sense, but also her demeanor which he neighbors point out as she walked past them, “Too much knockin' will ruin any 'oman. He done beat huh 'nough tuh kill three women, let 'lone change they looks…” (Huston 953). He degraded his wife verbally by referring to her as a …show more content…
“…aggravatin nigger woman” (Huston 951). He also messed with her mentally by bringing home a snake, knowing that was her biggest fear. He is disloyal because he is having an affair with a woman named Bertha. There’s a symbol very early in the story that represents Sykes’s dominance. That’s the bull whip, “Just then something long, round, limp and black fell upon her shoulders and slithered to the floor beside her. A great terror took hold of her. It softened her knees and dried her mouth so that it was a full minute before she could cry out or move. Then she saw that it was the big bull whip her husband liked to carry when he drove” (Huston 950). This symbol could mean several things. It could be a symbol for Sykes’s penis, physical proof of Sykes’ ego. Proof of this lies in the description of the whip, “long, round, limp, and black”. He also placed the bull whip on her, which could be symbolic of all the times Sykes forced his body on Delia to distract her and dominate her. He used his body to dominate Delia multiple times in the story; when he got in bed with her and kicked her feet, when he stood in front of the door way, and pushed her to look at the snake. This further supports this interpretation of this symbol. Another interpretation that I can connect further with the other two stories is that Sykes holding the whip reminded me of a slave master threating to whip his slave. Of course, the whip was a symbol of power in the sense that the fear of pain caused slaves to do as ordered, suppressing rebellion. Sykes is doing this as well. He is using the fear of pain to persuade Delia to do as he wants. This backfires on Sykes, however, when Delia takes a skillet to defend herself, which caused Sykes to flee since his whip, his power of dominance, wasn’t working. “Warrior Woman” focuses on Kingston’s unnamed aunt, who killed herself after becoming pregnant.
The aunt’s reasoning for doing this is because of her lover’s actions. Like Sykes, her fictionalized lover is depicted as violent, degrading, and unfaithful. Like her husband, her lover threatened her constantly, “The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders: she followed. “if you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week” (Kingston 1547). He was degrading because he used her body as a tool for sex, much like her last husband who Kingston imagined him leaving her after having sex only once, “The night she first saw him, he had sex with her. Then he left for America. She had almost forgotten what he looked like” (Kingston 1546). Finally, her lover was unfaithful, not in the sexual sense like Sykes, but in the sense of betrayal. Kingston imagined he planned the raid after her aunt told him she was pregnant. This was the ultimate betrayal because as Kingston points out, the only reason why she got pregnant was because of him, “My Aunt could not have been the lone romantic who gave up everything for sex. Women in the old china did not choose. Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil” (Kingston 1546). In this male dominated society, Kingston’s aunt didn’t have the privilege to have complete control over her body. The lover more than likely forced her to do it. He knew she would be disgraced but he didn’t care. Much like The Scarlet Letter, the woman would have faced the criticism and the man would have been hidden in the shadows. Her aunt couldn’t hide in the shadow because she had physical proof of her sin. It’s bad enough that her lover quietly watched Kingston’s aunt suffer, but it’s despicable to think that he actually planned the raid. To link it further to “Sweat”, the raid is another symbol that made me think of a white slave master and black slave relationship. I made
this connection because the villagers wore white masks, raided their house, and carried lantern, much like the Ku Klux Klan. In Woman Hollering Creek, Cleofilas suspected that her husband, Juan, was cheating on her throughout the story. He wouldn’t come home at night sometimes, and her personal items were arranged differently. However, Cleofilas dismissed the evidence as her imagination. Unlike Sykes and the lover in the last two stories, Juan never verbally degraded Cleofilas except for the one time he called her a woman instead of his name, “…Why can’t you just leave me in peace, woman” (Cisneros 1618). This is minimal when compared to the other husbands. However, Juan degraded his wife psychological, turning her meek and weak. Her confidence was lowered drastically due to her husband’s abuse and she found herself constantly making excuses for his actions. She depends on her husband for food and a home, which serves as further proof of his dominance. This also aligns with the slave and slave master relationship, with Cleofilas herself recognized as she called him master on page 1619. Cleofilas cooks and cleans the house while Juan feeds her and keeps a roof over her head, much like a slave master did for its slaves.
In the short story “Woman Hollering Creek” the conflict of the story is between the main characters Cleofilas, the protagonist, and Juan, the antagonist who are married. The conflict stems from Cleofilas’ perception of how a wife should be treated versus Juan’s idea of how to treat
Society continually places restrictive standards on the female gender not only fifty years ago, but in today’s society as well. While many women have overcome many unfair prejudices and oppressions in the last fifty or so years, late nineteenth and early twentieth century women were forced to deal with a less understanding culture. In its various formulations, patriarchy posits men's traits and/or intentions as the cause of women's oppression. This way of thinking diverts attention from theorizing the social relations that place women in a disadvantageous position in every sphere of life and channels it towards men as the cause of women's oppression (Gimenez). Different people had many ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities amound women, including expressing their voices and opinions through their literature. By writing stories such as Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic that took a major toll in American History. In this essay, I am going to compare Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” to James’ “Daisy Miller” as portraits of American women in peril and also the men that had a great influence.
Sandra Cisneros short story “Woman Hollering Creek”, has many allegories about culture, morality, and gender roles.
...to enter Earth in “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” is ultimately justifiable due to the latter’s inability to contribute positively towards society. The men provide no useful development due to the women’s self-sustainability, while the dominant and aggressive components of the men’s masculinities present too great of a threat. In all fairness, Tiptree shatters the hegemonic appeal of a patriarchal society to present a world where men are unimportant and where the women are the major figures in power. However, such a setting still results in the degradation of a specific group. Therefore, it is questionable whether true equality between groups or genders can ever be reached without catastrophic results ensuring.
Towards the beginning of the book, Kingston tells about her mother informing her of this story of her aunt in a way to prevent her from have sex out of wedlock and betraying her family. "My aunt could not have been the lone romantic who gave up everything for sex (224).” A lone romantic would have slept with a lot of men and Kingston did not want to think of her aunt in that way. Contextual references such as, “Now that you have started to menstruate… (223)” revealed that Kingston’s thought occurred at a young age when her mother spoke to her. It is because of Kingston’s youth and innocence that she would genuinely see the best in her aunt. In order to keep the thought of her aunt pure, she protects the aunt’s virtues by suggesting the possibility of rape. At this point, Kingston defends her aunt by thinking of her as a victim and as someone accused of immoralities.
In the Macho Paradox Katz explores the issue of violence against women, but emphasizes the importance of men taking this issue personally and understanding its relevance for themselves and the women in their lives. Katz creates a personal connection to violence against women for the male audience of his book by emphasizing the statistical likelihood of them each knowing a survivor of violence. Katz uses the idea of knowing a survivor to make the issue of violence both personally relatable and relevant for men, with the intention of using this relatability as a catalyst for action and as a means of creating pathways for men to understand their importance as allies in the fight against gendered violence.
Both "Happy Endings" and Foe provide commentary on gender issues in modern fiction writing. In "Happy Endings", Margaret Atwood’s attack on gender stereotypes reveals itself in the form of character interactions. Her various story versions portray how women are victims of conformity in a patriarchal societ...
In “Violence Against Women Is a Men’s Issue” the author, Jackson Katz, really connects the audience to the fact that we live in a society that almost promotes violence towards women, and that women, or victims, are not to blame for this.
Patriarchal silencing can be enforced in three different ways; physical abuse, emotional abuse, and social demands and/or expectations. Although both books have opposite cultural and racial factors that influence the way in which the women in the books are treated, we can still see that these three ways of silencing women are present. In Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”, the form of patriarchal silencing that is most prominent is the viole...
Oppression of women in our patriarchal society is seen daily. Men dominate women in so many ways it becomes hard to distinguish one form of oppression from another. In the movie Sleeping With the Enemy, a young woman battles daily with an abusive, domineering husband. Although the outside world may view Laura's life as perfect, the viewer sees the whole truth. Laura's perfect life consists of an attractive, wealthy husband who would do anything for her-even kill. They live in a beautiful mansion on the coast, and Laura does not have to work if she so chooses. Every day Laura is tortured and ridiculed and criticized by her husband. Her husband, Martin Burns, is obsessed about keeping the household in perfect condition. If one towel is out of line, one can out of order in the cupboard, or if dinner is slightly late, Laura receives a severe beating. The only way for Laura to escape from her tyrannical husband is by staging her own death.
Why do women choose to live in abusive and miserable relationships? Instead of taking actions and strive for happy life, women choose to stay silent. They have all the power to go against self-empowered men, but most of women renounce action. There are certain obstacle created by society and especially men that make it harder for women to stand up for themselves. The following articles explore and elucidate the idea of women’s silence and timidness to act. John Berger in his article “The Ways of Seeing” indicates women and men’s roles appearance in society and towards each other. The writer introduces the concept of surveyed and surveyor, where men play a role of an observant and women are an item that they observe. In the article “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” Audre Lorde discusses the importance of speaking out in order to show your true self. Silence only increases anxiety and feeling of oppression. The inspiring story in the excerpt “The Church and Slavery” by Harriet Jacobs tells us about slaves fighting for there freedom and equality through gaining knowledge of reading and writing. A lot of risks were taken to overcome the control of white man and oppression, but in the end those risks brought the start to the better future. Very illustrating and encouraging poster “You Body is a Battleground” shows the conflict that goes within abused women The light side of the poster shows the masked life of abused women, who pretend to live a happy life for others. The dark side illustrates women true feelings and emotions. The colors black, white and red, which were chosen by the artist Barbara Kruger connects us more to the poster, and makes us, share the pain of abused women. In the article “Once classroo...
For centuries, all across the globe, the traditional woman has been soft-spoken, modest, religious, and obedient to their husbands. The women would wake up, clean the house, cook and cater to their family. For many women, husbands would beat and abuse them, but it was the rural life, which was normal to them, comfortable even. The 1920s hit in the Unites States of America, leading to multiple victories that would carve a new path. Little did these women know, that their actions would influence the way that the female lives
Throughout history, many societies have been controlled by a patriarchy where women were oppressed. This is a very common occurrence, especially in Puritan communities during the early settlement of America. Adrienne Rich, a feminist poet, discusses the inequalities in male dominated societies in her essay “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision.” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter reflects the themes seen in Rich’s essay. In his novel, Hester Prynne challenges society’s expectations of women, yet is still confined in “a culture controlled by males.”
Women are often described as weak, emotional, and powerless in comparison to men. The general thought is that men, because they are bigger and most times stronger, hold power over women’s minds and bodies. To be a feminist is to advocate for women’s rights in all aspects of humanity. In An Untamed State by Roxane Gay, Gay is able to portray the power of strength and survival in women. Men have a certain incompetence when it comes to expressing true emotion, while women, because of their ability to see things through a compassionate insight, hold the utmost power.
Learning from your own mistakes is not wisdom, but merely intelligence, a subset of wisdom. Unlike intelligence, which is limited to one’s understanding, wisdom encompasses intelligence and adds the concept of learning from others and their experiences. People learn from not only past events, people or stories, but also through fears – or what might cause us disorder and harm – in order to avoid it in the future. If so, then what is the importance to learn from fear or from what goes against the status quo?