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Power gender and social relations
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And here Pygmalion, old sculptor of heathen times now passed, flames of frosted fires that cast the black light upon the shadows of a starless night. For in his scalding pit where once was heart, burns the curded kindling of perverse pleasures and impious passions. He toils at his foul forge, and there in the blistering bowels of Earth's volcanic throats, in the snarling jaws of his flaming furnace, there stands the lustful sculptor Pygmalion's greatest labour: there stands a woman. Though a sculpture, she effortlessly bleeds sensuality in every carved tendon, the polished pinnacle of a chiseled beauty. She poses with her fixed yearning gaze, her unmoving sinuous locks of hair and inert firmed breasts. And perhaps most remarkable of all, breath is drawn from those delicately crafted lips. For to Pygmalion's iniquitous delight, he has brought life upon his beloved ivory sculpted woman. Imprisoned in that hellish chasm of warm swelling nightmares and streams of wet lunar lust, she stands, to be admired and to be perpetually loved by her master. And neither shall confess the love is not real. For does that gentle rapping of her crimson ruby heart serve her to live, or for her to live to serve? Though Pygmalion's supposed love for his living sculpted woman may be purely the stuff of antiquity lore, its enlightening commentary of love itself is not. Many partners have constructed relationships around a cruel imbalance of power. Indeed, just as Pygmalion believed he loved his perfected, though enslaved ivory lady, so too has myriads of men mistaken an intricate misconception of love for what in actuality is no more than a sculptor admiring his sculpture. This somber reality of love was perhaps most astutely realized in Henrik's Ibsen N...
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In conclusion both A Doll's House and The Sopranos expose the self-destructive nature of romantic engagements where significant imbalances of power between partners exist as seen through their characters: in A Doll's House Nora's and Torvald's marriage tears due to Torvald overbearing control; similarly, in The Sopranos, Carmella leaves Tony due to his excessive and abusive use of power in their collapsed, loveless marriage. Indeed, love need not be loving; often, the pursuit of love leads to more hate than true affection. And yet it is pursued nonetheless. It is this universal pursuit of love that joins the loving Romeo and Juliet to the ranks of the loveless Torvald and Nora, the adoring Hero and Leander to the despising Carmella and Tony. For nothing is more joyful, and yet so potentially horrible, as love. And that, perhaps, is the greatest wonder of it all.
Lust or Love: An Essay Analyzing the Relationship of Romeo and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
In my examination of the works, I came across a particular sculpture that portrayed both beauty and craftsmanship. A 15th century sculpture (1490), made in Venice, Italy by Tullio Lombardo, shows a life-size figure of Adam. Titled Adam, the work is the most prominent in the gallery mostly because of its 6-foot standing. It immediately caught my attention and gave me a very realistic impression. One beige color and made of marble, Adam is depicted simply, yet the statue has intense emotions. His meaningful glance is seen in the upward and tilted head position. Adam has almost lifeless looking eyes and seems to be staring into the distance. With these sagging eyes, parted lips, and lacking posture I feel Adam’s guilt is displayed in this figure.
Eupriedes, Medea and Sappho’s writing focus on women to expose the relationships between a variety of themes and the general ideal that women are property. The main characters in both pieces of literature demonstrate similar situations where love and sex result in a serious troll. These themes affected their relationship with themselves and others, as well as, incapability to make decisions which even today in society still affects humans. Headstrong actions made on their conquest for everlasting love connects to sacrifices they made to achieve their goal which ultimately ended in pain. Love and sex interferes with development of human emotions and character throughout the course
Love is a wonderful curse that forces us to do unexplainable things. Romeo and Juliet is a famous play written by William Shakespeare, who does an exceptional job in showing the readers what hate, mercy, death, courage, and most importantly what love looks like. This play is about two star-crossed lovers who are both willing to sacrifice their lives just to be with one another. Unfortunately tragedy falls upon the unconditional love Romeo and Juliet have for each other, but along the way they experience immeasurable forgiveness and extraordinary braveness just to be with one another. Sadly enough, love is a cause of violence in the end. Even though the pair spends less time together, it is enough for them to fall in love. It is clearly true
Can a simple emotion such as love be regarded as one of the greatest weapons to create or attain power? It’s a renowned fact that human beings are by nature designed to need, crave, and even require love as part of their survival mechanisms. It comes to no surprise that one of the first accounts of antique poetry maintains love and the craving for it as its main theme; thereby, reinforcing the deep importance that it upholds in the lives of many individuals. Sappho’s “Deathless Aphrodite” clearly epitomizes the suffering and bitterness that arises from an unrequited love. In Sappho’s case, which portrays the case of many, she constantly finds herself in loneliness and despair for though she tries repeatedly, she is only let down recurrently as no one reciprocates the love she gives. It is only the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who holds
The image that has been produced over time about the Goddess of Desire, the renowned Aphrodite, is one of a longhaired beauty, riding atop a scallop shell to bestow her beauteous wonders upon the mortal earth and Olympus. This is an icon of femininity and perfection, the most stunning of the already statuesque gods and goddesses. Doves and sparrows are her counterparts as is the sweet and playful Cupid in later Roman myths. However, this seemingly flawless picture of delicacy and sensual delights is far from perfect. In fact, when looked at a little more closely, the mien of Aphrodite becomes distorted, her beauty playing out to actually be her curse. In the next pages we will delve into the true nature of the Love Goddess, contemplate the source of her ‘deeds’ and then determine how high a pedestal she actually rests upon.
The feminist Lois Wyse once stated, “Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.” Women should express remorse for their strengths, when men should feel guilt when exposing their weaknesses. Wyse believed that women should have been able to show their strengths in their oppressive societies instead of covering them up. The 19th century setting in the two plays, A Doll House and Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen, caused much grief in both Nora and Hedda. They both lived in Europe during the 1800’s where males dominated the way society ran. Ibsen created an environment for women to question the society they lived in. Nora and Hedda, two feminists living in a masculine household bereft of happiness, desired to evade their unhappy life at home under the guidance of a man. Eventually, both women escaped from their husband’s grasps, but Hedda resorted to suicide in order to leave. Nora agreed with Lois Wyse by showing her strengths with pride to everybody, while Hedda hid her strengths like a coward by killing herself. Ibsen used numerous literary elements and techniques to enhance his writing and to help characterize the two protagonists. Nora, characterized as a benevolent and strong person, left her husband to explore the beliefs in society and to interpret ideas herself. Unlike Nora, the belligerent, selfish Hedda destroyed the lives of people around her just to take her own life in the end. Even though it appeared that Nora abandoned all responsibility for her children and hid an insidious secret from her husband, Nora showed greater fortitude than Hedda in the way she faced the obstacles of her life.
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.
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a play commonly viewed and known as a true love story; however, after analyzing several hints portrayed by the protagonists, it is evident that Shakespeare did not intend to make Romeo and Juliet seem like a true love story but a criticism of how superficial society’s view on love is.
In the play “Romeo and Juliet”, Shakespeare shows that love has power to control one’s actions, feelings, and the relationship itself through the bond between a destined couple. The passion between the pair grew strong enough to have the capability to do these mighty things. The predestined newlyweds are brought down a rocky road of obstacles learning love’s strength and the meaning of love.
[This is the text of a lecture delivered, in part, in Liberal Studies 310 at Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC, Canada. References to Ibsen's text are to the translation by James McFarlane and Jens Arup (Oxford: OUP, 1981). This text is in the public domain, released July 2000]
The Pygmalion myth as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a fairly straightforward love story. Pygmalion is a sculptor who hates women and sculpts a beautiful statue of a woman. As it would, he falls in love with his statue and when the festival of Venus arrives, Pygmalion prays to Venus so that he can find a wife like the girl he has carved from ivory. Luckily for him, Venus knows his heart’s desire and she brings the statue to life. Pygmalion and his wife marry and live happily ever after. Though the girl is never named by Ovid, later on the name Galatea is attributed to her. There are certain aspects of the Pygmalion myth that are rather sickening when taking into account the message behind the myth. The entire basis of the Pygmalion plot stems from a character making another - literally, such as making a statue, or figuratively, though lessons in
sure the children don’t see it till it’s decorated this evening”(Ibsen 892). There is also a
A Dollhouse by Henrik Ibsen is the story of one woman’s struggle to free herself
Societal problems prevail throughout the history of the world and exist within all countries, regions, and cultures. The controversial aspects in societies are based on a large variety of subjects, and have to be identified in order to cause societal change. Therefore, Realism is the portrayal of difficulties in societies that are depicted in everyday life, which includes common situations and actions. Realism allows authors to describe and emphasize the incompetence of some aspects within communities, while enabling writers to call for societal reform. Henrik Ibsen portrays and addresses the concepts of Norway’s society in the 19th century in A Doll House, which is a tragic play translated by Rolf Fjelde. Ibsen desires to challenge assumptions as well as rules of Norwegian life, and most importantly wants to depict society accurately, as he meticulously incorporates everyday life. Therefore, A Doll House represents a Realistic drama due to the issues involving women, illnesses, and laws within the play, while conveying Ibsen’s desire of controversy and change in Norway’s society.