According to Anne Frank, “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of persons character lies in their own hands”. Duddy Kravitz is coming of age and has his whole life ahead of him. He is offered advice from the parental figures in his life and he is taking it to heart. However, Duddy must decide how he will choose to pursue his dreams and build his character. In Mordecai Richler’s novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, one is able to analyze the story through a Feminist, Marxist and Psychoanalytic lenses.
Feminism is one of the lenses through which the reader is able to analyze the novel. In the novel, Yvette Durelle, is the leading female character. Yvette meets Duddy during his summer employment at the hotel in St. Agathe. She is the one to introduce Duddy to the land
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that he yearns for. After that summer, Yvette works for Duddy as his secretary. Women have been granted some economic power, including Yvette, who appears to have more liability compared to Duddy. For example, “The farmers would be wary of a young Jew, they might jack up the or even refuse to sell but another French-Canadian would not be suspect” (Richler, 99). Duddy’s selection of Yvette demonstrates that women of the French-Canadian community are eligible to purchase and own property, like their male counterparts. However, on a social level Yvette needs feminism. When with men, Yvette is treated unequally, especially by Duddy who is a misogynist and does not view her as her own, independent person. For example, “You like me and that doesn’t stop you from behaving like… well like you owned me” (252). Yvette is viewed by Duddy as a tool left at his disposal; like a possession. Duddy disregards anything important to or for Yvette, unless it will cease or encourage his benefits. Furthermore, despite having some independence, Yvette is still expected to be a proper lady. Yvette is supposed to know her place and is being oppressed emotionally and psychologically by men, mainly Duddy. For example: “‘You do eh? Well I’ll tell you. You know what you saw in me? You saw a young guy who was going to make it. You saw a pretty good life ahead. Don’t look at me like that either. Let’s be frank. If not for me you might have been a lousy chambermaid for the rest of your life. Don’t! You try to slap me and I’ll kick your teeth in. ‘Sometimes I wonder what I saw in you.’ Don’t make me laugh.’ (…) ‘Well there were lots of things you did pretty bad in that office’” (254-255). Duddy does not care about Yvette’s wellbeing or mental health, his goal is to make her feel guilty and ashamed. He puts her down to make himself feel more powerful and like he actually has control over her when in reality Yvette has his land in her name. Duddy often brings up her past reputation at the hotel in St. Agathe and her time as a chambermaid during arguments and verbally threatens Yvette with potential physical violence whenever she tries to discuss the sore topic – power. Therefore, the economical balance between men and women but the continuous oppression of the females in the novel is some of the reasons why one is able to read the novel through a feminist lens. Secondly, Furthermore, one may further analyze the novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz through a psychoanalytic lens.
The main character, Duddy Kravitz, is a young boy – not of age – from a Jewish community in Quebec. Duddy resides with his father, Max, who defines as being a pimp. Duddy’s mother dies when he is young and has no female role model in his life; he is raised by men. For example, “Then she turned her attention on Duddy and hoping to distract her, he talked about Yvette. ‘The Oedipus’ Aunt Ida said. (…) ‘Your mother was taken from you when you were young and all your life you will be searching for a woman to replace her. All boys want to have sexual relations with their mother’” (244). The loss of his mother effects Duddy’s behaviour and attitude towards women. Duddy unconsciously views Yvette as a mother figure; replacing the mother he is never able to know. The lack of compassion and sympathy – typically provided by a mother in a child’s life – from the men in his family, Duddy adopted as well. Duddy does not know or understand how he should be treating people, more specifically women. To continue during Duddy’s childhood, his
father In conclusion, the reader is able to read and analyze Mordecai Richler’s novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz through various literary theories, for example, Feminism, Marxism and Psychoanalytic criticism. Duddy Kravitz’s misogynist tendencies, his work and power struggle to success and his childhood memories may be analyzed through the lenses previously stated.
In the Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Mordecai Richler clearly intends to portray his main character as a failure. Duddy understands perfectly well that a man must pursue his dreams, which is why he is one of the most motivated young man of his time. From the moment Duddy hears his grandfather say, "A man without land is nobody,” he is prepared to seek the land of his dreams. This aspiration of Duddy’s is very respectable, but unfortunately his methods are totally inappropriate, and that leads to him being a failure.
In society, most people have an obsession to some extent, these may include such things as a hobby – collecting antiques; or even as simple as having to have things a certain way. For others though, obsession has a different meaning, they might become obsessed with one special object, or possibly attaining a certain goal. They might go about achieving this goal no matter what the consequences to others might be. Mordecai Richler’s book the Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, illustrates one such case of obsession, the title character, Duddy Kravitz becomes obsessed with his grandfather’s saying, “ ‘ A man without land, is nothing.’”, thus starting Duddy on his quest to attain a piece of land. Throughout his quest, Duddy has no regard for the feelings or the relationships he destroys in the process, weather it in his family relations, business relations, or even his personal relations to those that are closest to him.
...e on her part. Throughout the story, the Mother is portrayed as the dominant figure, which resembled the amount of say that the father and children had on matters. Together, the Father, James, and David strived to maintain equality by helping with the chickens and taking care of Scott; however, despite the effort that they had put in, the Mother refused to be persuaded that Scott was of any value and therefore she felt that selling him would be most beneficial. The Mother’s persona is unsympathetic as she lacks respect and a heart towards her family members. Since the Mother never showed equality, her character had unraveled into the creation of a negative atmosphere in which her family is now cemented in. For the Father, David and James, it is only now the memories of Scott that will hold their bond together.
Which is caused by the narrator having a male perspective. The narrator does not give the women and credit or redeeming qualities. All the women follow a general stereotype. If they tried to break away from the stereotype, they would me more important and influential characters. Paquette, a chambermaid in the Baron’s castle, is described as “a pretty and obedient brunette” (5). She is identified obedient not because of her job as a chambermaid, but because she is willing to exploit her soul and body to the men around the castle. In regards to the old woman, she doesn’t even have an actual name, which does not matter since is ugly and useless. The old woman has the mindset that she is; an object; a mistake; a disgrace. That her time has passed as a beautiful useful woman. All the rape and abuse has physically affected her and she is out of luck. In fact, she is lucky if men talk to her, or even look at her without
The theme that has been attached to this story is directly relevant to it as depicted by the anonymous letters which the main character is busy writing secretly based on gossip and distributing them to the different houses. Considering that people have an impression of her being a good woman who is quiet and peaceful, it becomes completely unbecoming that she instead engages in very abnormal behavior. What makes it even more terrible is the fact that she uses gossip as the premise for her to propagate her hate messages not only in a single household but across the many different households in the estate where she stays.
...e relationship with men, as nothing but tools she can sharpen and destroy, lives through lust and an uncanny ability to blend into any social class makes her unique. Her character is proven as an unreliable narrator as she exaggerates parts of the story and tries to explain that she is in fact not guilty of being a mistress, but a person caught in a crossfire between two others.
The first character the book introduces to the reader to is Rorschach, Walter Joseph Kovacs, one of the main characters. Rorschach reveals his past and why he wears a mask on page eleven. Walter’s past is revealed in chapter six when he is examined by a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist gives Walter ink blots and his first vision is of his mother and a man. Also on chapter six, the reader, see that his mother was a prostitute who worked out of her home. Her reasons for practicing prostitution appear when she interacts with Walter. On page four of chapter six, Walter walked into his mother’s bedroom while she was entertaining a man. As soon as his mother realizes he is watching she hits him across the face. "You little shit! You know what you cost me, you ugly little shit. I shoulda listened to everybody else! I shoulda had the abortion." (Pg.4, chap.6, panel 6-7) Walter’s mother did’nt hesitate to physically or verbally abuse him. Her first reaction was to punch him in the face. This reflects the issue of a chain of a abuse. Walter’s mother was probably abused in more ways than one by her parents. Through her behavior of name calling and the rage she portrays it is most likely she was subjected to the same as a child. She basically told Walter that she didn’t want him and regretted having him. She neglects Walter of attention and love, just as she was by her parents. Both Walter and his mother are dealing with issues of neglect and a craving for attention. As a prostitute, we see on page three in chapter six Walter’s mother substitutes sex for love, attention, beauty, and care. She begs her male friend to stay, "Oh baby, please, listen. he’s kinda backwards. Please don’t get mad." She begs the man to stay because having sex makes her feel beautiful because the men want her and touch her. In chapter 6 on page three she says, "Oh you’re hurting me." She says this to her male customer, she did not make him ...
Adele had learned these values by living in Poland, which possessed a far more egalitarian view of women’s roles in the community, which allowed Adele to evaluate American patriarchal society from a differing point of view: “I—a servant? Even in our worst poverty in Poland none of our people have ever been servants. Tailors, storekeepers, but never a servant. Should I be the first to go down? In this perspective, Beauvoir’s theory of the historically constructed gender roles of women as the “other” are subjective, since many differing societies can possess egalitarian views of women: Beauvoir focused not on an individual consciousness but on a relationship…She redefined feminist discourse through her epistemological privileging of female voices.” These are important aspects of Adele’s view of the world, since she has an alternative perspective on how women should be educated from her experiences in Poland,. Beauvoir argues that women can make an actual choice about their gender role identity, since many subservient aspects of female identity are artificial creations by patriarchal social institutions. Certainly, Beauvoir’s The Second Sex defines the social aspects of women’s choices, which Yezierska implies in her main character, Adele, as she struggles to eventually start
...vie, the actresses that played them actually fit the role. Women usually do not have impacts on things, but in this novel, major things happened as a result of these women. These things include dishonest marriages, love affairs, wealth, power, and jealousy. This goes to show that women are not always the innocent ones in novels, or any other type of literature.
Mersault, the narrator and protagonist, is The Stranger. He has cut himself off from the world. As he narrates the novel is divided into two parts. In part 1 he deals with everyday affairs except for two important events. At the beginning of the novel his mother has died. He is struggling to make ends meet, therefore he sent his mother to a nursing home in Marengo. This has brought criticism from the community. At the funeral he does not feel the grief as is expected nor is he concerned with the formalities of mourning. The next day Mersault starts an affair with Marie, who at one time been a typist in his office. They have a wonderful time eating, swimming, watching movies and making love. People, i.e. society is aghast that he has not observed what is considered a proper mourning period for his mother.
To understand feminism in the novel, one must first understand the feminist lens itself. OWL Purdue describes the lens as “the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Purdue). Feminism acts as both a commitment and a political movement that wants to end sexism in all forms. Most feminists generally disagree on many topics of the subject, however all have one common goal. These aspects affect The Things They Carry in a plethora of ways, mostly due to the fact that gender roles is a main theme. There are negative and positive aspects of the feminist lens. Positive contains the empowering of women and equality, whereas negative pertains to oppression and unequal rights. Both are covered in The Things They Carried from sex symbols to battle tor...
...hetypes of these primary characters, both of these novels make a parallel statement on feminism. The expectations of both themselves and society greatly determine the way that these women function in their families and in other relationships. Looking at the time periods in which these novels were written and take place, it is clear that these gender roles greatly influence whether a female character displays independence or dependence. From a contemporary viewpoint, readers can see how these women either fit or push the boundaries of these expected gender roles.
The 19th and 20th centuries were a time period of change. The world saw many changes from gender roles to racial treatment. Many books written during these time periods reflect these changes. Some caused mass outrage while others helped to bring about change. In the book The Awakening by Kate Chopin, gender roles can be seen throughout the novel. Some of the characters follow society’s “rules” on what a gender is suppose to do while others challenge it. Feminist Lens can be used to help infer and interpret the gender roles that the characters follow or rebel against. Madame Ratignolle and Leonce Pontellier follow eaches respective gender, while Alcee Arobin follows and rebels the male gender expectations during the time period.
Men are represented as the authority and the head of the family, without giving the woman the opportunity to contribute with her ideas and opinions. Armand, as many man in his time, sees woman as inferior not only physically but also intellectually. This notion of man superiority is also a problem that current society confronts, and it is more commonly present in lower classes. There are still cases in which men insult and hit woman because they see them as inferior and not worth of respect. Furthermore, in the story we have the case of black servant women. Who besides of having to deal with all the abuses a slave suffers, have also to confront the discrimination that their sex inherently has. This group suffers the racism of the entire white society, and also is discriminated by white woman who do not treat them as equals. Even though slavery is not currently allowed, there is still discrimination towards women who work as maids in houses or companies. For instance, sometimes they are denied basic rights such as medical insurance or a minimum
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).