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Gender roles throughout literature
Definnig gender in literature
Gender roles throughout literature
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In Edmund Spenser’s epic romance titled, The Faerie Queene, the author takes the reader on a journey with the naive Red Crosse Knight on his route to finding holiness. On the Red Crosse Knights journey to holiness, he encounters two very different women that affect his travels to becoming a virtuous man. The first woman the Red Crosse encounters is Una, a woman that represents innocents, purity, and truth. Una is beautiful and graceful yet appears to be the strong force that leads the Red Crosse Knight to a more virtuous life. To oppose the truth in Una, Spenser creates Duessa a juxtaposition to Una’s personality. The Red Crosse encounters trouble when he is deceived by the wicked Duessa who represents duplicity, falsehood and deceitfulness. Duessa, like Una appears to be very beautiful but her looks, like her personality is deceiving. Unlike Una, Duessa’s beauty is only skin-deep, a detail that the Red Cross Knight learns the hard way. Throughout the epic romance, Spenser depicts the representation of the women of the sixteenth century through a variety of female figures. While women like Una and later Caelia and her daughters represent the grace and faithfulness in women, other figures like Duessa and Errour represent the falsehood and evil of women. While Spenser created two very different types of women in The Faerie Queene: Book One, the two types of women are similar in the sense that they appear to be very strong at times and very weak at others.
Because a woman was in reign during the sixteenth century, women, for the first time, had power within society. While many authors of the sixteenth century depicted women as simply damsels in distress, Spenser portrays the two main women in the piece as potentially strong women....
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..., Jr., Harry. "Sexual And Religious Politics In Book I Of Spenser's "Faerie Queene.” E English Literary Renaissance 34.2 (2004): 201-242. Academic Search Premier. Web.
Broaddus, James W. "A Galenic Reading Of The Redcrosse Knight's "Goodly Court" Of Fidessa/Duessa." Studies In Philology 109.3 (2012): 192-198. Academic Search Premier. Web.
Jeyathurai, Dashini Ann. “Exorcizing Female Power in The Faerie Queene :The Treatment of Duessa in the Book of Holiness” . Lethbridge Undergraduate Research Journal. 3.2. 2008 Web.
Jordan, Richard Douglas. "Una Among The Satyrs The Faerie Queene, 1.6." Modern Language Quarterly 38.2 (1977): 123. Academic Search Premier. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
Spenser, Edmund. "The Faerie Queen, Book 1." Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Ninth Edition: Volume B. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 781-934. Print.
Traditional female characteristics and female unrest are underscored in literary works of the Middle Ages. Although patriarchal views were firmly established back then, traces of female contempt for such beliefs could be found in several popular literary works. Female characters’ opposition to societal norms serves to create humor and wish- fulfillment for female and male audiences to enjoy. “Lanval” by Marie De France and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer both show subversion of patriarchal attitudes by displaying the women in the text as superior or equal to the men. However, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” also incorporates conventional societal ideas by including degradation of women and mistreatment of a wife by her husband.
Phillips, James E. "Renaissance Concepts of Justice and the Structure of The Faerie Queen, Book V," HLQ, (Feb. 1970), 33, 103-120.
Lipking, Lawrence I, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 1c. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
Hale, John K. “Spenser’s Faerie Queene, 1. 11. 52 and 53". Explicator. 53.1 (1994): 6-8.
“The Taming Of The Shrew” by William Shakespeare is a work of satire created to criticize the misogynistic outlooks of the 16th century. With this play, Shakespeare is trying to say that the idea and role of women in his society is deeply flawed and should be fixed, as well as to make other social commentaries, such as on the treatment of servants. Through exaggeration and parody, Shakespeare makes society look silly.
It takes a creative imagination for a women of the 21st century to realize what their life would have been if they were born 150 years ago. In today’s society, almost any woman could have the career of their dream if they apply themselves. They can choose to marry or not to marry, or choose whether they want children or not; Women have the option to be independent individuals. However, in the 19th century none of those were choices for women. Women weren’t allowed high educations or careers, they had to marry men for social and economic purposes, have children and be housewives. The women of Hamlet and Pride and Prejudice appear to have no exception; both texts show women to be dependent because of their gender, birthright and social class.
Howells, W.D. “Editha.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. Concise ed. Boston: Houghton, 2004. 1445-1454. Print.
During the 16th century, women were not equivalent to men. Women were rarely educated and had only a few rights. The woman basically got marry and had children, or had simple jobs. Certainly, they were viewed as weak individuals and inferior to men. In spite of that one woman raised above this common perception - her majesty, Queen Elizabeth I.
Rollin, Lucy. “Fear of Faerie: Disney and the Elitist Critics.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly Volume 12. Number 2. 1987. Retrieved 18 Dec. 2013 from < http://muse.jhu .edu/journals/chq/summary/v012/12.2.rollin.html>.
William Shakespeare’s The Tempest provides dialogue that portrays the social expectations and stereotypes imposed upon women in Elizabethan times. Even though the play has only one primary female character, Miranda, the play also includes another women; Sycorax, although she does not play as large a roll. During many scenes, the play illustrates the characteristics that represent the ideal woman within Elizabethan society. These characteristics support the fact that men considered women as a mere object that they had the luxury of owning and were nowhere near equal to them. Feminists can interpret the play as a depiction of the sexist treatment of women and would disagree with many of the characteristics and expectations that make Miranda the ideal woman. From this perspective, The Tempest can be used to objectify the common expectations and treatment of women within the 16th and 17th Centuries and compare and contrast to those of today.
Silver, Carole. Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.
Spiller, Elizabeth A. “Poetic Parthenogenesis and Spenser’s Idea of Creation in The Faerie Queene.” Studies in English Literature 40:1 (2000): 63-90.
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. "The Lady of Shalott." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1993. 1059-1063.
Spenser, Edmund. "The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser: Canto XII." The Literature Network: Online Classic Literature, Poems, and Quotes. Essays & Summaries. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 June 2015.
In a society, there are many different opinions on how a women figure is seen. These ideas have changed overtime with the progress of women bring consider equal to men. There are two ways a woman can be interpreted, one brings lower to the men and the other being equal to men. Women play an important role in shaping lives, directly or indirectly. The tales depicted in this book shows the reader the broader insight of how women were seen as in previous years. The different ideas of what women meant to men are seen in the tales told by the characters in the book, mostly the men. The perspective of a woman for a male and a female is different. If we were to compare two tales from each side, the opinion would only be in favour for the individual who is narrating the tale. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”, the role of women is portrayed in two different ways, one