Gender Roles and Gender as a Role in Farquar’s The Recruiting Officer and Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
The notion of gender may be in the process of breaking free of binaries in the present day, but not so long ago it wasn’t considered separate from the biological ‘sex’. While having to choose one over the other, each gender had their own assigned roles, restrictions and prohibitions. That basic understanding of the active and lively men versus passive and gentle women ideal has only started to change for the last century or so. However, subtle challenges had been made before, and surely this has found its place in literature as well. As a literary form meeting the audience not just in text, but also as a performed means of
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Rather than going all the trouble of becoming a man to possess men’s liberties, the very universe they exist in seem to have reversed the roles for them, so “this inverted relationship is the norm of the play” (Jordan 102). The difference between the restoration comedy and this late Victorian one is that at the time it is now “the age of the New Woman” (103), and Gwendolen and Cecily don’t lose anything from their female identities even when the roles are reversed. They don’t act, but their whole life is the stage, their performance a reality. According to Foster, they both “bear the marks of the romantic Female” (22), so they are still submissive to their superiors in the social hierarchical order, but they are also “the worldliest of schemers”. They play with their lovers like playing chess (Foster 22-23). They “turn out to be hard-headed, cold-blooded, efficientand completely self-possessed and the young gentlemen simplv crumple in front of them” (Jordan 102). They are genuine women with the assumed qualities of men. Moreover, even though they are not performing their gender-roles, they are peculiarly interested in making their relationships staged-like. While the switched gender roles are a norm, these inverted roles allow other performances to take place. Gwendolen makes Jack propose to her, forces him to say the complete lines as if the whole thing is …show more content…
According to Jordan, Lady Bracknell “exemplifies feminine strength” (184). Throughout the play, Lord Bracknell’s only name is mentioned. He is in a sense “dominated by his female relatives” (Jordan 103). Gwendolen even goes to say that, “Outside the family circle, papa, I am glad to say, is entirely unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not?” (p. 39). As parents their roles are also inverted and while Lord Bracknell spends his time at home, Lady Bracknell becomes the one to interrogate their daughter’s potential husbands. This issue of domesticity of men is not just raised here, but also when Gwendolen talks about the name Jack. She asserts “Jack is a notorious domesticity for John” (p.
During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...
In Oscar Wilde’s drama The Importance of Being Earnest, he uses light-hearted tones and humor to poke fun at British high society while handling the serious theme of truth and the true identity of who is really “Earnest.” Truth as theme is most significantly portrayed through the women characters, Gwendolen and Cecily but to present serious themes comically, Wilde portrays women to be the weaker sex of society, despite the seriousness of the subject—the identity of the men they want to marry.
The male characters act as catalysts in implementing this change, as they alter the lives of others yet are not themselves changed. However, it cannot be said that men are entirely responsible for this degeneration- to a certain extent, the fate of the women rests in their own hands. A comparison between the two texts, considering both the male characters’ responsibility, and the women’s own responsibility for themselves, will be decisive in determining how and why the women degenerate and the consequences of this deterioration.
Knowing this you would think women would portray themselves more seriously, but the exact opposite is happening. These continuous loops of failure have severely weakened women’s physical presence, and because of this, are continuously singled out in world discussions on topics such as war or threats to national security, and are constantly burdened with tasks regarding health and family life. In my research I read many books from the nineteenth-century onwards, such as, Stuart Mill’s book ‘The Subjection of Women’ (1869) to Butler’s ‘Gender Troubles’ (1990), both of these and many more books has helped in my quest to conjure up a personal concept of women, but out of all of them I found Berger’s ‘Ways of seeing’ the most fruitful in terms of a literal explanation of women.
Accordingly, I decided the purposes behind women 's resistance neither renamed sexual introduction parts nor overcame money related dependence. I recalled why their yearning for the trappings of progression could darken into a self-compelling consumerism. I evaluated how a conviction arrangement of feeling could end in sexual danger or a married woman 's troublesome twofold day. None of that, regardless, ought to cloud an era 's legacy. I comprehend prerequisites for a standard of female open work, another style of sexual expressiveness, the area of women into open space and political fights previously cornered by men all these pushed against ordinary restrictions even as they made new susceptibilities.
When the play was set in 1912, women had lacked empowerment and rights, while men had a higher status in society, despite women had no important role in society. By using Priestley’s Inspector Calls we can identify how women were portrayed in the early 20th century. Priestley has explored this in a variety of ways, by customizing the different types of female character to show an insight on how they have viewed upon the world and importantly on how they were treated differently based on several factors like class, money, and age. For an instance, Priestley uses traditional women and transitional women to contrast their lifestyle when it was set in the Edwardian Era.
The narrator, a young girl, feels more inclined to spend her time outside alongside her father, “I worked willingly under his eyes, and with a feeling of pride.” She finds her place in a man’s world, outdoors in her father’s domain. While she is a female, she does not relate herself to the things of feminine nature. When her mother goes to speak with her father in the barn, the narrator “felt my mother had no business down here,” admitting that it was a man’s world, and also her place, but not her mother’s. Her mother could not stand the idea of her daughter doing a man’s work, reminding her husband, “Wait till Laird gets a little bigger, then you’ll have real help and then I can use her more in the house.
As Lorber explores in her essay “Night to His Day”: The Social Construction of Gender, “most people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of that social life” (Lorber 1). This article was very intriguing because I thought of my gender as my sex but they are not the same. Lorber has tried to prove that gender has a different meaning that what is usually perceived of through ordinary connotation. Gender is the “role” we are given, or the role we give to ourselves. Throughout the article it is obvious that we are to act appropriately according to the norms and society has power over us to make us conform. As a member of a gender an individual is pushed to conform to social expectations of his/her group.
...ve been suffering mental abuse by their husband. This play presents the voice of feminism and tries to illustrate that the power of women is slightly different, but can be strong enough to influence the male dominated society. Although all women are being oppressed in the patriarchal society at that time, Glaspell uses this play as a feminist glory in a witty way to win over men. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters solve the crime by reflecting on Minnie Wright’s unhappy marriage that leads her to murdering. Using the relationship between female and male characters throughout the play, Glaspell speaks up to emphasize how the patriarchal society underestimated women’s rights and restricted women’s desires.
Nevertheless, there are passages in which the female characters in this play take up men’s roles and are presented as the reflection of the figure ‘New Woman’. The concept of ‘New Woman’ referred to the feminist women of the 1900’s who rejected and challenged the prevailing male hegemony and, as a consequence, attempted to challenge the Victorian society’s expectations of female demeanour and morality. For example, throughout the character of Lady Bracknell, who is Gwendolen’s mother, in the following text.
Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens into solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman…Nature provides exceptions to every rule (Fuller 293-4).
Initially, Catherine fully anticipates marrying John, begging her father not to let her down and “forbid the match” (8). However, as the scene continues Catherine’s attitudes do not match the expected emotions of an engaged woman. Her mother criticizes, “You’re such a funny girl…You don’t behave as if you were in love,” showing that society has standards for women in love (9). Catherine, choosing to satisfy her mother, declares, “I love John in every way that a woman can love a man, and far, far more than he loves me” (9). Realizing his sister’s intellect and the superiority complex of patriarchy Dickie warns, “Suppress your opinions. Men don’t like ‘em in their lady friends, even if they agree with ‘em. And if they don’t – it’s fatal. Pretend to be half-witted…then he’ll adore you” (32). At this point in the play, Catherine still feels the looming patriarchal power and prioritizes her relationship with John. Placating Dickie, she assures him that in a battle between her heart and mind, “there’s not much doubt about which will win”
Both Phillip Ross' novel As For Me and My House and Sharron Pollock's "Blood Relations" address the ideological gender roles Mrs. Bentley and Miss Lizzie are up against and how they resist and comply to them. Miss Lizzie refuses for as long as she needs to because carrying out a facade of female compliance allows for a bit of rebellion and Mrs. Bentley's marriage to Phillip, who is not entirely playing his role, allows for a small amount of freedom to arrange things closer to her own desires. In this essay I will focus on the relationships the main characters of "Blood Relations" and As For Me and My House have with other characters. Both Pollock and Ross are able to point out the restraints in women’s lives because of their gender by having the main characters be in charge of telling their stories. These techniques create ambiguity as well as addressing the ideological gender roles Mrs. Bentley and Miss Lizzie are up against. They are not stories of liberation but of how these two women navigate within these roles and stereotypes. Miss Lizzie refuses to do things for as long as she is able while carrying out a facade of female compliance regarding her father while at the same time getting her way and Mrs. Bentley's marriage to a man who is not entirely playing his role allows for a small amount of freedom to arrange things closer to her own desires.
Bibliography Callaway (1978) ‘ The most essentially female function of all’ in Ardener (ed) Defining Females Cornwall & Lindisfarne (1994) ‘Dislocating Masculinity: gender, power and anthropology’, in Cornwall & Lindisfarne (eds) Dislocating Masculitnity Hoskins (1998) Biographical Objects MacCormack & Strathern (1980) Nature, Culture, and Gender Moore (1986) Space, Text and Gender Ortner (1974) ‘Is female to male as nature is to culture?’. In Rosaldo & Lamphere (eds) Women, culture and society
The relationship between sex and gender can be argued in many different lights. All of which complicated lights. Each individual beholds a sexual identity and a gender identity, with the argument of perceiving these identities however way they wish to perceive them. However, the impact of gender on our identities and on our bodies and how they play out is often taken for granted in various ways. Gender issues continue to be a hugely important topic within contemporary modern society. I intend to help the reader understand that femininities and masculinities is a social constructed concept and whether the binary categories of “male” and “female” are adequate concepts for understanding and organising contemporary social life with discussing the experiences of individuals and groups who have resisted these labels and forged new identities.