The Presentation of the Patriarchy in Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

565 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Position of women in societal literature

A Patriarchal society is the social construction of male authority over women in an attempt direct their behaviour. In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy presents a story of suffering and pain caused primarily by the men in the novel. Hardy’s bitter critique, mocks the Christian ideals of Victorian thinking (1) which brings about Tess’ demise, a once “innocent country girl”. Similarly, in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind portrays Grenouille, a child of the gutter who is brought up and dies in hate through social condemnation. Hardy initially presents Angel Clare, the “reverends son” as the “hero” come to rescue Tess at the May Day dance. Here his affability towards Tess and her companions socially segregates him from his contemptuous brothers; “I do entreat you…to keep…in touch with moral ideals.” When the reader meets him at Talbothays, the “gentlemen born” pupil has an air of attractiveness that invites trust, with his “young…shapely moustache” and “reserved” demeanour. Indeed the very name ‘Angel’ has connotations of benevolence and divinity; a saviour for th...

Show More
Related

  • Michael Lehman's Heathers and Steve Jodrell's Shame

    2425 Words  | 5 Pages

    Throughout time the concept of gender and the corruption of power associated with it has been a very evident problem within society. Many texts have been designed to expose these issues and in particular the feature films’ Heathers, directed by Michael Lehman and Shame, by Steve Jodrell. Both these films have been heavily constructed in order to position us as the audience to take a very negative response towards the concepts of power and gender and further an ‘anti-conform’ attitude. Techniques such as narrative elements and codes and conventions have been used to mould these ideas and attitudes within the texts.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Judith Walkowitz's 'City Of Dreadful Delight'

    975 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...lass and sexuality by including papers like Stead's which brought middle-class readers in touch with the events of working-class London and provided workers with middle-class representations of themselves. City of Dreadful Delight is an assortment of cross-cultural contact and negotiation between class and sexuality in Victorian era London. Walkowitz's analysis emphasizes distinct “classes,” and the impact of events on each group. Through close social and cultural analysis of the explosion of discourses proceeding and surrounding Jack the Ripper, Walkowitz has demonstrated the historical importance of narratives of sexual danger particularly in the lens of sexuality and class. She explicitly demonstrated the conflicted nature of these discourses, outright showing the women marginalized by male discursive dominance, whose struggles continue to even generations later.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in Little House on the Prairie

    2315 Words  | 5 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Cinderella The Legend By Hurston

    421 Words  | 1 Pages

    In today’s society, gender issues are often discussed as a hot topic. In literature, feminist views are used to criticise “societal norms” in books and stories. Two popular pieces by authors Kolbenschlag and Hurston paint two very different views on women. One common assumption in the use of a feminist critical perspective is that gender issues are central. Kolbenschlag who wrote the literary criticism “Cinderella, the Legend” would most likely disagree with this statement, she feels that women bare greater burdens in society and are more largely affected by social norms.

    Read More

  • Feminism In The Maltese Falcon And The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

    2408 Words  | 5 Pages

    Feminism is the conviction that members of both the male and female gender should be treated equally in all situations in political, economic and socio-cultural settings. It involves activities put in place in support of the interests and just treatment of females. One major way through which feminism manifests itself in the society today is through books and movies. Authors and movie directors depict feminist in their works by using events and characters to bring out how women are looked at and treated in the society. Over the years, Feminism has gradually changed in terms of its nature and the characteristics of the people who took up the belief of feminism (Lyman, 264). Feminists have gradually changed from being about equal rights for men and women to a whole range of complex issues, with the emergence of issues such as radical feminism and the improvements in the amount of knowledge and power that feminists hold (Harnois, 122). This paper takes a look at aspects of feminism present in America and in Britain by analyzing selected situations from two books, The Maltese Falcon and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

    Read More

  • Feminism In Jane Eyre

    635 Words  | 2 Pages

    Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre may be superficially read as simply a sweet romance in which Jane ends up with the man of her dreams after overcoming many obstacles and challenges. But doing so misses the much deeper—richer—messages of Bronte's lasting masterpiece. A more thoughtful reading reveals this novel, especially its heroine Jane, challenging centuries-old gender roles which assume male supremacy, characterizing men as the dominant, more privileged gender, while women are oppressed into inferior and submissive roles. Of course this Victorian novel portrays the expected gender roles of both men and women in 19th century England, but Jane rises out of the patriarchy challenging the social roles assigned her with a personality marked by sass and self-assurance . Ms. Bronte, through Jane, ultimately demonstrates that women can live their lives on equal terms with—or independent of—men.

    Read More

  • The Persecution of Women in Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail and Frenzy

    3307 Words  | 7 Pages

    It can be said that Hitchcock had in some regard, the upmost contempt and disregard for the female character and its expression throughout the majority of his films, showing both a lack of “incontrovertible evidence” (101) and a lack of restrainment in his depiction of a highly problematic and violent incident, the rape and the “attempted” (almost subsequent) murder of a woman. Regardless of how violently depicted the aforementioned incident was, it is the female’s inevitable exclusion through sound and language that leads to her inevitable downfall, displaying both films’ attempts “to appropriate femininity and to destroy it”, alluding to Modelski’s curious comparison of “sympathy and misogyny” (110).

    Read More

  • Evolution of Women in Literature: A Historical Perspective

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout this semester, we have come upon two playwrights and one novel, and even though they have different plots, they live a life where society is patriarchy. Back in the day, literature had feminists writers who believed society should be patriarchy and not equally. Women had no rights back then until the 1840’s. They were not allowed to write. Until, the “Women’s Rights Movement” was passed, and women became writers from many different races and published hundreds of novels, short stories, playwrights, and essays. This was a major evolution in literature because women were finally going to have the ability to express what they were holding in all this time. Although there are still societies that continue to be patriarchy, women are

    Read More

  • The Female Role in A Rose for Emily, Miss Brill, and The Storm

    1167 Words  | 3 Pages

    Reading literature, at first, might seem like simple stories. However, in works like William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily,” Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill,” and Kate Chopin's “The Storm,” the female protagonists are examples of how society has oppressive expectations of women simply because of their gender.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in The Scarlet Letter

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    Therefore, it is my belief that the religious setting of this novel in the Puritan society allowed further emphasis of the profound differences between the character’s gender roles, thereby creating deeper contrast and revealing the flaws of the Puritan’s preconceived notions of patriarchal societal norms.

    Read More

  • Relationship Between Men and Women: Jane Eyre and The Handmaid's Tale

    1786 Words  | 4 Pages

    This twentieth-century tradition of dystopian novels is a possible influence, with classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 standing prominent. The pessimism associated with novels of this genre—where society is presented as frightening and restrictive—exposes the gender inequality between men and women to be deleterious. An aspect of the way male/female relationships are presented in both texts is the repression of female sexuality by men, possibly stemming from a subliminal fear of women attaining power in a male-dominated society. Brocklehurst—a possible reflection of Bront’s Evangelical minister at Cowan Bridge, her own poorly run school—is a male authoritative figure whose relationship with the girls at Lowood is one of imposed tyranny. He means to “tame and humble” them through deprivations and restrictions, but such removal of liberties like cutting off the girls’ hair, consequentially robbing them of female attributes, can be interpreted as the male repression of feminine sexuality.... ...

    Read More

  • Disregarding Women in The Picture of Dorian Gray

    1294 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the Victorian Era of mid nineteen to early twentieth century, a woman’s role in society remained to be in the household, away from the business and cares of men. The feminine side is portrayed as negative, powerless, and lacking (Kileen 49). Society discouraged women from having power in society and neglecting women represented normal in the eyes of most men and women. However, Victorian novels such as The Picture of Dorian Gray illustrate the consequences of disregarding women. In Oscar Wilde’s only novel, the lack of importance surrounding the female characters and their careless treatment from men results in the selfishness of the male characters exemplified through Dorian Gray’s acts of evil.

    Read More

  • Objectification Of Women In The Bloody Chamber By Angela Carter

    1450 Words  | 3 Pages

    Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber,” is a visually intricate and feminist text; this feminism is portrayed through gender roles. The narrator is a young child who transitions into a woman searching for identity, and her husband’s masculine power defines it. In other words, this short story depicts gender roles and personal identity through the use of objectification of women. The deeper meaning behind the roles the men and women have may reflect Carter’s deconstruction of gender norms. The narrator enables the deconstruction by acting as a link; she conjoins two opposing ideas, like masculinity and femininity. These two opposing ideas create the deconstruction of gender norms that Carter elaborates on throughout her short story.

    Read More

  • The Effects of Femininity

    1573 Words  | 4 Pages

    In order for us to deal with how a consideration of femininity can effect our understanding of a literary text, we must also be able to grasp the notion of `feminism' and `Feminist Literary Theory'. A dictionary definition of `feminism' is: `the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of the equality of the sexes.' Although this leans towards feminism in the historical sense of the word, it still provides the grounds, or foundations, from which feminist literary theories were created. Feminists argue against the stereotyping and social construction of female norms, seeing them as created by men in order to establish their own sense of power. It is thought that while males suggest that gender is sex and not actually a construct, the female role will become much more passive, stereotyped and controlled.

    Read More

  • Depiction of Class in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy

    2548 Words  | 6 Pages

    Hardy originated from a working class family. The son of a master mason, Hardy was slightly above that of his agricultural peers. Hardy’s examination of transition between classes is usually similar to that of D.H. Lawrence, that if you step outside your circle you will die. The ambitious lives of the characters within Hardy’s novels like Jude and Tess usually end fatally; as they attempt to break away from the constraints of their class, thus, depicting Hardy’s view upon the transition between classes. Hardy valued lower class morals and traditions, it is apparent through reading Tess that her struggles are evidently permeated through the social sufferings of the working class. A central theme running throughout Hardy’s novels is the decline of old families. It is said Hardy himself traced the Dorset Hardy’s lineage and found once they were of great i...

    Read More

More about The Presentation of the Patriarchy in Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

Open Document