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Gender portrayal in literature
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The Women of Absalom, Absalom!
The women of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! embrace fundamental characteristics of the nature of the South and its relation to the women who inhabit the area. The women particularly challenge the reader to an examination of the time of the Civil War, the relation of the war to the South, and the relation of the people to their surroundings. There is a call for recognition of the intrinsic complexities of the South that stem from the mythological base of the gentlemen class and the qualities of hierarchy that so ensue. The women are very much caught in the web that is the South, the intricacies of their lives linked to the inherent social structures.
There is a sense that the women have been thrust into an environment that is not complimentary to their quality. Rosa Coldfield is “strong with forty-three years of hate,” against a world that has wronged her (the world of the South) with its male insistence that “if you haven’t got honor and pride, then nothing matters” (Faulkner 279). What Rosa has is emotion, true reaction, feelings, instinct. In the realm of the South, the instinct of emotion and truth is something that runs behind honor and pride, its presence fully realized and known but not given credibility over hierarchy: “Only there is something in you that doesn’t care about honor and pride yet that lives, that even walks backward for a whole year just to live” (279). The inner struggle of the South sets forth a destructive trap that derives from the arbitrarily enforced systems of male creation, especially honor and pride, that are not only based in domination but also in a false sense of hierarchy.
A harsh but true criticism of the South may be found in the words...
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...-like symbols are fading--“black once but faded now to that fierce muted metallic green of old peacock feathers”--revealing the length and magnitude of the struggle (142). The contrast is apparent by the mention of the peacock feathers, which in their natural state are lively and radiant. There is an inability for the woman to reconcile with the man because “the indomitable woman-blood ignores the man’s world in which the blood kinsman shows the coverage or cowardice, the folly or lust or fear, for which his fellows praise or crucify him” (123). One must follow the male characteristics to the roots of their southern heritage to acknowledge the full tragic beauty of the female.
Works Cited
Chevalier and Gheerbrant. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. New York: Penguin, 1996.
Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York: Vintage International, 1990.
Bartleby- The Scrivener In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”, the author uses several themes to convey his ideas. The three most important themes are alienation, man’s desire to have a free conscience, and man’s desire to avoid conflict. Melville uses the actions of an eccentric scrivener named Bartleby, and the responses of his cohorts, to show these underlying themes to the reader. The first theme, alienation, is displayed best by Bartleby’s actions. He has a divider put up so that the other scriveners cannot see him, while all of them have desks out in the open so they are full view of each other, as well as the narrator. This caused discourse with all of the others in the office. This is proven when Turkey exclaims, “ I think I’ll just step behind his screen and black his eyes for him.”(p.2411) The other scriveners also felt alienated by the actions of the narrator. His lack of resolve when dealing with Bartleby angered them because they knew that if they would have taken the same actions, they would have been dismissed much more rapidly. The narrator admits to this when he said, “ With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence.” (2409) The next theme is man’s desire to avoid conflict. The narrator avoids conflict on several occasions. The first time Bartleby refused to proofread a paper, the narrator simply had someone else do it instead of confronting him and re...
Fallows, James. "After Centuries of Japanese Isoation, a Fateful Meeting of East and West." {Smithsonian} July 1994: 20-33.
The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.
In the beginning of the book Hunter proceeded to tell us about the history of African-American women in a broader narrative of political and economic life in Atlanta. Her first chapter highlights the agency of Civil War era urban slaves who actively resisted the terms of their labor and thus hastened
...ition, she presents the reader with the differing generations of the old and new south, and she illustrates the contrasting views between the two. O’Connor is not afraid to question Christian theology or the Southern culture. Her irony and satire add depth to ther stories, and her deep cultural analysis of the South brings a higher level to her writings. O’Connor also explores the concept of fallen human nature and how it is brought about. Overall, O’Connor’s works prove to be very in depth in both her social and cultural analysis of the South. She is not afraid to critique the society in which she grew up and lived.
Washington, Mary Helen. Introduction. A Voice From the South. By Anna Julia Cooper. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. xxvii-liv.
Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. “Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan.” Taking Sides: Clashing View in United States History. Ed. Larry Madaras & James SoRelle. 15th ed. New York, NY. 2012. 289-298.
Lillian Smith provides a description of the typical black woman and the typical white woman "of the pre-1960's American South" (Gladney 1) in her autobiographical critique of southern culture, Killers of the Dream. The typical black woman in the South is a cook, housekeeper, nursemaid, or all three wrapped up in one for at least one white family. Therefore, she is the double matriarch of the South, raising her own family and the families of her white employers: "It was not a rare sight in my generation to see a black woman with a dark baby at one breast and a white one at the other, rocking them both in her wide lap" (Smith 130). The southern black woman's duties extend far beyond rearing children, as she also serves as a family counselor, confidant, and nurse for the entire white family (Smith 129) and her own if time permits. She can do all this and more because she is strong, wise, and insightful in all areas of life (Smith 119). In short, the southern black woman is the cornerstone of the southern, domestic life. The white woman in the South has an equally important role. The southern white woman is responsible for maintaining southern social order, better known as Southern Tradition.
In the books Where the Girls are and Coming of Age in Mississippi, the authors portray how they questioned their place within the American society, and how they found their voice to seek opportunities for themselves and others. The childhoods of Douglas and Moody are major factors in these women’s lives and character development. It is through these experiences that they formed their views of the world and learned to understand the world’s view of women. Douglas and Moody had very different experiences for they grew up in different decades, social and economic classes, and races. It is these differences that cause them to have different reactions. Susan Douglass in Where the Girls are and Anne Moody in Coming of Age in Mississippi have different critiques of American society and solutions, because of the differences of what they were exposed to.
Bartleby demonstrates behaviours indicative of depression, the symptoms he has in accordance with the DSM-IV are a loss of interest in activities accompanied by a change in appetite, sleep, and feelings of guilt (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 320). Very shortly after Bartleby begins his work as a Scrivener he is described by the narrator as having done “nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery”. (Melville, 126) In contrast, Bartleby had previously been described as a very hard worker and this process of doing increasingly less shows how his a diminishing sense of interest both in his work but also of the perception others have of him. It is also noted that included in this lack of interest is a social withdrawal (DSM—IV, 321) which corresponds well to Bartleby in that his workspace becomes known as his “hermitage”. During small talk which included Bartleby he says that he “would prefer to be left alone”. (Melville, 120) Bartleby only emerges from his hermitage when called upon and quickly returns when faced with confrontation.
In Herman Melville's short story, Bartleby, the Scrivener, the narrator's attitude towards Bartleby is constantly changing, the narrator's attitude is conveyed through the author's use of literary elements such as; diction-descriptive and comical, point of view-first person, and tone-confusion and sadness.
Anna Julia Cooper’s, Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress, an excerpt from A Voice from the South, discusses the state of race and gender in America with an emphasis on African American women of the south. She contributes a number of things to the destitute state African American woman became accustom to and believe education and elevation of the black woman would change not only the state of the African American community but the nation as well. Cooper’s analysis is based around three concepts, the merging of the Barbaric with Christianity, the Feudal system, and the regeneration of the black woman.
In “Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South,” Jacquelyn Hall explains that future generations would need to grapple with the expenses of commercialization and to expound a dream that grasped financial equity and group unanimity and also women’s freedom. I determined the reasons for ladies ' insubordination neither reclassified sexual orientation parts nor overcame financial reliance. I recollected why their craving for the trappings of advancement could obscure into a self-constraining consumerism. I estimated how a belief system of sentiment could end in sexual peril or a wedded lady 's troublesome twofold day. None of that, in any case, should cloud a generation’s legacy. I understand requirements for a standard of female open work, another style of sexual expressiveness, the section of ladies into open space and political battles beforehand cornered by men all these pushed against conventional limitations even as they made new susceptibilities.
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s
Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South by Victoria E. Bynum begins by simply questioning the reader; asking who these “unruly women” would have been in the antebellum South, and what they could have possibly done to mark them in this deviant and disorderly light. Whenever you think of Southern Women during this time a vision of lovely refined yet quieted and weak women come to mind. It’s a time where women were inferior to men in almost every aspect. Women were expected to stay at home raising children. Women were expected to remain in the house, in the private world of home and family. White men wanted control over all dependents in his household; including their wife, children, slaves, and servants. Bynum