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The woman warrior analysis essay
The woman warrior by maxine hong kingston analysis
The woman warrior by maxine hong kingston analysis
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In The Woman Warrior, Kingston develops the image of a dragon as a symbolic reference to her fight against the unbearable expectations women are supposed to uphold in order to illustrate how living with these expectations has impacted Kingston in a positive way. While in the mountains, a bird leads Kingston to an old couple who asks her to stay with them. They show her a mirage of her parents, which ultimately persuades her to accept their request. Remaining with the couple, she is trained to become a fierce and powerful warrior, disregarding the over-exaggerated social standards pertaining to women. Although years later she is forced to remain where she is, she eventually puts her training to use and goes to battle disguised as a man. Throughout
For Kingston, The Woman Warrior signifies more than five chapters of talk-stories synthesized together. Within each chapter of the memoirs, Kingston engraves the method in which she undertook to discover her discrete voice. The culture clash between her mother and Kingston accumulated her struggles and insecurities, resulting in Kingston’s climax during her tirade. However, what Kingston accentuates the most is that the a breakthrough from silence requires one to reject a society’s
In Chrétien de Troyes' Ywain, women represent the moral virtue and arch of all mid-evil civilization. Women of this time had to be an object of love, which meant they had to have beauty, goodness, and be truthful. They had to be a representative of all chivalrous ideals. They also act as civilizing influences throughout the story. Women are put in the story to give men a reason for acting brave and noble. Men become knights in order to demonstrate to women that they are strong and capable of defending themselves against danger. This, they hope, will win the women's heart.
It is assumed that the women will cook, clean, and take care of the house while the men go to work and bring home the food. Women are supposed to attract the man unless something is arranged by the parents and are supposed to deal with the obligations they are given at birth because of their gender. They are supposed to be as “beautiful, polite, graceful, industrious, obedient, and passive” as they can be (Kelley). Marguerite and Danielle each attract Prince Henry in two different ways, both still characterized by womanly attributes. Marguerite uses a brooch and ladylike manner while Danielle uses her acumens and audacity. Each gender goes against his or her role and the system of which society is set up, save for a select few such as the queen who wishes to not be in her position. Prince Henry does not wish to be married to just anyone available or to be king of France and Danielle rescues him from gypsies attempting to rob them instead of letting Prince Henry be the savior. She shows that not all women are weak and vulnerable, especially when Prince Henry is held captive at sword point by one of the gypsies. At the same time the movie has respect for both genders and what they are capable of when it comes to dependence and independence from and for each other, reaching a point of compromise and equality as true feminism would have it. Prince Henry accepts Danielle for who she is and learns to
The characterizations of women have, throughout history, been one of the most problematic subjects in literary tradition. An extraordinary dichotomy has existed with women as being both the paragon of virtue and the personification of evil. Ancient Greeks feared women, and poets such as Hesiod believed the female sex was created to be the scourge of the gods and the bane of men (Fantham 39). Romans, on the other hand, incorporated tales of brave and virtuous women as an intrinsic part of their legendary history (219). Many Catholic saints, revered for their piety, were notoriously misogynistic (Dollison 106), and yet the church counted legions of holy women in the rosters of saints alongside their male counterparts. Despite much historical controversy as to the precise nature of women, none of this confusion seems to seep into the writings of George MacDonald, and there appears to be no conflict to MacDonald’s regard towards women in his female characters in The Princess and the Goblin. The character of the Grandmother in particular is one of the most complimentary fabrications of the figure of the mature female in literature. MacDonald created this fascinating construct of femininity by steeping the Grandmother not only in the arcane feminine symbols such as spinning, pigeons, and the moon, but also in his own concept of the ideal woman, as wise and compassionate as she is mysterious.
With the release of JJ Abrams’ Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens in late 2016 recording a staggering domestic gross of over $936 million (Box Office Mojo 2016), the Star Wars series continues to be one of the biggest pop culture icons of the 21st century. However, for a film targeted towards all ages and demographics, with women making up 52% of all movie goers in North America (Motion Picture Association of America **), there is a startling lack of female representation within the series. Furthermore, with the growing prevalence of media in our daily lives combined with media’s role in the development of beliefs and ideas in its viewers, the messages delivered by mass media texts are partly responsible for the for the
Since people who have different identities view the American Dream in a variety of perspectives, individuals need to find identities in order to have a deep understanding of obstacles they will face and voices they want. In The Woman Warrior, Maxing Hong Kingston, a Chinese American, struggles to find her identity which both the traditional Chinese culture and the American culture have effects on. However, in The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros clearly identifies herself as a Hispanic woman, and pivots to move up economically and socially to speak for her race. Even though both Kingston and Cisneros look for meanings of their identities, they have different approaches of reaching the full understanding.
Clashing swords, miraculous survivals, pain of loss, and heroic sacrifice are all terrifying yet thrilling moments in a battle. The strong possibility of death and the frailty of human life add into the suspense of battle. Yet the reasons behind the wars, death, and suspense can be overlooked. The stories behind the warriors who have died will not be told again, but the stories of warriors still alive are what give the men strength to continue fighting against impossible odds. Ultimately, the reason of why a man would risk his life in battle is for someone, or something, he loves. Like in Gilgamesh and the Iliad, women help encourage and influence the protagonists to be the heroes and protectors they are meant to be.
In multiple instances throughout the film, female characters violate gender norms by acting as both warriors and leaders because they are adapting typically masculine traits. In the film, women are the majority of the labor force at iron town. The men are merely there to do the labor that needs the most physical power. “Americans oversimplify Japanese women as demure, submissive, and oppressed” (Kyu Hyun, 2002, 38). This quote shows that the stereotype of women in Japanese culture had been just like the western perspective where they were below men. This quote also shows that Princess Mononoke reverses the gender role from being submissive to being above men. Another quote that supports that women were not submissive says that “the young unmarried women in Japan have become a powerful group, demographically and economically” (Kyu Hyun, 2002, 39). The women who were in the upper class society of Japan had time on their hands and we know this because they had time to write literature. “Most of the canonical work from this period was produced by women of the upper social class” (Varner, 2005,
She is the most perdurable female figure in King Arthur and his Knights. Without her the suspense and the plot flow could not have been achieved. Her influence has enabled her to penetrate into men’s world a trait that distinguishes her from the rest of the women. Knights are referred to as the queen’s knights. We could say the same of the ladies who accompany the queen and keep the knights in good company (pg.52) .Queen Guinevere, as the King’s wife, is acknowledged by males.
The narrative, Dealing with Dragons, written by Patricia C.Wrede, the author discusses how a princess named Cimorene, runs away, or better yet, liberates herself from the torment of the “proper” Medieval society. Certainly, Cimorene is an outrageous character, who just simply does not settle for anything less than perfection. For this reason, she thrives for a better life, full of adventures. Cimorene was justified in ignoring the expected social norms of Medieval society because, it is in her best interest to escape women's’ unequal rights among the society, have the freedom at her own will in the activities and studies she does, and be able to gain knowledge in an unusual field, that many humans do not know about, life with belligerent
This essay will argue that films and other media cultures represent an element of modern life, whilst gender ideologies and stereotypes still remain as a question of how society thinks about gender identities. With so many films that deliver messages and images about men and women today, it is inevitable that it would leave the audiences with no impact about these ideas whether directly or indirectly. However, people live in a modern life that keeps changing and thus the traditional stereotypes and generalisations that existed before about media and gender might not be as relevant in today’s world, as the society keep changing which gradually affects the media and people’s attitude to change. Douglas Kellner phrase that media culture “constitutes a common culture” (Kellner 1995, p.1) about gender is not entirely true. This essay will argue that media images do not fully represent the gender roles in today’s society. Using the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith as an example, where the gender roles have been switched, it will examine on how the gender roles are represented in the film (Mr. and Mrs.Smith 2005). Traditionally, men would be seen as more dominant than women, but in the film, one could see that the female character, Jane Smith is more dominant compared to her husband, John Smith.
There are many strong women characters present in Princess Mononoke which exhibit themes of freedom and spirit.
In comparisons of two characters, Samia bother me more than the bully. There are three kind of people, the one who saw a problem but ignore; the one who cause a problem because of their own emotion; and the one who solve a problem when it's presented. The one
Whether someone is male, female, black, Caucasian, a doctor, a thief, etc., society has a stereotypes about them. According to google, a stereotype is "a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing". This belief is typically held by the majority of people in society and is usually difficult to disprove. If someone tries to discredit their associated stereotype, they will find it very hard to accomplish partly due to their foe, the media. The media is not always reliable. They sell stories and magazines in order to make money and oftentimes rely on current stereotypes in order to accomplish this. One group that has been in a long-term battle with the media is female athletes. As more female
Morreale, J. (1998). Xena: Warrior princess as feminist camp. Journal of Popular Culture, 32(2), page 79. Retrieved from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&sid=64cd7df8-8ea3-4d9a-ad60-1deef7e616e6%40sessionmgr114&hid=103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=1585569