Patriarchy presents the roles of men and women in a distinct form. Men are expected to be the dominant leader, strong, protector and sole provider where as women are subverted to the role of domestic duties, raring of children and fulfilling her man’s every desire without question or comment. In Lynn Nottage’s play Poof!, she brilliantly portrays the roles of men and women, and experiments with the concept of changing gender roles that are characteristic of our society. Overtime, the patriarchal system has been challenged and the defined gender roles are in the process of being eradicated. By presenting the plays protagonist Loureen, as an abuse victim that finds her voice and stands up against her battery, Lynn brilliantly illustrates that …show more content…
The play ensues with Loureen raising her voice to her beloved abusive husband, when she challenges his authority he vanishes. This is where the plots play takes flight as Loureen is left awestruck by his disappearance. She is left confused on the way forward; she does not know how to carry on with life without her husband while feelings of despair and resentment reside within her. She questions whether she is murderer or victim and is left puzzled while trying to piece together the fragments of her life now that she is rid of the monster and freed from his gripping claws. We see the typical symptoms of battered woman syndrome, being displayed by Loureen, as she goes back and forth between memories of her husband and trying to figure her way …show more content…
traditional gender roles are challenged. Through the use of magical realism and characterization, Nottage irrevocably illustrates the power that women truly have. She challenges what is said in society and shows women in a different light. What is more, by giving it a feminist swing, Lynn illustrates that the society purposely places these gender specific roles to ensure that hierarchy is kept, and psychologically oppress women, who are equal in strength to
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreGloria Jean Watkins, better known by her pseudonym, bell hooks, is a black woman who is often cited for her work as a writer, feminist, and cultural critic. As a passionate scholar, she is a leading intellectual of her generation and has published dozens of books and articles that discuss topics such as masculinity, patriarchy, feminine consciousness, representation, and politics. In 2004, hooks wrote her essay, “Understanding Patriarchy” in which she explores her understanding of patriarchy in American society and proposes a call to action to improve gender issues. hooks is able to develop her ideas through her complex rhetorical choices that all add to the overall effect of the essay. hooks is able to make and maintain claims that
Cultural theories by Kathleen Rowe, Laura Mulvey and Stuart Hall can help the audience seek an explanation to how these stereotypical gender roles are portrayed in the movie and how it can create power for the specific
Although being written centuries apart, the limited expectations of women presented in ‘Othello’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ differ little from each other. The female characters are confined by society’s expectations of male dominance, female purity and virginity, and the many passive roles of women. Despite the differing legalities surrounding the position of women between the centuries in which the plays were written, both plays explore the impact of how societal conventions confine women and the ways they must comply to be safe in a patriarchal society. The behaviours and treatments of Desdemona, Blanche and Stella illustrate the attitudes enforced on and the behaviours of women throughout both periods in time and it is these attitudes and behaviours that impact the plays to the greatest extent. When characters in either plays defy their norms, or demonstrate a lack of compliance they induce negative consequences, such as the murder of Desdemona and the institutionalisation of Blanche.
The play takes place in the 1950s in New Orleans containing a diverse population. However, is race discriminated against, those who go against classifed gender roles are often discriminated and have trouble finding their way in society. Although gender equality has
In comparison to the movie, the play undermines male dominance by focusing on women’s efforts to solve their own problems. First of all, there aren’t even men in the cast of the play,
In today’s world, gender expectations and roles of men and women are a highly debated topic. However, the reconsidering of these expectations is not a new phenomenon. Set in Verona, Italy, the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare explores the reversal and fluidity of characteristics usually assigned to a specific gender. In this play, two young people fall in love and end up tragically taking their lives as a result of their forbidden love. Shakespeare suggests that men are not necessarily masculine, women are not necessarily feminine, and that when people are forced by society to act the way their gender is “supposed” to, problems will arise.
In the film, women remain unreasonably placed below men in regards to their social status causing them to play an insignificant role in the decision-making process within society, but a prominent role within the household. For the Piast’s, men made decisions due to the way the
The Fight for Dominance In today’s society, gender norms convince men that unless they are able to control women, they are weak. Considered the inferior gender, women must find new ways to prove their own strength, whether it be through manipulation or their sexuality. The battle between the two continues as men strive to remain dominant, often by immoral means, and women attempt to gain the upper hand. In the screenplay, “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams, the sexual tension and struggle for dominion between Blanche and Stanley is evident, and as the play continues, Blanche's promiscuity and Stanley's predatory nature foreshadow an inevitable confrontation.
It’s no surprise, that Shakespeare’s Macbeth was clearly constructed as a rebellion against femininity roles of the time. During the Elizabethan era, women were raised to believe they were inferior to men since men obtained desired masculine qualities such as strength, and loyalty, whereas women were viewed as figures of hospitality (1; 6; 28-31). Obviously, not being tempted by the luxury of subservient women, William Shakespeare rebuked this twisted belief, applying that women deserve more respect than their kitchen tables.
Today, men and women have equal rights, but that does not mean life has always been simple for both genders. When Shakespeare writes A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are roles, behaviors, and expectations for the dominant men and submissive women. This literature portrays the major changes in the lives of both sexes throughout the years, which shows the advances women gain with time. The gender issue of men being dominant and women being submissive used in the drama, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, shows the differences in the roles, behaviors, and expectations appropriate for each gender and is an example of an outdated stereotype.
Feminism has gained a new definition a new understanding of female roles since the Elizabethan Era. Hamlet, a play written by William Shakespeare, is about a young prince, Hamlet, being visited by his father’s apparition urging him to avenge his death by murdering Prince Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius. All the while, Hamlet is enraged by his mother’s hasty marriage to Claudius and is showering his supposed love, Ophelia, with gifts and words of affection. Queen Gertrude and Ophelia are blindly obedient to male authority due to the influence of the social standards that require women to be submissive to men. Queen Gertrude and Ophelia’s actions and outcomes as characters are affected by male influence, the social norms of this time, and the females’ consequences of following these norms.
For Shakespeare’s plays to contain enduring ideas, it must illustrate concepts that still remain relevant today, in modern society. Shakespeare utilises his tragic play Othello, to make an important social commentary on the common gender stereotypes. During early modern England, Shakespeare had to comply to the strict social expectations where women were viewed as tools, platonic and mellow, and where men were displayed as masculine, powerful, tempered, violent and manipulative. As distinct as this context is to the 21st century, the play exposes how women were victimised by the men who hold primary power in the community in which they compelled women to conform to the ideal world of a perfect wife or confront an appalling destiny for challenging the system. Moreover, Shakespeare utilises the main antagonist, Iago, to portray how men are desperate to achieve what they want and to indirectly fulfil the stereotype of masculinity and power through manipulation.
A Modern View of Feminist Criticism William Shakespeare 's "Othello” can be analyzed from a feminist perspective. This criticism focuses on relationships between genders, like the patterns of thoughts, behavior, values, enfranchisement, and power in relations between and within sexes. A feminist examination of the play enables us to judge the distinctive social esteems and status of women and proposes that the male-female power connections that become an integral factor in scenes of Othello impact its comprehension. I believe that the critical lens that provides modern society with the most compelling view of literature is Feminist Criticism because it analyzes distrust and disloyalty among relationships, women being treated as possessions
This play consists of a lot many themes. To cite a few: Rewriting the tale of Cinderella and Sleeping beauty, Class, language and phonetics and Independence. But in this paper, I would like to work on the feminist aspect of this play for this aspect, is the one which impressed me more. As this paper is based on Gender analysis I am restricting my analysis to the theme of Feminism in this play.
Feminist theatre was a voice raised against this perspective. It was the construction of a counter cultural politics where women pushed themselves towards the subject position. Feminist theatre argues in favour of the potential of theatre to revise representations of gender differences on the