Examples Of Sexism In The Wife Of Bath's Tale

The princess only think about her own pain upon seeing her lover marrying another woman, and seems to prefer to watch his death. “How her soul had burned in agony when she seen him rush to meet that woman…” (6). If she truly loved the young man, she would not agonize over her decision to save him. The princess’s inability to think of anyone but herself blinds her to the pain she places on another. “Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric futurity?” (6).

Money, power, and success have blinded people into thinking they are in love and it has led to these women being oppressed. Tom and Gatsby in this book are what is called the patriarchy. According to Revise Sociology, the patriarchy is “The systematic domination of women by men in some or all of society’s spheres and institutions.” In Tom and Daisy’s marriage; they are both having an affair, Tom wasn’t at his child’s birth, and he oppresses Daisy physically, maybe by accident, and socially, by not allowing her to go wherever she wants to go. In Tom and Myrtle’s affair; they are both married, yet they have this affair, she is dependent on him because he oppresses her economically and psychologically, and he also oppresses her physically when he broke her nose. In Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship; she is having an affair with him and he psychologically oppressed her with his money and wealth only to get the idea he has of her as his “Golden Girl.” Fitzgerald’s argument is, when love is not the main reason for a relationship it will lead into oppression of women.

In the tale, the Knight marries the Old Lady after she tells him what women want most. He has to do this because Queen Guenevere helped the Knight get out of his punishment put down by the king for raping the girl in the woods in the beginning of the tale. However, the Old Lady quickly notices that the knight is unhappy because he thinks she’s old. She then tells him to decide if she wants her loyal and old or young and unfaithful. The knight can’t decide so he asks the Old Lady, she chooses to be, “young and lovely, rich and charms” (lines 127).

In the short story, Mrs. Mallard suddenly finds herself a widow and grief quickly erupts within her. Later in the story a mysterious sensation fills and enlightens her, she soon realizes that the feeling that overtook her was freedom. That all stops when she comes to see Mr. Mallard is alive and well, and Mrs. Mallard dies. Mrs. Mallard’s emotions of impotence, jubilation, and dread convey the message that women of 19th-century marriages were mistreated. Louise Mallard would devote her time to Brentley Mallard’s needs.

Once she expresses to her parents that she does not want to marry Paris so quickly, they call her names such as a whore, ungrateful, a curse, and fat. However, after she concedes and admits she was set straight and ready for marriage, they acted as if nothing wrong ever happened. This unstable aurora that exists within the family is enforced by Lady Capulet. In the beginning, it is Lady Capulet who ruins the father's plan of getting Juliet to fall in love with Paris. Also, she inflicts the beating of Juliet when she brings Lord Capulet into the room so Juliet can explain why she does not want to marry Paris.

(Ch 5, pg. 87) Lucy is illustrated as someone who is continuously driven by sexual temptations and flirtatiousness. Stoker puts emphasis on her beauty, which is what grabs the attention of men. Lucy ends up getting killed because her sexual openness was seen as a threat to Victorian society. Stoker uses a character like Lucy in his novel to portray that sexually assertive women who try and use their beauty to win over men will not make it in the Victorian culture.

When she says, “unsex me here”, she wants her femininity to be taken away because she thinks that men are more courageous, and she needs bravery to kill Duncan. The language used suggests that her womanhood impedes her from performing acts of violence and cruelty, which she associates with masculinity. Since she represents the “breasts” and “milk” as symbols of woman and nurture. As the play go on, the relationship between masculinity and violence will be shown by Macbeth. In addition, he is not capable of committing murder, but his wife is the one who encourages him to do it, saying that “he needs to be a man”.

Shakespeare infers that emotional maturity is linked to sexual maturity, and that marriage is a big step that marks a transition into adulthood. Juliet becomes a woman in the eyes of society the night before Act 3 Scene 5, and uses this empowerment in her fight against her mother. Juliet breaks that bond whilst expertly spins double entendres, saying what her mother wants to hear but also saying the exact opposite. She says she will “never be satisfied” until she sees “him - dead - “is (her) poor heart for a kinsman vexed” and this could be taken in two different ways, either she wants to see Romeo dead, or she is sad for Tybalt. Once her father comes in, Juliet attempts to also sever the bond, although he manages to do it all himself, threatening “for my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee” if she does not end up marrying Paris.

Yonge to Her Husband,” Mary Wortley Montagu discuses marriage and adultery. Montagu is facing major issues with her husband. She is married but she has an affair with someone else same as her husband they both cheating on each other, but she is the one who is facing the situation and got the punishment. She wrote this letter to show how unfair it is for her to be treated this way and she is saying one of the reasons when she wrote at the poem: “Think not this paper comes with vain pretense/To move your pity, or to mourn the ‘offense” (1-2). We understand her absence of choices: grieving, not able to discover any solution.

The Knight ran into an old woman who told him the answer to the question and they rode to see the Queen. The Knight told the Queen that, “A women wants the self-same sovereignty over her husband as over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her.” (214-216). It is explaining in this quote that the men must not be more powerful than their women, that women are in control of their men. This relates to how the Queen showed she had more power and control when she said the Knight could live, which meant the King had no control over the punishment. However, if the King and Queen had equal power, perhaps the Knights punishment would have been different and they would respect each other.