Feminism In Gothic Literature

In Gothic fiction we find different kinds of women, which embody the views of society towards women in the late nineteenth-century in England and Ireland. Thus we find strong, innocent and pure women like in Stoker’s Dracula, but also dangerous and powerful ones as we can see in Le Fanu’s “Carmilla”. However, we also could talk about some novels in which the role of women has disappeared completely, as we can appreciate in Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of women in these texts, paying special attention to Stoker’s novel, and to draw an overview of how they were represented in the society of the nineteenth-century. Freeman claims in his essay “E.

Feminist Theory involves looking at how women in novels are portrayed, how female characters are reinforcing stereotypes or undermining them, and the challenges that female characters face (Davidson). Feminist Theory can be applied to In the Time of

As they explain in the preface to the text, many of these work is dealing with female madness while seemingly placing two models of femininity opposite one another are in actuality “fantasies in which maddened doubles functioned as asocial surrogates for docile selves” (Gilbert and Gruber 6). Though the model of the madwoman in the attic was largely based around Brontë’s Bertha Mason, Gilbert and Gruber themselves have dubbed the aforementioned work as “Rebecca's aunt” (ibid. 336). With the many similarities and allusions du Maurier makes to Brontë’s work, Rebecca lends itself particularly well for

This paper seeks to address this question by arguing that Marie’s Lais are a documentation of medieval women’s perspective, which she utilizes to, reassesses and critically examine the medieval era’s concepts of love and women. In an effort to prove this, this paper will analyze Marie’s portrayal of women as good, evil, and sisters. Good Women

They fought for these rights in only way they could, by writing. In order to show the manner in which Dickinson’s and Plath's poems portray gender relations and, more specifically, how they granted women a strong voice, I will analyze several poems and a novel. Historical background of that time will allow us an insight of the important processes in which many women were engaged. These processes refer to the First and Second Wave of Feminism. Although Dickinson and Plath were not active members of these movements, they are considered to be one of the cornerstones of modern and more equal world.

Instead, she parodies and undercuts them, with subtle causticness, and ridicule. Austen’s priority when writing Northanger Abbey was to defend the novel as a genre, whilst also addressing the concept of ‘reading’ itself. Essentially, by writing in the style of the gothic, she emphasised the ordinariness of the domestic gothic and, patriarchal domestic

Being called both a modernist and a feminist, Woolf is one of the pioneers who endeavored to make a turn in the human history. Mrs. Dalloway illustrates the possibility of women going out from the private sphere to the public sphere compared to many Victorian literary classics from the last few centuries from her time. With most characters showing explicitly both masculine and feminine traits, the novel marks a milestone on the path of feminism in a post-war modern society. And yet, instead of showing her readers how great an androgynous mind could be, Woolf might just be showing us minds that have a tendency to go to the opposite end of their gender identity, and this is done, in Mrs. Dalloway, in a very imbalanced way. This essay aims to argue that, instead of promoting androgyny and the complete fertilization of the feminine and masculine mind, Mrs. Dalloway inclines to

Barbara Ewell and her team in “The Role of the Wife and Mother”, “In the later nineteenth century things for women began to change.” This change was reflected, and even encouraged, in The Awakening. As women began to question their roles in society during the late nineteenth century, Edna also questions her role in the novel. With questioning also came exploration of other areas of involvement for women in both The Awakening and the world. As Edna searches for her role in society, exploring options, and ultimately pursuing her special interests, emotions, and beliefs, women who read The Awakening were encouraged to do the same. Therefore, the tension Edna faces between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the overall encouragement for interior questioning and exploration in order to achieve self-determination and individuality prevalent throughout the book.

In the era when women were thought of mere objects these pieces decide to give them a personality or at least a voice that can express desire, a voice that states women have a purpose apart from pleasing men. The literature pieces help explore the subject of female sexuality, as time progress the amount of female sexuality increases. Women can desire, they can have aspirations, even though shown as vampires the text still suggests that they are women. The gothic writing of Victorian era such as Dracula, Carmilla, and Christabel help

Carol Senf argues in her article "'Dracula': Stoker's Response to the New Woman": "If it were not for Mina Harker, the reader might conclude that Stoker is a repressed Victorian man with an intense hatred of women or at least a pathological aversion to them" (34). Mina can be reasoned exhibits features of the New Woman. The New Woman was a figure that emerged during Stoker's time as "a professional woman who chose financial independence and personal fulfilment