Gender Roles In Modernist Literature
With this essay, I aspire to discuss the construction of gender identities/ roles in modernist literature. When discussing the construction of gender identities in modernist literature, one must see beyond gender, as gender roles are constructed in relation to nationality, class and time.
“The Playboy of the western world” by J.M. Synge and “Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf, are both works that by personalizing the struggles that both men and women have to endure while living in a binary, heteronormative society, portray the endeavours and life cycles’ of individuals on both ends of the gender spectrum.
The times are changing. In modernist literature, one begins to see a change in attitude, especially concerning the younger, new generation. Whether this generational change takes place in the surrounding world, if it is to some extent exaggerated in the stories, or if it’s merely a product of the authors own wishful thinking, is debatable.
In the modernist works, the
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In spite of the fact that it is a patriarchal society where the political power is concentrated around men, Ireland and other countries are considered female, I think that there is some quiet powerful symbolism to that. In “The Playboy of the western world”, Pegeen becomes the personification of Ireland in its female form. The veracity and power of the saying: Ireland is the woman, the woman is Ireland, becomes evident when the mob, consisting of the people of an Irish village, turns against Christy, an outsider when he tricks Pegeen, a local Irish girl from the village.
“Crowd. You’re fooling Pegeen! The Widow Quin seen him this day, and you likely knew! You’re a liar!”. (Act.
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