ipl-logo

Oppression Of Gender Roles In Gas Girls By Michelle St. Ross

510 Words3 Pages

The play Gas Girls by Donna-Michelle St.Bernard and the novel The Painted Girls by Cathy Buchanan have more in common than just the words in their titles. Firstly, both texts share a common setting; lower class slums. This setting is vital to the plot line and character development in each story. In Gas Girls, as the reader learns that young girls Gigi and Lola, protagonists in the play, live in a small, run down town during difficult economic times, the reader is able to better understand that the girls are not choosing to sell themselves for gas, but that it is their only option for money and ultimately survival. In addition, as Gigi’s acceptance of her place in society becomes more prevalent over the course of the play, the reader is able to understand why she is harsher on the Lola’s …show more content…

In addition, both plots offer escapes from the lower class; however, only Lola chooses to take it. These two texts are also common because of the attributes of the protagonists in relation to stereotypical gender roles. In both sources, Antoinette and Gigi, are defensive about their own actions as they feel as they are being judged by others and they are strong yet nurturing as they both have sickly mothers and younger girls to look after and provide for. Marie and Lola play the submissive and irrational roles as they are presented as naive and learning from their own mistakes and have to suffer the punishment from Antoinette and Gigi. Since Marie and Lola develop most throughout their respective texts, it is evident that they both fail to learn from the wise words and poor decisions of their elders. Marie follows Antoinette’s footsteps nearly identically through the plot of the novel as she leaves the ballet, resolves to prostitution, and ruins her life with poor choices (alcohol rather than crime like

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolf

    930 Words  | 4 Pages

    In “St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” By Karen Russell, Claudette tries to adapt to the culture of a human. Claudette’s progression ties in to what each epigraph states. The reader learns to understand Claudette’s place in the pack and her character. Claudette in every stage has different actions and responses to her sisters. Also to the new things they learn.

    Read More

  • Amelie: The Cruel Consequences Of Antoinette

    950 Words  | 4 Pages

    Foretelling is Truthful Katherine Anne Porter novelist wrote: “The past is never where you think you left it,” The past will always chase us, but we can’t know when. Moreover the past will affect your future unless you don’t come up with a change. Considering the consequences of Antoinette’s past, she doesn’t advance, which furthermore results in the lose of her sanity. Each event being an indication of her future, we can determine how the past controls the forthcoming.

    Read More

  • Hills Like White Elephants Gender Roles Essay

    696 Words  | 3 Pages

    Oday Alyatim Gender Studies Prof Qualls Hills Like White Elephants In the short story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway, the characters Jig and the man are out on vacation traveling from Barcelona to Madrid through train. While at the train station, they experience began talking about an operation, how they discuss getting this operation shows the strong gender roles between Jig and the man.

    Read More

  • Comparing King Lear And The Lais Of Marie De France

    1179 Words  | 5 Pages

    King Lear has always been looked at as a case of the clueless dad; however, when one delves deeper into the script we can see this is a story about the differences of good and evil and the battle between family and power. The Lais of Marie de France was on the opposite end of the spectrum when it came to the take home message of selflessness and love always prosper in a world of chaos. However, there is one thing these stories had in common and that is the ability to compare each character to one another. The characters that seem to have the most the most in common are Cordelia, Guilliadun, and Guildeluec vs. Regan and Goneril. Although there were many more differences that could be pointed out between the five women than comparisons, each story shows there is a clear line between the noble and the evil.

    Read More

  • Relationships In Wildwood

    1093 Words  | 5 Pages

    In “Wildwood”, Junot Diaz presents a troubled teenager by the name Lola to have distinct conflicting values with her mother. Her mother has controversial Dominican norms and responsibilities. These norms are not what Lola wants to be. Her mother soon gets sick and increases Lola’s feelings to take action on how she wants to live her life. When Lola and her mom continue to carry their abusive conflict, Lola decides to run away to Wildwood.

    Read More

  • The Crucible Gender Analysis

    1121 Words  | 5 Pages

    Gender roles are present everywhere and are more and more prevalent the further back you go. They define relationships and heavily influence people's actions. Gender roles can hurt those that are trapped in them because they are not allowed the freedom of living like they want. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, one key relationship in the story is wrecked by gender roles.

    Read More

  • The Virgin Suicides Analysis

    1061 Words  | 5 Pages

    FEMALE SEXUALITY THROUGH MALE LENS "How is female sexuality through male lens represented in the book "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides?" Defne Seckin "The Virgin Suicides " by Jeffrey Eugenides is a story, which was pieced together by a group of middle-aged men. The narrators addresses themselves as "we", therefore they are group of teenage boys who are semi anonymous and semi introduced, which obsessed over them. These men sort through a pile of evidence to tell the story of the Lisbon sisters who did a suicide pact, 20 years after from their suicides. As teenagers, these men used to fantasize and idolize Lisbon girls.

    Read More

  • Sandra Lipsitz Bem's The Lenses Of Gender

    340 Words  | 2 Pages

    Reading 1 of The Lenses of Gender by Sandra Lipsitz Bem focused primarily on how society has viewed men and women through looking at the history of religion, theories, philosophies, and law. Bem uses her research to teach readers of the main differences that have historically set men and women apart from one another in the areas of male superiority, biological differences between the male and female bodies, and the roles that the sexes have maintained in cultures. What I found most significant was the general belief throughout all areas of historical research that Bem presented, that men are the “standard” for humans, and women’s ability to be pregnant and have children is extra, or “other” than the standard. Not only did the mentioned cultures

    Read More

  • Nora And Torvald In Henrik Ibsen's Character Analysis

    1000 Words  | 4 Pages

    Moreover, Ibsen’s characterization of Nora and Torvald also contributed to the sense of familiarity in the audience. Nora is initially presented as a conventional, submissive and money-loving housewife who simply follows every instruction given by her husband Torvald. He, in turn, addresses her as his “little squirrel” or “skylark” (Ibsen 3), regarding her more as a plaything or pet rather than an independent person. These first impressions are immediately formed with remarks such as: “But don't you think it is nice of me, too, to do as you wish?" (Ibsen 4).

    Read More

  • Figurative Language In Sainte Marie

    197 Words  | 1 Pages

    One of the significant factors that make Sainte Marie such an amazing work of literature is the author's style of writing. From the beginning of the story, the audience funs smack into heaps of masterfully written figurative language. For instance, in the first paragraph one is greeted by “ And I’d be carved in pure gold. With Ruby Lips.

    Read More

  • Guerrilla Girls And Gender Inequality Essay

    744 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dancey Gray 1LaTeefah Dancey GrayProfessor Dean FeldmanIntroduction to Humanities 110123 April 2016The Guerrilla Girls and the fight against gender inequalityGender inequality has always been a topic purposely overlooked. An anonymous group ofwomen who called themselves the Guerrilla Girls, set out to draw attention to sexism and racismhappening in the art culture. Whether it involved posters or paintings, these girls were determinedto draw attention to the problem with intent for change. One of my favorite posters by the GuerrillaGirls is titled, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met.

    Read More

  • Gender Trouble By Judith Butler Summary

    1105 Words  | 5 Pages

    Judith Butler is an American philosopher and feminist who in her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity, explore the idea whether we are assigned our gender or do we perform it based on what values we have learnt. She seeks to radically reconceptualize, challenge and help alter our ideas on how we understand gender and sex. She starts off by saying that existing feminist movement are limited in how they define gender. She says that this definition is outdated but still reflected by the world’s treatment of gender as a set of binary categories, this means that when we are born we are distinctively placed into one of the two categories i.e. male of female and these categories define how we behave.

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality In Jamaica Kincaid's Girl

    591 Words  | 3 Pages

    The world is a vast dwelling of individuals with several different principles and cultures. However, a principle that seems to be prevalent in the world is gender inequality. Gender inequality is a term used to represent the mistreatment and unfairness of individuals based on their gender. Many have brought awareness to the issue, like writer Jamaica Kincaid. Jamaica Kincaid is a writer from Antigua in the British West Indies who was rejected by her family because of her career choice.

    Read More

  • Coming Of Age In Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette

    1273 Words  | 6 Pages

    Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is a very unconventional story of the famous monarch. It is a movie that has ignored the conventional editing, dialogue, and tone of a film of its’ caliber. In a typical film we attempt to get some semblance of historical accuracy and the director does his/her work on attempting to work with the story that is given. While mostly true of the movie, it is a movie where the vision of the director is a priority. Instead of focusing on accuracy, Sophia attempts to use the film as a launching pad to portray the main character (played by Kirsten Dunst) as a coming of age figure that gets caught up in a world she did not choose, while dealing with home sickness and loneliness.

    Read More

  • Sexist Role Model Research Paper

    938 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the 2016 Summer Olympics, an announcer noted that the female gymnasts “might as well be standing in the middle of a mall”, while a twitter post congratulated Hungarian Swimmer Katinka Hosszu’s husband and coach for being “the man responsible” for her win (Melton). These are subtle examples of sexism which lower the self-esteem of women because even after a victory, there is always a man to take the credit. This does not set a good example for young girls and they will grow up believing they are inferior and their place in society is the mall or the kitchen. This is one of the lessons we can learn from The Simpsons. In the episode “Lisa v Malibu Stacy”, Lisa and her friends rush to buy the new Malibu Stacy doll, which resembles the popular Barbie doll.

    Read More

More about Oppression Of Gender Roles In Gas Girls By Michelle St. Ross

Open Document