Women And Femininity In Thomas Mann's Death In Venice

The Wife’s Story Ursula K. Leguin is a short story describing a wife retrospective of her husband who she thought of as a loving and caring father and husband a somewhat perfect person always gentle. Yet he had a fatal flaw that led to his death that the wife failed to recognize until it was too late. Throughout the story, the wife recounts important events that led to his deaths events that should have been clues to aid her to recognize the flaw within her husband. In the story, Leguin shows us how the wife’s perception was deceiving her. She was looking at her husband but couldn’t see him for whom he really was.

Conversely, through his ability to listen and express emotions, Robert forms a deeper connection – one nonexistent in the narrator’s marriage – with both his and the narrator’s wife. Robert and Beulah have a relationship that the narrator cannot at all understand. In fact, the narrator pities both of them, feeling “sorry for the blind man” for not knowing how Beulah looks and “thinking what a pitiful life [Beulah] must have led” (Carver 213). The narrator perceives love as literal, fed by physical beauty and not emotion, whereas Robert and Beulah prove the opposite, that love is fed by something deeper. The narrator’s primary thought involves whether Beulah could “wear makeup or not,” highlighting his materialistic concept of love (Carver 213).

It can even be compared to Lucifer’s beauty in the bible, “…You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty”(New International Version, Ezekiel 28.12). Lucifer and Mary Anne both carried the appearance of beauty; a beauty that had undoubtedly made some men awe at the sight of

Victor’s parents’ relationship is what teaches Victor what a family should be. Because Victor’s mother died when Victor was a teen, Victor doesn’t learn the significance of a maternal figure. Elizabeth, Victor’s cousin, and adopted sister, takes on the role of mother, and later the role of his wife. The multiple roles Elizabeth possesses confuses Victor, marrying orphaned cousins wasn’t unusual for the time, but Victor rarely sees Elizabeth as a wife. “On it, I will consecrate myself, in life or death, to the happiness of my cousin” (Shelley, 187-188).

I married my wife 8 years ago and I’ve never felt romantically attracted to her. We married out of convenience and it has truly been a nightmare. We are a low income couple and can 't afford any luxury but my wife is a hypochondriac and she waists the little money I make and my entire happiness. She is always complaining about her health and although I feel completely responsible for her I can’t deny that some days I just want to leave this sad town and look for a life of my own. In consequence of my wife’s constant sickness we brought her cousin Mattie to live with us and this has been a bitter sweet situation.

However, this term is not used as all because Shelley uses Victor’s lacking maternal qualities to exemplify the feminist point of view of the novel. The feminist view of the novel shows Shelley’s motivation for writing the book in the first place. She was challenged to write a book and so she used this book to idealize the qualities of woman and faults of man. The monster turned bad because Victor was lacking the motherly qualities that a woman would have and this is why his monster went bad. Shelley, wrote a classical gothic novel with a feminist twist, parental conflict, gender role idealism, and a riveting story, all of this is the reason Frankenstein has withstood the test of

“She was Female to the noble Male; the beautiful Black Venus, to our young Mars” (Behn 14). Imoninda was so beautiful that she is described as a goddess who deserves a worthy and honorable man. Though her age or wrinkles should not change her beauty and “her soul wou’d be always fine, and always young” (Behn 15). Unfortunately, her power is limited unlike her beauty. Unlike many women during that time, Imoinda goes against the “norms” because she is not silent and is not under the complete control of male dominance.

She is a tragic character, who is unable to exist in the world which surrounds her so she makes up a better world in her imagination. The world she wishes to live in. People can sympathize with Blanche because of all the tragedy in her life. Susan Henthorne writes in her essay A Streetcar Named Desire, Death and desire bring Blanche to this low point in her life. She never recovers from the devastating death of her young husband, indirectly caused by the nature of his sexual desire.

“The Jewelry” is a short story written by Guy De Maupassant where M. Lantin marries a woman that loves jewelry and bought a new piece of jewelry everyday. He loved her dearly but could not stand the obsession she had for her fake jewelry collection. M. Lantins wife became really sick and died of pneumonia. He was then left by himself and became very poor. He had nothing left and needed to make money somehow.

He views his wife Emilia as a piece of property as well. She has no voice, similar to the wife Othello. She is simply there to serve her husband and he simply utilizes their relationship to Desdemona to his own advantage that will eventually led to the death to both of these women. Emilia is the opposite of Desdemona. She started out as being the typical wife of her time, someone who was very weak, obedient, and someone who didn’t have much of an opinion.