Hedda is a victim of all the negative qualities that can be imagined. Ibsen has tried to move away from the stereotypical women by sketching feminist dramas but yet when he deprives the woman of her doll-like exquisiteness and angelic beauty, he still remains confined to the stereotypical women rather he makes them monstrous and treacherous. In my research, I will look out to these questions that How can a loving wife neglect and torture her husband? How can she insult her husband and his relatives? How a female can negate her child?
It created a lot of controversies and was heavily criticised as it questioned the traditional roles of men and women among Europeans who believed that the covenant of marriage was holy. Most critics around the world believe the play led to increase awareness on the need for women’s rights in all continents, on the other hand some critics opine that the play depicted women as inferior creatures and dolls who have no personality of their own. Nora Helmer the main character strives to achieve the perfect concepts of life set by the society and her husband. Nora is trapped in her home where her Torvald has built a wonderful life for his ‘doll wife’. Nora’s transformation comes when she discovers the role in doll house imposed on her by the society and her husband and she is desperate to free herself in order to discover her identity.
Shakespeare’s portrayal of Lady Macbeth is distant to the role that a Jacobean audience would be comfortable with women being in. In a time where “the repetition in a woman’s ear/would murder as it fell”; a woman readily savage and merciless caused a disturbance to their ideas of how a woman should behave. This makes Lady Macbeth one of the most striking villains in Shakespeare’s plays. Lady Macbeth’s entrance is her reaction to the letter sent by Macbeth in which he discloses the Witches’ prophecies. In this scene, Shakespeare’s use of diction presents Lady Macbeth as a calculative woman, who holds no qualms in manipulating her husband and chastising his character.
A Role Model that Transcends Time Hester Prynne changed dramatically throughout the course of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter. Initially she was viewed as the antagonist and was a destructive character to those around her. After being confined in her cottage with Pearl, she began to develop a sense of who she needed to become in order to efficiently raise Pearl. Hester’s ability to do what was necessary for her improvement made her into a respectable role model for women to shadow. Hester chose to isolate she and Pearl to create a wave of self-improvement.
Such an act would go against God himself, and so the linking of evil spirits present her to be unwomanly and almost witch-like. Gender roles were set during Shakespeare 's time. Women were considered emotional, nurturing, and fragile where men were considered stoic, strong, and masculine. Lady Macbeth laments her gender while she hatches her plan to kill King Duncan: "Come to my woman 's breasts, And take my milk for gall…" The language suggests that her womanhood, represented by “breasts” and “milk”, usually symbols of nurture, impedes her from performing acts of violence and cruelty, which she associates with manliness. Ironically Macbeth, on the other hand, is sensitive towards the king as Lady Macbeth expresses her concern: “Yet do I fear thy nature” saying
“Construction of a patriarchal ideology unable to deal with the threat of sexual differences as it is embodied in the images of the feminine as archaic mother and is seen as the castrated mother.” (Creed, 1993, p.22) Kristeva suggests that the notion of the castrated women is to ease mans fear of woman, who has the power to psychologically and physically castrate him. The archaic mother as the monstrous womb and the castrating mother can be used as a way of understanding the work of Mona Hatoum and AIne Phillips, both
Shakespeare’s novel diverges the audience and leads to the questionable ideologies that were said to be bestowed by the Creator himself. During the time period of Early Modern England, women were restricted to a certain way of living. This satirical and patriarchal belief led to Macbeth challenging the traditional role of women through the masculine portrayal of Lady Macbeth. Consumed by the ambition the witches prophecies game her, Lady Macbeth demands the spirits to “unsex [her] here” [1.5.2] In order to commit murder, she must first rid herself of any empathy ad love she possesses. She is subverting and undermining the
Pride and Prejudice also deviates from social conventions at that time because Austen writes Pride and Prejudice as a social satire and makes humor of the traditional roles of women. Compared to other novels with female characters at the time, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jane Austen’s female characters in Pride and Prejudice break the social norm for women and do not portray them as passive. Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813, is about five sisters whose mother is desperate to see them married off. The book deals with themes that include love, reputation, and class. However, Pride and Prejudice received much criticism for being a novel full of female characters that fit the social norms for women in the 19th century.
They further attacked the implementations of women’s’ role in society that was created by this literary tradition. Ann-Marie Macdonald author of Goodnight Desdemona (good morning Juliet) creates a Satirical play in which she challenges William Shakespeare’s tragedies Othello and Romeo and Juliet, by eliminating their tragic endings, while highlighting their comic relief. This essay will discuss the challenge Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) presents to the inappropriate representation of females in the previously mentioned Shakespearian tragedies. While using the existentialist theorist Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex’s ideas on the myth of women to highlight Constance Leadbelly’s journey from marginalizing
The representation of female and inter-female relationships; be it intentionally or unintentionally, often act as the utmost importance for the plot of a film. According to Belcher (2011: 62), ‘these familiar archetypes and motifs reveal important ingrained and conditioned ideologies about women as well as primitive the upwelling of fears and desires from the subconscious’. In fact, it is rather famous that the dichotomy of the representation of the “Wicked Stepmother” in contrast with her young “enslaved” maiden or stepdaughter has become an expected staple of the genre. Not to mention, it would almost inconceivably be “Snow White” without the evilness of the stepmother as the plot of the Snow White’s stories are mainly induced by the wicked, vain and jealousy of the queen who is the stepmother of Snow White. As a result, this dissertation will be done with a presentation on an analysis that aims to find out the negative representation of stepmother.