Ainsley Gender

While many will agree that Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is critically acclaimed to be one of the most entertaining and well-liked pieces that he has written, there tends to be a discrepancy over how the characters in the play are portrayed when it comes to the importance of gender roles. After reading James C Bulman’s article over the Globe’s more recent performance of Twelfth Night and Shakespeare’s original written version, I realized that there are many ways that this famous piece has been portrayed and each has its own pros and cons.

The first essay, “The Roles of Women in British Drama,” represents my first exposure to a new genre of literature. The essay was also one of my first formal and interpretative essays at the college level. As a woman and a student of literature, I feel a special connection to this essay’s topic of women’s roles in literature. In addition, this essay shows my “knowledge of the social, political, philosophical, and religious forces that influence authors and the people they write about” (Oral/Portfolio). After reading some of the most prominent British plays of the twentieth century, I observed a discontinuity in the roles of women in this genre. Sadly, women’s roles in literature were very similar to their role in society. During the twentieth century, women were still trying and failing to emerge out of the roles they had been cast in by a male dominated society. Even though women were almost always portrayed as inferior to men, I found a strong exception to this stereotype through the role of Thomasina. I admire Thomasina’s intelligence and wit, but I truly admire Tom Stoppard for creating this character.

The concept of gender is evolutionary and difficult to define, though it can be argued that traditionally females have been predominantly defined by their desirability, and males by their masculinity. The way a director presents gender in film can either inspire social change and conversation, or alternatively it can further reproduce social norms. In the case of the film’s discussed in this essay, it is clear that Baz Luhrmann captivates a younger audience and intentionally uses actor selection and the presentation of gender to transform a well-worn Shakespearean story into something new and evolved to inspire a younger audience. On the other

For centuries, society has taught its men and women to behave in a clear way and to expect certain things from each other. Due to this, women have been placed second, below men, the submissive gender. Women have been taught to aspire to marriage, to not be too smart, to live their life according to society who tells them how to please a man. In fact, when women saw this degradation of themselves they decided to create a movement known as feminism, the social, economic and political equality of the sexes. Due to this standard of society passed through generations, an average reader would interpret Joan Murray’s “Play-by-Play” to be a poem about older women lustfully longing after younger men and fulfilling their purpose. However, if one were to delve deeper into Murray’s poem, it could be argued that she is taking a satirical approach to the way men objectify women. Marilyn French once said, “The same men who are blind and deaf to feminism are acutely sensitive to what threatens their dominance and privilege.” In looking at the symbols, diction, and tone in Murray’s poem, one can plainly see her disdain towards the societal standard and objectification of women.

The most prominent woman figure in this play is Linda, but the male characters in this play also give us insight into women’s roles and help feed the feminist analyses

In William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, gender roles are explored, culminating in two distinct scenes of cross-dressing. The men of Elizabethan society enjoy a prominent status based solely on gender, to which women are clearly outsiders. This is particularly evident in Jessica’s newfound freedom when dressed as a pageboy in Act 2 and Portia’s and Nerissa’s immediate elevation in social standing when they take on male personas in Act 4. Through these two instances of cross-dressing, Shakespeare presents class not in terms of socioeconomic status but in the benefits of being male. Although the three women all partake in cross-dressing as a means of undermining patriarchal constraint, the consequences vary as there are several

Distinctive voices convey personalities and attitudes by relating to social norms and defining events of their contemporary culture – they are a manifestation of various views and human experiences. Ray Lawler’s play summer of the seventeenth doll is a modern realist drama, which explores moral standards and social aspects of the 1950s. Essentially, the reader is confronted with unique views concerning the roles of Australian men and women in the 1950s and their responses to a changing lifestyle. From a working class status, the characters within the play are faced with traditional pressures and conventional gender positions that allows the reader to envision how certain personalities and attitudes react to change. Similarly in Judith Wright’s

Butler claims that feminism should not try to define “woman” as western gender roles would but to focus more on how power functions shape our ideas of womanhood. Butler says in her work, “Although the claim of universal patriarchy no longer enjoys the kind of credibility it once did, the notion of a generally shared conception of “women” the corollary to that framework, has been much more difficult to displace. Is there some commonality among “women” that preexists their oppression, or do “women” have a bond by virtue of their oppression alone?..If there is a region of the specifically and recognizable in its difference by an unmarked and, hence, presumed universality of “women”? The masculine/feminine binary constitutes not only the exclusive framework in which that specificity can be recognized, but in every other way the “specificity” of the feminine is once again fully decontextualized and separated off analytically and politically from the constitution of class, race, ethnicity and other axes of power relations that both constitute identity and make the singular notion of identity a misnomer” (Butler,4). By this notion the protagonist’s identities should not be based entirely on marriage status or even the norm of the community as Kingslover demonstrates in Prodigal Summer. The community and region where the novel is set is a particularly interesting way that Kingslover attempts to deconstruct

Anti-comedy is a device used in The Edible Woman written by Margaret Atwood that comically addresses the serious issues of an antiquated society that continues to endorse gender stereotypes that are oppressive and demeaning. These issues are comically illustrated in the ritual between men and women, through media and in the value systems advocated in men and women that compromise individuality. Atwood uses anti-comedy to emphasize the traditional ritual between the genders. During this time period, the common occurrence was for a man to be chasing after a women, and the woman only runs far enough to let the man catch her. This is evident when Marian runs away from Peter, Len and Ainsley without warning.

In The Lady Vanishes, the scene in which Iris meets Gilbert for the first time in her bedroom is exemplary for Hitchcockian gender relations from his British era film making. I will discuss the dynamics of the two in regards to masculinity and femininity, I will expose a few sexual symbols, connotations and innuendo in the scene, include some spatial and visual dynamics between Iris and Gilbert and draw conclusions on how this typifies Hitchcock's British film making period. At this point in the film, it is revealed that Iris is going to be wed to a wealthy man in a few days time. Also, the audience has had a taste of her sexuality from before when the bellhop brings her food and we see the full span of her legs as she stands on the table

Abramovic’s performances can be contextually analysed in terms of Ecriture Feminine, The Abject Body and Feminism. Bell Hooks defines feminism as “a movement to end sexism and sexist domination and oppression, a struggle that includes efforts to end gender discrimination and create equality” (Hooks, 2000: 113). Feminism is also “a political position” (Barry, 2002:22). The term “Ecriture Feminine” was coined by

Throughout the semester, one thing that was noticeable throughout Shakespeare’s plays was the cross dressing of women. The cross dressing of women occurred in Cymbeline, The Two Gentleman of Verona, and The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare appeared to be ahead of his time in knowing what we know now. Through showcasing women, successfully disguising as men Shakespeare proves that gender is nothing more than a performance. During this era, women were not allowed to play women parts in the Shakespeare plays. However, this did not stop Shakespeare from having women parts in his plays. Having men perform feminine parts in the plays did not stop people from attending the Shakespeare plays as well. What resonates in all three of these plays is that the women successfully fool the men with

I would argue, however, that Lady Macbeth's "unsex me here" speech tends to deconstruct gender categories, unfixing the rigid cultural distinctions as well as attributes which define male and female” (Chamberlain 79).

The setting of the play which takes place in the early twentieth century has established the theme that women have been looking down by men. ‘Trifles’ that is used as the title of the play has further foreshadowed the theme of the play in which discrimination of women will happen in the play. During the investigation of Mr Wright’s death, the men that involved in finding out the murderer have despised

The play, placed at eminent place to the libertine, whose pursuit of sexual conquests seemed to reinforce the views of women as little more than sexual diversions for men. Despite Behn’s political investment in this upper-class concept of manhood, critics and scholars have ‘argued that her plays simply just offer celebrations of libertine masculinity.’ (Staves, 2004: 81)