Analysis Of Claire Messud's Novel 'The Woman Upstairs'

In this essay, the female body is described as something too absent to be true with beautiful words, intending to evoke sympathy from the readers. “Over time my injured friend’s feet have become blue and smooth from disuse. Their blue is the blue of skim milk, there smoothness that of a baby’s” (Nelson, 41-42), which is the description of her injured friend’s body. This part sounds melodic and beautiful for readers because of the use of words “skim milk, smoothness and baby” and they are all nice words used to depict the beauty of the female’s body. With the use of such words, it can be seen that Nelson basically appreciates the female’s image. In the meanwhile, Nelson also considers the female to be fragile and depressed with the use of words “blue and baby”. Undeniably, on one hand, blue stands for a kind of color; on the other hand, blue can be used to describe depression, suggesting that her injured friend

Accustomed to approaching her husband in a mood of adolescent flirtatiousness, Nora treats Dr. Rank the same way when she “flicks him on the ear with the stockings” she plans to wear to the ball. The ease with which these stockings, as an ultimate symbol of female sexuality, are able to arouse interests in a “rotting” man so trusted by the Helmers, highlights severe moral corruption - even in a society in which women were oppressed. Ibsen’s interesting description of the stockings as “flesh-coloured” serves as a metaphor for transparency, which Nora gains about the situation from her friend’s declaration of love instead of amused paternity. It is only with this accidental understanding that she begins to recognize how Torvald violates her personal independence by regarding her as a romantic

In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Nora Helmer is a traditional “angel in the house” she is a human being, but first and foremost a wife and a mother who is devoted to the care of her children, and the happiness of her husband. The play is influenced by the Victorian time period when the division of men and women was evident, and each gender had their own role to conform to. Ibsen’s views on these entrenched values is what lead to the A Doll’s House becoming so controversial as the main overarching theme of A Doll’s House is the fight for independence in an otherwise patriarchal society. This theme draws attention to how women are capable in their own rights, yet do not govern their own lives due to the lack of legal entitlement and

In this section, Jeannette Walls starts off, in the present time by telling the readers about her seeing her mom on the street, that she hasn’t seen in a long time. Jeannette uses emotional words like blustering and fretted to show that seeing her mom was an emotional time. Later in the section, she goes way back into her life to when she was three years old and when her family and her was living in the desert. She started off telling a story of when she was on fire. This story was intense, it was really dramatic on her parents part, her dad was screaming at her and the doctor a lot. Then she talked about when they moved to Las Vegas, her family lived in a motel room, which didn’t last long, they had to leave Vegas in a rush, because her dad was cheating in blackjack and the dealer found out. The last story in the section is where her family drove to San Francisco and stayed in another motel. One night her dad was at the bar, across the street. He left Jeannette and her three other siblings in the room. Jeannette got bored so she decided to play with fire and that let to a big disaster resulting in the whole hotel burning down.

“He [Jeannette’s father, Rex] will not keep me out of harm’s way, he will put me in harm’s way and I have to find a way to remove myself from the situation.” (Diversity Connection). I feel like this quote, from Jeannette, came t directly from the situation where Rex took her out to the bar to help him earn money for alcohol, but yet she still doesn’t see herself as a victim. Even though Jeannette Walls was the victim of sexual abuse at a very young age, she tries to recreate the freedom from her childhood into her adult life, But in her younger years where she has no occupational activities, no nurturing, no money and no friends to turn to, it proves to be very hard to maintain.

In representing female subjects, both Pablo Picasso’s oil painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) manipulate the formal techniques of composition and perspective to create new ways of seeing their subject, emulating their contemporary society’s shifting views of women and the individual. Les Demoiselles depicts five naked prostitutes, flaunting their bodies, and some wearing tribal masks. In comparison, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère represents a female, who may also be a prostitute, tending a bar. The depiction of previously ‘hidden’ female subjects alone was an innovation of the perception of the artist, however, the formal treatment in representing these subjects was an important break from tradition.

In Chapter 3 of his book, “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger argues that in western nude art and present day media, that women are largely shown and treated as objects upon whom power is asserted by men either as figures in the canvas or as spectators. Berger’s purpose is to make readers aware of how the perception of women in the art so that they will recognize the evolution of western cultured art.

It is easy to forget how far our society has come in the last hundred years in recognizing the equality of all people. Often when we take a look into the past what we see is very shocking. Such is the case in a Doll House by Henrik Ibsen. Here we see Nora presented as a victim of her father and male dominated society; however she also plays the role of victimizer against her husband, family, and friends. As Nora takes both sides of the conflict we see how she is forced into both roles.

There are many companies in the world today that put an idea of this perfect female body into the heads of women. These images lead to a faulty standard men hold of women and their bodies and that women strive to become. Margaret Atwood addresses the issue of the way men view the female body by writing her essay in the viewpoints of a male so the reader can better understand how the expectation men have of the female body is unrealistic. First, she uses an allusive comparison to show the male expectation of the female body and how it is objectified as if it were a doll that comes with accessories. Next, she uses an anecdote with defamiliarization to show how the way the father views a Barbie doll and the way it portrays the female body to young girls is hypocritical. Lastly, Margaret Atwood uses insidious diction to talk about how men not only view the female body as a product but how they also use the female body as a product which can be sold amongst businessmen. In The Female Body, Margaret Atwood uses many rhetorical devices to convey how the female body is viewed through the eyes of men.

Ernaux is executing a reclamation of female sexual desire in Passion Simple. She is taking back power from the patriarchal society in which female desire is constructed, and reframing it from a female perspective. The author described the songs which “bouleversaient” her and empowered her to live her passion, “Les chansons accompagnaient et légitimaient ce que j’étais en train de vivre.” The accompanying thoughts and events included a night when, naked, and in search of a beer, she was reminded of “les femmes, seules ou mariées, mères de famille, qui, dans le quartier de mon enfance, recevaient en cachette un homme l’après-midi”. Finding herself in a situation that would have gathered the same societal and neighbourly reproach as the women she knew as a child, the author thought of these women “avec une profonde satisfaction.” Her inclusion of this memory gives these women, who followed their own desires, but were shamed for it, a voice, a representation of themselves through a popular medium, and one which divorces itself from the patriarchal taboo. It also leaves women in a position of dominance. It was they who invited men into their homes during the afternoon, when their husbands were either at work, or non-existent. The women had the control of being in their own environment and fulfilling their own sexual desires at will. It is this dominating position that Ernaux makes clear in Passion Simple.

Her first instinct is to feel pity for Mrs. Linde’s lack of children or husband, classifying her “utterly alone” state as “terribly sad” and inferior to the life she has with Torvald (Ibsen 8). This all changes, however, once Nora agrees to help Mrs. Linde. By binding herself to a woman instead of a man for the first time, she reaches a further state of awareness. When Mrs. Linde mentions Nora’s “lack of trouble and hardship” and calls her a child, Nora becomes defensive, alluding to her displeasure with her position in society (Ibsen 12). “You’re just like the rest of them,” she claims, “you all think I’m useless when it comes to anything really serious...” (Ibsen 12). The “them” and “you all” in Nora’s pivotal statement refers to the men who have bound Nora to the state of a useless doll in a dollhouse: dependent, incapable, and unenlightened—merely nice to play with and pretty to look at.

The piece shows that Nora made women feel more than their self-worth instead of them being controlled and manipulated. Also, “Lectures on A Doll’s House had appeared the preceding year, it was the actual performance that stirred up active media attention”. There were journalists that said, women were creative and

towards her body does not need any viewers’ definition. From disguising and performing, she conveys the aspiration of merging herself with the mother-like

Nora is the character in A Doll House who plays the 19th woman and is portrayed as a victim. All of the aspects of this quote can be applied to the play A Doll House, in Nora’s character, who throughout much of the play is oppressed, presents an inauthentic identity to the audience and throughout the play attempts to discovery her authentic identity.

Although Nora is unaware of it, the audience, like society, is always present. The audience peers into the doll’s house where Nora is living passively, judging her according to societal expectations of what it means to be a dutiful wife. Nora perfectly fulfils the societal expectation of being a good wife. Both society and the audience see Nora as an adoring wife who amuses her husband with a sweet tone and flirting gestures like [playing with [Torvald’s] coat buttons.] (Ibsen 5) However, Ibsen reveals Nora initially as a mere puppet manipulated by society’s expectation. Nora’s awareness of her situation is evident when she calls her home “nothing but a playroom” to show that her surroundings, including society, was making her nothing more than a plaything, performing a role in accordance with a socially constructed identity rather than an expression of her autonomous will. (Ibsen 67) Through the degradation of Nora’s status from adult to a performer and mere source of entertainment, Ibsen implicitly criticizes social conventions that suppress female