Entre Le Mrs

Driss Chraïbi’s Mother Comes of Age is the journey a Moroccan woman into French enlightenment thought. The story is split into two parts; the first is from the point of her youngest son and illustrations the mother as naïve and childlike. The second part is told from the point of view of her older son and depicts the mother as an activist and critical of society. This story is set in Morocco during World War II. In this paper, I will discuss the “civilizing” mission of France during the Enlightenment Era, with regards to Driss Chraïbi’s Mother Comes of Age and it’s theme of modernity.

The parallels between the theme of the film and rising fears of communism and related topics of concern during that time are captivating. Communism was an ideology originating in the Soviet Union with the ideas of establishing a

In her book she challenges the government of France and their ideas that women should not be exposed to the same education as men. She gives warning that women will not forever be satisfied with only domestic concerns, and she demands justice for the female race.

In “Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Transvestite in the New World” by Catalina de Erauso, a female-born transvestite conquers the Spanish World on her journey to disguise herself as a man and inflicts violence both on and off the battlefield. Catalina discovers her hidden role in society as she compares herself to her brothers advantage in life, as they are granted money and freedom in living their own lives. Erauso decides to take action of this act of inequality by forming a rebellion, as she pledges to threaten the social order.The gender roles allotted to both men and women in the Spanish world represent the significance of societal expectations in order to identify the importance of gender in determining one’s position in the social order in the Spanish World.

Catalina de Erauso’s memoir, Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World, depicts gender relations in the early 17th century Spain. Erauso, through her detailed narrative of personal encounters with transvestism, reveals significant implications of the roles and expectations of the gender binary during this era. Her memoir evidently portrays gender binaries in dress, emotion, and interaction within society as she describes aspects of her journey from the perspective of both a woman and man. The male gender exhibits idealized masculine qualities, such as being violent and spontaneous, and the female gender exhibits idealized feminine qualities, such as emotional suppression and tranquility. Erauso expresses the distinct

Natalie Zemon-Davis’s 1983 book The Return of Martin Guerre provided both the public and academic world with a fresh and interesting take on a classic story. Presented like a mystery thriller, Davis weaves a tale of deception based on a solid framework of cultural history. Her narrative depends on grounding the characters of Bertrande de Rols, Martin Guerre, Arnaud du Tihl, and their associates within a web of social context. Davis draws heavily on the traditional Coras narrative, but also supplements the established story with the version presented in Le Sueur, a new source she discovered. Additionally, she incorporates unusual sources dealing with broader social context and infers specifics from a general study of period interactions. It is this latter approach that historian Robert Finlay disagrees with. He claims that Davis does not appropriately rely on the source material provided by the Coras narrative and thus gives an unnecessarily dramatic version of events. The AHR forum on the subject includes both Finlay’s review and Davis’s response, providing a model of scholarly debate that extends beyond the actual content of the book in question. In addition to being a rhetorical critique, Finlay is attacking the foundational methodology of modern social history that Davis is then compelled to defend.

During the nineteenth century, Paris further developed into the entertainment capital of the world. Alistair Horne, the author of the Seven Ages of Paris, vividly illustrates several historical moments that occurred in Paris. Through the horrors and triumphs, Paris was able to endure through it all for ages and still emerge greater than before. In comparison, Vanessa R. Schwartz, the author of Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-siècle, demonstrates how the explosive popularity of the boulevard, the newspapers, wax museums, panoramas, and early cinema led to the creation of a new culture in Paris. Driven by consumerism, a cultural revolution was happening, who’s new culture transcended gender and class divisions. Both authors

It takes a great amount of bravery to criticize one’s country. It takes an even greater amount to suggest that this criticism stems from gender inequality that one’s society so willingly accepts. Renowned French novelist Françoise de Graffigny took the initiative to point out the caustic gender inequality that was so pervasive throughout French society by use of her novel Letters From a Peruvian Woman. In this novel, Graffigny criticizes various aspects of gender inequality in French society through the lens of Zilia, a Peruvian woman and Other who found herself captured and forced into French society. Through Zilia’s encounters, Graffigny molds the opinion that the ills in French society are caused by the harsh treatment of its female citizens. Françoise de Graffigny uses Zilia from Letters from a Peruvian Woman to critique the inferior role of women in French society and the destruction it entailed in regards to the lack of education among women, the damaging restraints that marriage created for women, and the unjust, presumed behavior for women.

This was the idea that the youth who were rebelling against the traditional institutions they had been raised in were doing so because they were not raised proper as children. The younger generations had been pampered as children, and did not learn important middle class values. They had no ‘inner control’ to give them the mental fortitude for deferred gratification and thus turned to violence to meet their impulses.

In today’s world, men and women are perceived equally by the society. In the past, authority and control define men while women are given the characteristic of helplessness. Men are able to get hold of high positions while women usually are subservient to them. In movies, we would usually see women portray roles that are degrading due to the stereotypical notions they associate with this gender group. Moulin Rouge, a movie set during the 1900s narrates the story of a courtesan woman, Satine, as she undergoes hardships to earn money, experiences love but unfortunately, due to her irrational choices, faces tragic consequences at the end. Satine is a symbol of how women are being treated by the society during the era before post-feminism,

Laurent Cantet tried to make Entre les murs as true to the real situation in the “banlieues” (suburbs) of Paris through

Girlhood. While one may consider this as a unification of girl power as Beyoncé so eloquently sings in her music, Celine Sciamma’s film Girlhood actually exposes the reality of being a black female in a white society. Girlhood or Bande de Filles, is a coming of age French migrant cinema film. The film follows Marieme, a low class teenager from the projects of Paris, who must navigate through life after she’s been denied to further her education and finds commonality and acceptance in a trio of free-spirited girls. Girlhood explores tropes of identity, patriarchal hegemony and surveillance, all while exposing the political reality of being black in Modern day France. In this paper, I will analyze how Sciamma implicitly uses open and closed spaces

In this research study, I am going to analyze the representation of the female character in the movie Chocolat. Chocolat is the story of a young mother who arrives in French village with her daughter and opens a small chocolatier. The female character that I am going to focus on in this study is that of Vianne Rocher. Vianne is a young expert chocolatier who drifts across Europe along with her daughter Anouk following the North wind and wherever she goes she tries to bring a positive change in the society. She is strong, confident and different. The reason why I chose this movie is because of the way it effectively contradicts gender stereotypes and represents women as strong, independent and confident. It also highlights societies wrong preconceptions about single mothers. The movie also gives the female character the power to challenge hegemonic order which is quite unorthodox to usual cinema.

Therefore, it is evident that literary techniques are utilised to exploit the Beauvoirian idea of women “denying [their] feminine weakness” in order to justify their strength, while the “militant male... she wish[es] to be” however, Marlene accepts femininity and only wears a skirt to work.

In the film, it is about a woman named Irene de Courtil, and she is trying to find her lost husband who was fighting in the war. The fact that his body is lost is made her go and search for him, but she realizes this is a common circumstance where the body is not identified. In the film, it is evident that women are seen as lower gender and it is shown when no one took Irene seriously in the beginning. In France and the Great War, the questions of why women were treated the way they were is raised on page 49,“Did the women and young girls as particularly useless mouths to feed?”(49), because women did not contribute much to society besides being seen as trophies, during the time of scarce food, they felt that they were least important. The level of respect that is given to the males is not on an equal balance with women. Irene de Courtil's character in the beginning of the film, she is brushed off a lot and none of the men really take her seriously of what she says and why she is