Female Characters In John Rollin Ridge's Joaqu�n Murieta

In this essay, female oppression in La Casa de Bernarda Alba will be discussed and analyzed. However, in order to be able to understand the importance of this theme and the impact it has had on the play, one must first understand the role of female oppression in the Spanish society in the 1930s.

Based on Cisneros’ works of literature, gender roles in a Hispanic culture revolves around patriarchal rule. The repercussions of a patriarchal rule includes the limitations of female liberation and development. Cleofilas’ abusive situation exemplifies the limitations of her independence and development as she can not make her own decisions and has to solely depend on her husband. This situation is illustrated when Cleofilas explains that the towns are “built so that you have to depend on husbands... You can drive only if you’re rich enough to own and drive an own car. There is no place to go” (Cisneros 628). Cleofilas reveals that men are the dominant gender and have more authority, and that women are compelled to depend on them in her society. It is an exceptionally rare case that a woman can afford her own car, for the men usually control the finances in a household. Additionally, Cleofilas has nowhere to seek refuge from her husband. Although she yearns to return to her father’s home, she decides not to due to the social standards imposed on her. In her society, the act of returning home after marriage is socially unacceptable. She understands that her family will be viewed in a negative light if she were to return home, as seen when Cleofilas refers to her town as a “town of gossips” (627). Similar to other men in the society, Juan Pedro’s authority is shown through his abuse. Cleofilas recalls, “He slapped her once, and then again, and again; until the lip split and bled an orchid of blood” (626).

“Beautiful and Cruel” marks the beginning of Esperanza’s “own quiet war” against machismo (Hispanic culture powered by men). She refuses to neither tame herself nor wait for a husband, and this rebellion is reflected in her leaving the “table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate (Cisneros 89).” Cisneros gives Esperanza a self-empowered voice and a desire for personal possessions, thing that she can call her own: Esperanza’s “power is her own (Cisneros 89).” Cisneros discusses two important themes: maintaining one’s own power and challenging the cultural and social expectations one is supposed to fulfill. Esperanza’s mission to create her own identity is manifest by her decision to not “lay (her) neck on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain (Cisneros 88).” Cisneros’ rough language and violent images of self-bondage reveal the contempt with which Esperanza views many of her peers whose only goal is to become a wife. To learn how to guard her power

During the Mexican Revolution, Mexico as a nation torn in many directions, people gave up simple farming lives to take up arms against causes that many of them did not fully understand. Gender roles during the period in Mexico were exceptionally degrading towards women. Having little more rights than slaves and treated as trophies or property more than human beings, women role in society was nothing near that of a man’s. In The Underdogs, Mariano Anzuela highlights the issue of gender roles by continuously illustrating the punitive role of women and their mistreatment. Augmenting Anzuelas work with citations from Oscar Lewis and Stephanie Smith will paint a picture of the degrading gender roles for women during the Mexican Revolution. Highlighted points brought up by Azuela are how men speak with and treat women, women’s place in society, and general disregard for women’s feelings.

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

Does deviating from one’s gender norms inevitably doom one down a spiral of moral corruption? Tim O'Brien, author of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Ernest Hemingway, author of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, certainly seem to hold this view, as evident by the fates of the major female characters in their respective works. The deviance of the major female characters in both works appears to corrupt not only themselves, but also pollute their partners, causing them to suffer injury or harm as a result. The degree of injury ranges from negligible, like Fossie’s demotion and broken heart, to fatal, like the bullet that rips through Macomber’s skull. It begs the question, are these stories meant to serve as cautionary tales for their female readers, or possibly for their husbands, so they may recognize gender deviance and stop it in its tracks before their wives transform into Margot Macomber or Mary Anne Bell? This essay will analyze what such characters say about pervading views of women, both in society and in literature.

Machismo, or male chauvinism, is a concept that characterizes many Latin American male behaviors, most importantly those associated with masculinity and pride. This concept, most likely introduced to New Spain by Spanish conquistadors who embodied these traits, was then adopted and integrated as a part of Mexican culture going forward. Because of male masculinity prevailing over feminine traits during the 17th century, misogyny and the oppression of women became a norm in Mexican culture. Struggling to be valued in Mexico, women turned to literature and art to voice their opinions and expose the machismo in Mexican culture. Through literature and art, is where feminism in Mexico arose and is continually strengthen in. This paper will discuss the ways in which Mexican feminist literature and art over time have exposed and challenged machismo, misogyny, and the Mexican patriarchy since the Spanish Conquest.

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the reader gets a sense of what the expectations are of Dominican men and women. Junot Díaz uses Oscar in contrast to the other male characters to present the expectations of the Dominican male. On the other hand, Díaz presents the women in the text, especially Belicia, La Inca, Lola, and Jenni, as strong characters in their own rights, but the male characters, with the exception of Oscar, have a desire to display their masculinity to maintain power over these women. It would be unfair to say that the women bring the abuse unto themselves, but rather it is their culture that makes the abuse acceptable and almost to a certain extent—expected.

Lope de Vega’s play touches upon several key components and ideas that were brought up in many of the other stories read throughout the semester. This included the role of gender and how men and women are viewed differently in the Spaniard town of Fuenteovejuna. Another topic included the importance of family, love, and relationships and their connection on loyalty, trust, and personal beliefs. The last major influence found in other literature and in Fuenteovejuna, were the political and religious references made throughout the play. Even though Lope de Vega didn’t make these views obvious, the reader could still pick up on their connotation and the references made towards these specific ideas. With all of this in mind, each of these

Indeed, a woman should soften but not weaken a man. This supposition exemplifies the character Casilda from “The Judge’s Wife” short story by Isabel Allende. Although not seen by all as the main character, Casilda is the strongest and most evolutionary personality of the short story. “The Judge’s Wife” is an exceptional tale that follows the progression of characters as they fight against their predetermined destinies and how they are viewed in others’ eyes. Casilda is a catalyst for the evolution of almost every character in the story. Not only does her character grow in “The Judge’s Wife,” but she is also a medium for the growth of the two other main characters in the story. Casilda molds the personality of a majority of the characters in the story, distinctly Judge Hidalgo and Nicolas Vida.

Junot Diaz, the author of “A Cheaters Guide to Love” writes his short story with many different references to anti-feminism. He writes about women in different ways to show them as powerless, and un-superior to the main character in the short story. From this short story, Diaz conveys the main characters ways when he shows the him talking about, the girl he calls to have sex with, the women at the yoga class, and the files read at the end of the story that show the fifty girls he cheated on his fiancé with. Diaz creates his main character and puts him in the second person to relate to the reader, but show his anti-feministic signs.

The impossibility of the female subject of violence is precisely what Lamb examines in Salome although the poet herself was literally such a subject of violence, her poem is concerned with the construction and representation of this subject, or rather with the limits of its representation. Salome in Lamb’s represents one instance of a femme fatale figure in part serving women’s interests and exceeding any misogynist intentions it may have in male-authored texts and their fear of feminism or of women.

The typical conventions of the western genre included a male lead that fought crime while simultaneously saving the hopeless damsel in distress. Novels comparable to “True Grit” was revolutionary for female protagonists in accordance to the role females play in society. This novel shows that women are no longer expected to take care of the household, raise the kids or expect men to save the day. Even if the novel is a fictitious account of what the wild west was today’s readers are able to identify with a protagonist who questions the norm of society. The protagonist, Mattie, revealed she had “true” grit by vanquishing gender stereotypes to avenge her father’s death.

The men in the novels, either work unfulfilling jobs or do not work at all; leading to shame and repression of emotions. Often, the women in the novels must get jobs instead, creating a rift within the structure of gender norms which also leads to hypermasculinity. As puts it: ‘ [ when gender roles] ‘. . .shift . . . [both] males and females can overemphasize masculine values to a point where such behavior defines their personality and everyday behavior’ ( 345). This causes a major rift in both family relationships and social bonding, as Simpson states it is: ‘problems of employed and demanding women, unemployed and castrated men, and unruly wayward kids who gain control over the household’ (106). Thomas J. Scheff expands and explains this lack of social bonding in his article Hypermasculinity and Violence as a Social System. Scheff builds on Marx’s early ideas on alienation, and believes like Marx that ‘(the) most important human “species” need is connection with other human beings’ (2). However, because males are rewarded when they exude aggressive and violent behavior (Klein 345) and also when they remain quiet about their emotions (Scheff 3), they are often unable to expel their emotions in a productive way, which further alienates them, and often leads to lack of self knowledge and what Scheff terms as the silence/violence paradox. This chapter will discuss the silence violence