In this figure 2-1, two women are walking bare feet and their head have been shaved because they have been accused of sleeping with the enemy. One can also notice the Swastikas tattooed on their foreheads. A French woman describes the fate of women accused of collaborating with the enemy:
The war was not finished, but in Paris it assumed another form – more perverse, more degrading … The “shorn woman” of rue Petit-Musc… walked along with her wedged-soled shoes tied around her neck, stiff like those undergoing a major initiation. Her face was frozen like a Buddha, her carriage tense and superb in the mist of a shouting, screeching mob of faces contorted by hatred, groping and opportunistic hands, eyes congested by excitement, festivity,
…show more content…
In fact, in behavioral science, studies of physical appearance have demonstrated that most women (and men for that matter) equate self-worth and the worth of others with the attainment of attractiveness (Bull and Rumsay 5). Therefore, to deprive women from her head hair equates a near total loss of self-worth.
The shearing as the sexual punishment is to be found in numerous societies, from antiquity to the present. It modifies the appearance of a woman at a time when the body is the object of aesthetic valorization. It changes the relationship with the self and with the others. By cropping women, society rejects its whole guilt on women who are considered seductive. Consequently, public shearing allows a process of re-appropriation of the feminine bodies. It becomes the symbol for the destruction of the guilty body, the desecration, which forbids the guilty women to have access to her own femininity and sexuality. Through the process of shaving, the body becomes the reflection of the “moral ugliness.” In fact, because head hair expresses or manifests attractiveness and power, to be bald deprives a woman of the ability to fit into our society, to be a woman in the public sphere.
Hair as a symbol of virility for men and attractiveness for women is found in widely separated cultures throughout the ages and in all parts of the world. It is surprising to find such a difference of meaning between women and
In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, human nature is the only abstract periphery between belligerent barbarism and justifiable violence. Through the insipid bombardments that rained shells over the Germans’ heads and noxious implementation of mustard gas, Remarque dexterously misleads the reader into believing that he fights in an apathetic war where all remnants of human nature and identity have been destroyed with the introduction of trench warfare. Through Paul Baumer’s eyes, Remarque identifies war as an artificial construct devoid of human identity and any subsequent emotions until the first bombardment, the first glimpse Baumer has of the unfettered abominations of war. After the shrieking of artillery shells ceased, it was replaced by the numbing scream of injured horses. Paul described this abhorrent noise as “the moaning of the world…, wild with anguish, filled with terror, and groaning” (Remarque 62), the first emotionally provocative scene in the novel. As if the description of the noise did not suffice to pique the reader, Remarque continues, “The belly of one is ripped open, the guts trail out. He becomes tangled in them and falls…” (Remarque 63). At this instant, Remarque sheds the obscure layer of superficiality and reveals the tatters of human nature and identity still exist even in most anguish conditions of comeradeship, sympathy, contrition, and selflessness.
Women are marked and judged by their outer appearance rather than their innermost. Tannen distinguished that “each of the women at the conference had to make decisions about hair, clothing, makeup and accessories, and each decision had a carried meaning” (411). Women
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel very much applicable to the modern world. Though many countries continue to engage in war, those watching from a distance may lose sight of its true devastation. This book’s graphic violence and disturbing subject surely will make an impact upon its readers. Remarque brings to light the disparity between war’s image and reality and uses Paul’s killing of a French printer to expose the identical suffering of opposing
Historically, the pinnacle of beauty was a woman’s hair. In cultures all around the world, hair was considered to be the keeper of the soul and an important symbol of womanhood and virginal state.
In Erich Maria Remarque’s gruesome WWI novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, German soldier Paul Baumer faces ““bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades,” which he explains are only “words, but they hold the horror of the world” (Remarque himself was a veteran of the war) (Remarque, 63). This statement reflects that Paul, like so many other soldiers, is traumatized by the ease with which men can be slayed. Edward Glendinning was an English private in World War I who was sent to France to fight. He recounts a time he walked around the trenches surveying damage after one particular battle: “Quite a number of the men were still alive, and they were crying out and begging for water.
In Ways of Seeing (John Berger, 1972), the author claims that women in visual media are being objectified by men and women themselves as a subject of gaze. It can be seen from paintings and movies in which a man’s actions are just actions, and in contrary, a woman’s actions indicate the way she would like to be observed. Additionally, there is a statement about the distinction between “nakedness” and “nudity”, saying that in the European tradition, nakedness is simply a state of having no clothes on and nudity being a form of an artistic representation. On the other hand, Berger has also discussed the meaning of nakedness outside the artistic context, arguing that naked is a process, not a state because it breaks down the mystification of what is behind all the body-wrapping and simplifies the reality.
The twentieth century was being turned on its head as the civility of wars, we're focusing on a broader spectrum; the world, the ideologies that were once known for centuries had to question the cultural norms, and a woman was changing the world’s longstanding views of them. In the midst of the ever impending world, yet, one trial in France was attracting the attention of its people, that the problems surrounding the world, seemed less significant. The name Henriette Caillaux plastered on every front page of the French newspaper, as she had come on trial for murder. Caillaux had murdered her husband’s longtime enemy, Gaston Calmette after Calmette published a letter from her husband and his first wife in his paper Le Figaro. Calmette had sparked
This change is etched on the body, as body politics has always been a focus of the study on women. The ugly image has been transformed and the modern witch seeks a return to the maternal. The chapter deconstructs the image of the witch highlighting the process of such manifestations against women, demonizing them as witches by patriarchy and dominant social structures especially in fairy tales. Representation of the witch in contemporary popular culture redefines and re-locates the witch and her craft in a post-feminist
Prior to the Victorian era, men in England maintained cleanly shaven faces. With the mid-eighteen hundreds came a widespread shift toward facial hair in a multitude of styles (Camellia). The ability to grow whiskers began to be regarded as a sign of manhood. In pictures and photographs from the era, it is rare to find a male, past the age of manhood, depicted without facial hair in some capacity. As the century continued, the preferred style of facial hair grew progressively longer, bushier, and more pronounced (Nunn), but it remained “stylish for men to wear facial hair of all sizes and descriptions” (Camellia).
Many girls around the world have short hair. Some for medical reasons, some because they want to. Standards are put in place and make other people think diversely. Some standards are set mainly by society. Mic.com said, “Short hair reads as masculine, which some people then equate in women with homosexuality(MarcieBianco).” This shows why women with short hair can be mistaken
War did not only obliterate the flesh of men; it destroyed the very essence of humanity within individuals. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque impeccably illustrated the destructive nature of war. Remarque demonstrated the obliteration that follows war through the physical disfigurement of the soldiers and battlefield, through the mental scarring of soldiers young and old, and through the annihilation of all emotional bonds from before and after the war.
The symbolism of female hair and men’s react to it greatly vary between cultures, another reason why it is impossible to imply there is a cross-cultural masculine psychology. Anthropologists have also found less of an expectation for women to remove their body hair in African-American communities in comparison to white communities (Toerien, 342). However, just focusing on white American culture, female hair removal primarily began at the beginning of the 20th century, starting around 1915 and slowly escalating as hemlines became shorter. By the late 1970s, most women in America were shaving their body hair, especially young women. Like with body shape, body hair has become a status symbol similar to fat: the more body hair a woman has, the more likely she is to be considered to a) be part of a lower socioeconomic status and b) lack the discipline necessary to remove their body hair. In addition to these cultural markers, men’s adverse reaction to body hair likely comes from body hair being the most “ubiquitous mass media image of the depilated feminine body” (Toerien, 334). Men react negatively to women having body hair because it goes against their idea of femininity and removes one of the strongest markers of the difference between men and women in our culture. Therefore, Grey has a point in saying the expectation of
Different reiterating views of its importance and the way it should be displayed are used to reflect upon the views of women of the time and life in society in general. At times, it is near-worshipped as a sign of sexuality, or as a sign of nourishment. Other times it is restricted down,
Unrealistic body ideals lead women to feel inadequate because of how their own beauty falls short in comparison to beauty ideals. The believed result of this is women continuous efforts in trying to change their appearance to go along with beauty standards but this is not the case for something as relevant as hair styling. In
“So prying and insidious were the fingers of the European War” suggests the all encompassing nature of the war. No matter how much people might think that they are sheltered, no aspects have been left untouched. Once the war starts even something as personal as the “geranium bed” is destroyed, nothing is spared. The most private as well as public spaces are intruded, damaged and scarred by the war. War affected not just soldiers but also civilians like the ‘cook’, Lady Bexborough and Miss Kilman. Miss Kilman had to struggle to