Game Of Thrones Misogyny Analysis

From a plethora of many authors and compilations over many centuries comes the fourteenth century The Thousand and One Nights, a Middle Eastern frame story during which there are as many as four implanted stories. In the outermost frame of this tale, a king who is betray by his wife vows to take a new wife each night and kill her the next morning in order to prevent further unfaithfulness. The main inner frame are stories from one of his wives which she continues each night to keep the king interested and thus postpone her death. Through these stories, the reader can examine the role of men and women in this time, specifically how women function in conjunction to men in the text. The reader may assume the men are superior while the woman are inferior, but through close reading of the text, the reader will discover that women in the text are only treated subordinately by men in the story but are revealed to the reader as the more powerful of the sexes. Authors reveal the power of women by their prowess at trickery or “women’s cunning” (The Thousand 1181), and their ability to force the actions of male counterparts. The reader can examine men’s attempt to stifle this power, which further acknowledges the women’s merit, through the excessively frequent occurring instances of men treating the women as insignificant, as well as instances when women are turned to ungulate animals, such

In The Thousand and One Nights translated by Husain Haddawy, there is an emphasis on the role women play in and how their characters affect the male view on the rights and freedom women are entitled to. The value of women in the tale vanished after King Shahzaman’s wife had committed adultery with one of his palace workers. In the East during the time of this tale, there was little to no value for women, which gave men the power to use them as sex slaves and be able to throw them away after they have been sexually fulfilled. One day, when the vizier’s daughter Shahrazad volunteers to calm the raging king by telling him many tales and distracting him from his sexual acts and killing spree. The tale of The Thousand and One Nights was believed to be misogynistic, and presented women to be adulteresses who caused the downfall of men (Blythe). This tale was written in ancient Middle-Eastern civilization where women did not have rights or freedom within their societies and were victimized to be seen as the root of all evil and that “women are not to be trusted” (609. Haddawy). This tale will be evaluated based on the traditions placed in the ancient Middle-East, the modern-day observations of how women are treated in westernized countries, and the changes perceived.

In today’s world, specifically in the twenty-first century, men are known to dominate society—especially in a workplace. This domination portrays women to be fragile individuals; however, after reading Marie de France’s “Lanval,” readers learn that the gender roles are interchanged—women are men and men are women. In “Lanval,” Queen Guinevere, King Arthur’s wife, is depicted as an authoritative woman—specifically over Lanval, the knight. Queen Guinevere wants Lanval to take part in an adulterous relationship—she wants to be his mistress: “Lanval, I’ve honored you sincerely, / Have cherished you and loved you dearly/All my love is at your disposal/ What do you say to my proposal? /Your

Women have had many different roles in the history of European literature but have generally been restricted to the roles assigned to them in a largely patriarchal society. As a result of this society, these roles have often been powerless ones. This calls into question the constitution of a powerful woman in literature: in Beowulf, being a powerful woman means becoming the bond between families and alliances; in Lanval, power comes from assertion and control-- a powerful woman is a woman in charge. The primary difference between the representation of women in Beowulf and Lanval is that the latter transcends overarching patriarchal boundaries, and the former does not; the reason for their respective representations lies in the literary time periods in which the stories were written. From this, one can see that the introduction of romance as a central theme gave way to new representations and roles of women in predominantly heteropatriarchal English literature and gives new meaning to the analysis of stories like these.

The role of the patriarchal society and its impact on the oppression of female characters

“The world is still sexist.” — Barbara Broccoli. From the creation story to modern day, women and men still struggle with a power dynamic of inferiority and superiority. The problem of sexism has been ever-present throughout history, and although it has been acknowledged by many, it has not been eradicated or resolved. Although the acknowledgment of sexism has grown over the course of the modern era, it is heavily rooted in society’s developmental process, which makes it continuously difficult to annihilate. Furthermore, throughout many historical texts, women are often represented as objects instead of real people. Within texts, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Bible, the Quran, and the Torah, women are constantly regarded as inferiors instead of equals with men. Throughout these texts, there is a clear separation between the treatment of men and women, with women always being referred to as property.

Gender inequality will always affect the portrayal of women in society, the weaker, unnecessary, and other sex. It is not just a subject of the past, and still holds a name in society. However in the olden eras, the way women were treated and looked at was in a much harsher condition. In Shakespeare’s Othello and Shelley’s Frankenstein, women’s roles in the books are solely based on the way they are treated in their time period. The portrayal of women in these books demonstrate that they can never be in the same standing as men and therefore will never have the same respect as them. In both Othello and Frankenstein women are treated as property, used to better men’s social standards, and lack a voice, which demonstrates that in

Throughout many pays and novels, women have had important roles of helping form the main characters, in the way they think, move or change the story. Women have always been subordinate to men all through history, but in plays, novels, short stories, etc, they have been given large enforcing roles, showing the power within women. William Shakespeare and Sophocles use guilt, pride, and influence to demonstrate the importance of the women’s role to support the main characters in both the plays of Macbeth and Antigone.

The book, The Thousand and One Nights, is an intriguing story. It has one overarching story with several other stories being told by the various characters of the main storyline. However, behind this main story arc and the several other minor story arcs, lies a common theme, sexism. Several of the male characters in The Thousand and One Nights display their sexism in the way they act and think, and even the main female character of the story, Shahrazad, on the surface level, encourages this way of thinking through her storytelling to King Shahrayar. One would think that given Shahrazad’s relations with the king, she would try in someway to dissuade the misogynistic king from his line of thinking. However, while appealing to the king’s

Writer Ngozi Adichie says a feminist is a “person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes,” meaning both sexes are treated equally. “Cinderella” does not portray women as equal to men, rather it suggests that a woman’s value highly depends on a man and teaches girls to become patient victims. For instance, it places attention on a woman’s chastity, beauty, passiveness, as the story accepts abuse, discourages powerful women, and insists on a double standard.

For example, in a Rolling Stones article “Get Medieval: The Seven Most Awful Things People Did on 'Game of Thrones' Season One” Rolling Stones notes the abuse of Dany in Game of Thrones stating, “none of the women we've met so far have it tougher than Daenerys. Used as a bargaining chip by her power-hungry older brother Viserys, Dany isn't so much the bride at her wedding”. This article makes it evident that this rape scene has made the viewer aware of Dany’s circumstances in her society and has made viewers question the status quo of women’s rights in

In the chapter “Male Gaze”, she talks about how Game of Thrones and other media outlets objectify women to gain more male audiences. Frankie claims that, “the Game of Thrones sex scenes are biased towards men and do not appear designed to appeal to women.” (Frankle 16) In “The Night Lands” episode that takes place two episodes before “The Gardens Bones” aired, it showed Melisandre seducing Lord Stannis with the promise that she will birth him a son. Before Melisandre and Stannis have sex, she tells him that she can provide him a son while his current wife was sickly and brought nothing but stillborns and death. This shows that the women are just objects used for having children and without it they were worthless (unless they were prostitutes). Melisandre undid her robe and was completely naked under it and he roughly rips it off and lightly tosses her on the desk filled with battle plans and strategies. This symbolized him dominating her and being in control of the situation, he is worried about the war with his brother but he knows that he can still dominate and control (so he thinks) Melisandre. This appeals to the male audiences, because they like to be in control and dominate because it shows how masculine and macho they are. In the show, there is a disproportionate amount of female nudity vs male nudity, which conveys the message that women are nothing more than sex objects and eye candy that contributes nothing unless they are having sex or doing lewd things to get men’s attention. This especially shows when Melisandre is completely naked and spread out in front of the camera while Stannis is completely covered up only having the fly of his pants undone so the audience can’t see his private areas. This is just one of several times that Frankle has pointed out

In Game of Thrones every character is tortured in their own right. Some characters are simply ridiculed in front of nobility, while others are forced to walk the streets of the city naked. Arguably, Sansa Stark is one of the characters that receive the most unfortune. Sansa Stark, a naive, idealistic girl from the North, hoped to marry the prince of her dreams, instead, her father was killed in front of her, she was married twice to two sadistic men, and was raped in one of the most controversial moments of the show.

Even though Cersei does enjoy the power that comes with being Queen, she resents her marriage. Just like Daenerys, she would have never settle for being a political tool. Cersei wishes to encourage her power and conquer those who stand in her way, which is really no different than what we see from Daenerys. But viewers do not see Cersei through the same sympathetic eyes as they see Daenerys even though they are both popular for beauty rather than intelligence and were sold off to men who could politically help their families. Cersei and Daenerys have to work hard in order to be respected and taken seriously by men around them because they are females.

Although described as a land of justice and honor, England within the 13th century French Romance, Silence, still very much adheres to its patriarchal roots of female belittlement and gender norms. This concept is most often illustrated through the degrading statements of the narrator, Heldris, and Nature herself, and the sexist actions and decrees of the romance’s glorified leader, King Evan. The oppression of women then allows for the perpetuation of harmful gender norms and ultimately restricts women from achieving their full potential, thus hindering their ability to obtain power.