Gender Analysis of Anna and the King
If you are not the lead elephant, the scenery never changes. (Moonshee, Anna’s servant)
One of the main issues in “Anna and the King” is the differences between men and women. What is less obvious is that those differences are of two types: the existing inequality of the social status of men and women, and the ways in which men and women try to deal with (end or prolong) this inequality.
First of all, let us observe the structure of the Thai society. Men occupy the dominant position in all aspects of life from top to bottom of the Thai social structure. The King rules the society, and men enforce all the laws and government regulations (we see no women participating in the King’s council
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Why does her mistress break the law? Certainly, she is a greedy, dishonest person, but her behavior may have a deeper explanation. She imitates the behavior of men by trying to put herself above the law. Probably, such attempts of these two women have no influence on Thai society, thus they are vain. However, the actions of two other women in the movie, Tuptim and Anna, do have an eventual influence on Thai society.
Tuptim makes her choice between love and duty not like a traditional Thai woman who is obedient, but like a human being with the right to make decisions on her own. She breaks the law in order to be close to her loved one. In spite of her betrayal of the King, her desperate attempt to keep her love makes the King take her side, if only privately. The main message that we get from her life and death is that love, which is the main connection between men and women, lacks any inherent inequality or discrimination. The King admits that Tuptim and her lover “fulfilled their destiny by touching us all” and intends to learn from his mistakes. One conclusion we can make from this is that if the laws and customs deprive one (in this case, a woman) of his or her rights, then submission is not the way to keep one’s human values. A better way is to pass on your values and to set an example with your courage.
Prince Chulalongkorn says, “Anna had shined such a light on Siam.” This is a very important statement because it directly indicates her role in
Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female
situation and weighs the effect on her family. In the end she acts to free
From a young age, the daughter will soon endure the burdens of what a woman will encounter throughout her lifetime of domestic duties and will not be able to gain the knowledge and opportunities that the son of the family will encounter. As the girl matures she is mostly ushered into the life of becoming a doting wife with a husband and family or in turn of following the path of becoming a nun. The traditional world of Tibet would seemingly push the woman into making the choice of husband and family which is an important aspect of the society. Once married, which are normally arranged the Tibetan woman is already a man’s gain for him to be successful in his own journey to further his status and/or wealth.
The claim of women as property to men displays how in both time periods, gender inequality influences how women are not treated as a human, but rather an object to men whether it is a husband or even a father.
What the role of a women should be was another point of conflict between the mothers and daughters. In the first anecdote on page 17, Tan tells the story of a Chinese women coming to America who dreams that “over there nobody will say her [daughter’s] worth is measured by the loudness of her husband’s belch.” This quote shows that the traditional view of women in China is that they should serve their husbands and families, and that they don’t deserve freedom. Ying-Ying St. Clair found herself conforming to this stereotype, saying that “[she] was pretty for [her husband].” (Tan 247). Not only did Ying-Ying have to listen to her husband, she began to embrace it and only serve her husband, without any regard for herself. When he left her to marry a younger women, she realized that she had been wasting away her life. She waited four years, until she was able to run away to America, where she gained her freedom. However, her daughter, Lena, was born with these rights that she had worked hard to gain. Lena talks about her husband, saying, “really, we’re equals, except that Harold makes about seven times more than what I make.” Harold is also her boss, despite the fact that they originally started their company together. Ying-Ying realizes that Lena is becoming submissive to her husband, much the way she did. Ying-Ying wants to “cut [Lena’s} tiger spirit loose” (Tan 252), but Lena refuses to listen, not realizing that her
A variety of roles have women in them in William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello. Let us in this essay examine the female characters and their roles.
It is the society which gives higher value to men than women from birth. Most of the time, women, blame the men for having more control, more power, and being “The Perfect One”. However, it is not actually the men’s fault whom we should blame first, because it is the society which puts man over woman.
In the novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Juniot Diaz you start to notice a cultural gender role and how there is certain expectations of them. The novel is based on a young boy named Oscar Wao and the hardships that one event has caused to an entire family. Even though the novel is focused on Oscar the author always went back to his sister and his mother. The author described the women as “real, strong women, even though they were being filtered through a somewhat distorted male point of view” (Stevenson 1). These two women play an important roll in this novel, they ultimately don't show the cultural gender role and what is expected from them. All the important female rolls in Oscars life are independent and strong women but they all have one thing in common, being mistreated by men.
She is willing going to defy a royal edict, knowing full well doing so will lead to her execution and death, in order to uphold her belief in the sacredness of, and the loyalty and duty one should have to their
Do women continue to struggle for equality in the world? The answer may vary from person to person. Although conditions have improved for women in the United States, women are still subjected to unequal pay, rape and sexual harassment, underrepresentation in government, exclusive responsibility to the household, and are less likely than men to have careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. A male-dominated world is a reality that has been ingrained into society ever since the beginning of time. Women have been exploited throughout history, and many examples of oppression can be identified in the past. The examination of literature in stories such as “A Jury of Her Peers” and “The Story of An Hour” provides evidence of the normality of oppression against the marital role of women. Authors Susan Glaspell and Kate Chopin lived during similar time periods, and they expressed themes related to the anguish women had to face while searching for their own self-identity and fighting against conformity.
The question of gender inequality and its effect on the entire female gender is shown by the way the main character’s husband, John, treats her in a way that affects the way she behaves around him.
In the culture of Yemen, where Nujood is from, women are not allowed to say no to anything. Thier opinion is not important in the family. She was harshly abused by her “husband’ many times. He would maltreat her while she was sexally abused every night. Nujood fought for her
Even though written in two different parts of the world, depicting women who are products of vastly different cultures, it is amazing how similar their feelings are-showing that a woman in an unhappy marriage is just that-Unhappy and unsatisfied. It doesn't matter what part of the world she lives in and what cultural beliefs influence her thought process. In the end, she is just a woman who wants to be happy and seeks satisfaction in a marital relationship-lack of which can spell doom and depression.
In Shakespeare’s comedy, MoV, the female protagonists are not given the same opportunities men or treated seriously and rather only given these opportunities or have their words taken seriously if they act as men through cross-dressing. From this portrayal, modern audiences can learn that oppression was present in the past and still continues to affect women in today’s world. Portia has to cross-dress in order to take on the role of a lawyer. She along with her maid in waiting, Nerissa That they shall think we are accomplishèd/With that we lack”(3.4.62-63)During the Shakespearean era, women were not viewed as intelligent and lacked skills to have such roles. Going under the guise of a lawyer Portia would be able hold a position that she would not be able to have if she was appeared as a woman. Furthermore, this position also allows for her to have more power and gain respect from individuals in her society. While under this persona, Shylock lauds a disguised Portia for her judgement, saying “A Daniel come to judgement! Yea, a Daniel./O wise young judge,how I do honor thee!”(4.1.231-232)--> 1) Shylock likens Portia to a wise and important biblical figure, Daniel, who made wise judgement. By complimenting Portia, it goes to show that what a woman says is only deemed serious if not seen as a woman saying it. When she returns to Belmont, Portia reads a letter out to Bassanio and Gratiano, which contains the line,“There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,/Nerissa there her
Books, plays, and movies that depict culture and social life often make statements about social issues such as gender roles, racism, and class distinction. Stories set up a context in which characters relate, often representing “stock” characters chosen from society and placed in situations where their stereotypical behaviors—and sometimes their breaking of these stereotypes—are highlighted. As feminism became a popular movement in Western countries in general and the United States in particular, female voices were naturally heard through fictional characters. Social and political issues commonly fuel entertainment; feminism, racism, and classism—recurring themes in entertainment through the 20th Century and into the modern day—have