Gender Roles In Alice In Wonderland

Gender roles have been a hotly debated topic in the most recent years, especially the role of women in society. Women have had set expectations that they are believed to conform to, which is shown in many pieces of film and literature. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the life of a man in the upper class in the 1920’s, as well as women in the 1920’s. The movie The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman, visually explains the treatment and expectations of women, and especially focuses on the “damsel in distress” stereotype.. Roxane Gay’s “Bad Feminist” explains the stereotypes against women and ways women can come together and fight these constraints. Based on these sources, societal expectations take away from each individual’s identity, forcing women to conform to society's standards. In order to fight against these expectations, women have banded together and formed movements against these standards.

After watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part Two, I was able to see how gender roles both differ and remain the same in this movie. Although some gender stereotypes apply to the film, I think many characters defy the stigmas typically assigned to males and females. Strong female roles, such as Hermione Granger, Molly Weasley, Professor McGonagall, and Luna Lovegood, help portray sturdy independent women who take charge. Reflecting on this movie, even as a dedicated Harry Potter fan, I have always admired how female actors in the series have had “the brains” in tricky situations. After watching the movie, I saw themes of power feminism, stereotyping, and negative connotations of males who express emotion.

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, he introduces a character known as the Wife of Bath. It is her turn to tell the stories, and her tale begins discussing her past marriages in the prologue. Married five times, the Wife of Bath tells us about her own marital issues, and the way she was able to manipulate the gender roles to her own advantage. As interesting of a character as she is, I find Chaucer created the Wife of Bath to deliberately introduce the issues gender roles play in our society. I believe that the role the of the Wife of Bath in the tale was purposely written by Chaucer to twist the traditional gender roles of the time, satirizing how gender plays in society.

In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls,” our narrator is a young farm girl on the verge of puberty who is learning what it means to be a “girl.” The story shows the differing gender roles of boys and girls – specifically that women are the weaker, more emotional sex – by showing how the adults of the story expect the children to grow into their respective roles as a girl and a boy, and how the children grow up and ultimately begin to fulfill these roles, making the transition from being “children” to being “young adults.”

Issues concerning her size, identity, and her social exchanges with both Wonderland and its creatures spur and characterize Alice’s development towards becoming a young woman.

Whether it is the past or the present, there have always been gender roles in society. In most homes, it is the woman’s responsibility to take care of the house. This includes cleaning, meal preparations, raising and taking care of the children as well as the husband. Compared to the men who take care of the more physical activities, such as yard work. It was known throughout many years that it was a woman’s responsibility to stay in the house while the man would go out and look for work to provide money for his family. Although the intensity of gender roles has changed, it still exists.

Based on the children’s literary work written by Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland is a fictional film that was directed by Tim Burton.  The film is set in Wonderland inside of Alice’s dream, so viewers are able to recognize the lack of order and the fantasies of children.  One of the major themes seen in the movie is childhood, specifically the development into adulthood, which is depicted in other characters besides Alice.  Alice, however, is used as the primary symbol for what children in the Victorian Age should not ideally act like, since they were expected to dress properly and attain a certain level of education.  Furthermore, Sigmund Freud’s dream theory and tripartite give further insight into the characters and what they represented during the Victorian Age. The id, ego, and the superego are applied to the unconscious and conscious mind states, and how the unconscious state is still somewhat available during a conscious state.  In Alice in Wonderland, psychoanalysis is used to portray the Red Queen as the id, the Absolem

In the past few decades, women have been greatly stereotyped and prejudged against due to their roles in literature and society. J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan is a classic tale about the adventures of a young boy who never grows old. When viewing this story, with the Feminist Critical Theory, one can see the negative portrayal of womanhood and its effect on a young audience. The portrayal of women in Peter Pan teaches the readers about gender roles and stereotypical characteristics, the insignificant role of women in society, and the sexualization of women.

   Recent history boldly notes the protests and political unrest surrounding the Vietnam Conflict during the 1960s and 70s. However, equally important in this era are the women who pushed for gender role reevaluation and publicly rebelled against the established social norm of a woman's "place." Although Alice Munro may not have been burning her bra on the courthouse steps, threads of a feminist influence can be found in "Boys and Girls." Munro's main character, a girl probably modeled after Munro's own childhood experiences on an Ontario farm, faces her awakening body and the challenge of developing her social identity in a man's world. "The girl," an unnamed character, acts as

Perrault creates a character that is passive, weak, and communicates discriminatory ideals about women. Cinderella’s gentleness, passivity, and steadfast patience denote the gender roles that would be expected in French salons. Perrault discusses these charming qualities with his readers by stating “without [them], one can achieve nothing; with [them], everything” (Perrault 78). His moral proposes because Cinderella peacefully endures years of abuse from her family, she is rewarded with the prince and a happy life. However, it is important to note that the prince fell in love with Cinderella not because of her kind and gentle nature, but because of her beauty.

J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan tells the story of “the boy who never grew up.” Barrie paints Peter as an extraordinary character living in a mystical world called Neverland, flying through the air, and fighting villainous pirates. He is also the boy who takes a young girl named Wendy from England back to Neverland with him. The interaction and interdependence of Barrie’s two characters, Peter and Wendy, symbolize and spread cultural gender stereotypes by mirroring the stereotypes embodied by the adult characters in the story—Mr. and Mrs. Darling—and by reflecting the ideas of gender roles of the time and foreshadowing the children’s understanding of reality and expectations, as well as their eventual maturation.

Society’s Influences: Gender Roles The way a woman is supposed to act all depends upon the culture in which she is raised. Depending on that culture, the women maybe a worker, or like a stereotypical women in the U.S., a homemaker. Margaret Mead did much research on this topic and came to conclusions that femininity is a cultural idea. Based on how person is brought up through a certain society, they perceive what femininity is differently. One classic movie I am going to discuss is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This movie displayed many stereotypes women have in our society, which influences the children that watch it. Let’s start with Margaret Mead. Mead was an American and was born in 1901. She graduated from Columbia University in 1929,

Folktales has created men as the most powerful character in most stories but that does not mean always as there’s a difference in Grandmother’s tale and Little Red Riding hood. Different genders have different expectations according to their characteristics. The Red Riding Hood and Grandmother’s tale has produced ideas such as how a girl’s life is looked upon in the past and how the male has the upper hand in most situations according to the stories. This essay will argue about how the girl’s gender played a major role in the context of the story and how the wolf is represented by a male character and why the male is not always the most powerful character in all stories and the comparison

The story emphasizes how the princess is confined due to her status as a woman, and is additionally degraded due to her failures at performing femininity. She lacks the “softness” and “grace” expected of her, therefore and cannot perform in traditionally feminine roles, exemplified by her inability and unwillingness to attract a suitor at the masquerade. She instead to embraces her unfeminine and monstrous tendencies, preying on the men in the forest and thus gaining power by retaking what they had “stolen” from nature (which, as a woman, is tied to her own being.) In line with Nancy Chodorow’s theory of “Family Structure and Feminine Personality”, the princess’s ineptitude of femininity stems from her lack of female socialization. Her birth mother dies in childbirth, and is further shunned by her stepmother; after this, she receives no maternal guidance or connection, and is “passed from hand to hand” between various faux-maternal figures. Parental relationships are fraught with tense strife. The monster can only achieve her goals when reconnected with a maternal figure, and allowed to consume (though a tad grotesquely) the love that could be “only fully given by a mother,” which is to say a mother’s sacrifice for the sake of her child. In so doing, both the queen and princess break from traditional gender

In a time and society pervaded with gender roles and labels, boys and girls tells a story of a young girl’s initial confrontation with domesticity. To set the stage, the protagonist is a 10-year old unnamed girl. Meanwhile, her brother was named synonymous to “Lord”, a titled gentleman. Apparently, Alice Munro will not take this treatment of women as second class citizens sitting down.