Imperialist Patriarchy

The United States at the dawn of the 20th Century was beginning its ascent into worldwide prominence. This was unprecedented for what had once been termed as an “experiment in democracy” and came with unexplored opportunities for the nation. The West had all but been conquered, and the industrialization of the nation was in full swing, but what the country needed was a market for its surplus goods. With the prominence that had caused America to gain worldwide attention, the nation likewise followed suit with other worldly nations of the time and engaged in the pursuit of imperialist expansion. Regardless of whether it is in fact imperialism, or if it was the “American exceptionalism” that our country likened it to, the fact is that

Throughout time, there has been a battle present in which females try to rise above the power of men and the hold they have on women. Whether the battle be for the equal treatment of both sexes or simply establishing a level of respect and understanding from the opposite sex, the meaning stands the same in which there is an ever-present power struggle that is continuously ongoing between the sexes. No matter the intentional meaning of the work, women suppression by men are seen when one looks beyond the simple statements given and examines the female characters in great detail to better understand the struggle she endures daily due to men. One author in particular that allows an interesting viewpoint into the mind of a blossoming woman is Susan Minot. Minot demonstrates in her story “Lust” how the female narrator is influenced and altered by her male sexual partners. Through each sexual encounter, the reader is able to see the changes these encounters have on the young woman emotionally and other affects a man has on her as she grows up in a male dominated world. This can all be determined by observing closely the figurative language used in the story, the fluctuations in emotions seen in the female character, and the thoughts the woman has about men throughout the story.

During the 19th century, King Leopold II of Belgium compared Africa to a cake. At the Berlin Conference in 1885, seven European nations took slices of Africa for themselves without discussing any details with Africans. From a 21st century perspective, this seems like a selfish thing to have done, so why did Europeans engage in imperialism? Certainly, political factors, cultural causes, and technological advancements were important. But the primary cause was economic. European nations competed to exploit the rich resources of Africa for financial and commercial gain.

The relationship between the domestic and the foreign characterises Early Modern representations of Anglo-American imperialism. By definition, the domestic pertains to the home country or household, and that which concerns oneself. The foreign is the antithesis of this, something considered to be unfamiliar and alien. As Eric Cheyfitz has asserted, this relationship was the grounding colonial ‘desire of what names itself domestic to dominate what it simultaneously distinguishes as foreign’ and figurative. This implies that the process of deciding the domestic from the foreign lies within the control of whatever faction wishes to gain dominance, thus the distinguishing factor begins as a question of perception and discourse. This dynamic certainly

One of her poems, “First Person Demonstrative”, deals with the theme of unrequited or secret love that is never acted upon. This theme reoccurs in many other works in many other media, which is dealt with differently in each work.

By the late nineteenth century, America had acquired a vast amount of land through the process of expansionism and was beginning to transform into an imperialistic nation. Observers of America’s change utilized artistic approaches exhibiting the events. In the illustration “Miss Columbia’s School House” perceptions of America’s views on imperialized lands were depicted.

These literary writings address how women were influenced by a “hermeneutic” belief system that placed women mutually in unity to abide by a societal “patriarchal” power (King and Morris 23). Again, women could not communicate their

While reading both “On Growing Up Between Genders”, by Stephen Burt and “The Female Body” by Margaret Atwood, I was so moved by both poets writing that I felt as though I was living their experiences with them. Throughout the course of both pieces, I felt emotionally drawn to obstacles of both writers, while understanding their wants of an experience very different from the ones previously given to them.

In analyzing the woman’s experience, the tone of the poem principally informs its paradoxical nature. For, while the notion of passion is conventionally associated with powerful and overwhelming emotion, the speaker’s tone is consistently calm and subdued when alluding to it. As evidence of this, one must recall the manner in which she establishes her sexual desire for her anonymous lover:

The other women are identified chiefly by the appearance of their portraits, but the ideal woman’s rendering is what Chico terms an “antiportrait, one that ultimately sheds its pictorial skin and that can exist only in language” (19). The so-called “softer Man” is described by non-physical words such as “Pleasure,” “Rest,” “Courage,” “Softness,” “Modesty,” and “Pride” (19). Compare this with the ekphrastic objects used to define the Queen’s virtues, such as “Crown,” “Gems,” and “Ball” (19). The Queen’s interior is a mystery because her exterior is enshrouded in trivial things; the Queen is a vacuous presence and, as Chico contends, the “cosmetic surface, paradoxically, is her truth” (18). This part of Chico’s argument shines.

The literary works of Edgar Allan Poe are exuding with struggles between the genders. These struggles are especially prevalent in Poe’s short story, “Ligeia” (644-653).

‘Submission’ and ‘rebellion’ are two main topics in women’s sufferings in literature that highlights women’ entangled desire which causes her to perform her role in a male dominated society. "The Wide Wide World” by Susan Warner and “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs reveals the power relations between men and women, captor and captive, master and slave, are unstable and subject to think. I examine here how these narratives deal with their circumstances from childhood to adulthood. Both of these narratives suffer to survive. They adjust in their exotic foreign place from childhood to adulthood. The main focus of this paper is how each of these texts negotiates issues of power and powerlessness, race, gender, region, and historical moment.

For the central women in the book, their lives are dictated by the rules instilled by harsh governing, and they find themselves lacking the freedom of self expression. “Curiosity, the novels we escaped into led us finally to question and prod our own realities, about which we felt so helplessly speechless” (Azar Nafisi, 39). These brave characters of society internally struggle with having to cloak themselves to hide their sexuality, rather than embracing it.

Focusing primarily on the first paragraph of the extract from Water’s ‘Affinity’ (1999), I have identified a thread of feminist criticism throughout the text. Peter Barry (p.116) describes feminist literary criticism as the realisation of “the significance of the images promulgated by literature”, and the need to “combat them and question their authority and their coherence”. In this essay I aim to talk about my interpretations of the feminine images evoked in the extract; including feminist spirit in contrast to submission, lesbianism and notions of patriarchal ideology.

As a Professor of Comparative Literature and Program of Critical Theory, Judith Butler received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale in 1984 and has received nine honorary degrees since then. Her work has an air of postmodern thought, focusing not on whether cultural practices are correct or not but goes in depth on the use language and its effect on how “gender” limits or even hinders women and those that don’t identify as either. In the 1990’s when Butler wrote this book during a time of great change in the portrayal of the female role. Women started having more empowered roles, no longer simply