Kate Atwood 's The Robber Bride

More often than not, analyses of John Rollin Ridge’s Joaquín Murieta interpret the novel as a demonstration of male bravery, and regard the female characters as counterparts that exist to remind the violent men of their humanity. However, an analysis that only considers women for their roles as sentimental beings is one that fails to detect their true significance in the work. Instead, it is essential to recognize that the female characters of the novel diverge from traditional, confining expectations of womanhood, and embody traits of masculinity as a response to their social situations.

Over the past 200 years sexual liberation and freedom have become topics of discussions prevalent within western culture and society. With the recent exploration of sexuality a new concept of sexual and gender identity has emerged and is being analyzed in various fields of study. The ideology behind what defines gender and how society explains sex beyond biology has changed at a rapid pace. In response various attempts to create specific and catch all definitions of growing gender and sexual minorities has been on going. This has resulted in the concept of gender becoming a multi- layered shifting hypothesis to which society is adapting. Since the 19th-century, philosophers and theorists have continued to scrutinize gender beyond biological and social interpretation. Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid 's Tale captures the limitations and social implications forced upon a set gender based on societal expectations. Gender is a social construct that limits the individual to the restrictions and traditions of a society, or if it’s an individually formed self-identification of sex and sexuality that is formed autonomously. Evidence of gender establishment can be seen within literary works and supported by various schools of gender and sexuality theory.

First of all, Margaret Atwood is well known for writing fiction with strong female characters that critics categorize her as feminist. Her initial works, ”The Edible Woman”, “Dancing Girls”, “The Robber Bride”, and “The Handmaid’s Tale” are some of examples of her works that are categorize as feminist. Those novels of strong woman describe, “The main characters variously indulge in self-invention, self-mythologising, role-playing, and self-division, while identity is presented as unstable and duplicitous throughout the novels” (McCarthy 3). Atwood has that unique style to describe her characters. She elucidates the woman as their own self to invent their life and their environment through the entire novel. Atwood has a twisted technique for giving her work a jubilant name when the words describe the opposite. One example of that is her short story collection, “Dancing Girls”, Atwood, “bears a surprisingly joyful title for a series of narratives shot through with anxiety and fear, with images of death, deformity, lifelessness and contained rage” (Murray 1). Atwood has an incredible way to write stories where the characters go through gruesome obstacles or experiences that define

Does deviating from one’s gender norms inevitably doom one down a spiral of moral corruption? Tim O'Brien, author of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Ernest Hemingway, author of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, certainly seem to hold this view, as evident by the fates of the major female characters in their respective works. The deviance of the major female characters in both works appears to corrupt not only themselves, but also pollute their partners, causing them to suffer injury or harm as a result. The degree of injury ranges from negligible, like Fossie’s demotion and broken heart, to fatal, like the bullet that rips through Macomber’s skull. It begs the question, are these stories meant to serve as cautionary tales for their female readers, or possibly for their husbands, so they may recognize gender deviance and stop it in its tracks before their wives transform into Margot Macomber or Mary Anne Bell? This essay will analyze what such characters say about pervading views of women, both in society and in literature.

Through the setting of the novel, Atwood examines a woman’s role and contribution to society. Throughout history, oppressive regimes

The commandment, “women must submit to the dominance of man,” (Roland de Vaux) counseled many societies, western and abroad. The precedence of a submissive woman has dated back to the most basic societies, however with the evolution of cultures and communities, the idea of male dominance was undoubtedly amended; this is where humanity divides uncovering the struggle between the oppression of women and the precedence that has been set forth for centuries. Khaled Hosseini and Nathaniel Hawthorne both comment on this societal disconnect in their domestic narrations of female characters. In Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns the character Mariam depicts a women who endures rape, abuse, and imprisonment in her own home under the hand of her husband. Similarly Hester in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is prosecuted by the male leaders of the puritan society as she is forced into solitude for the sinful act of adultery. Together these seemly different bodies of work challenge and confront society’s censure of women as shown by the revelation of unrealistic social standards of women through distinct religious historical settings, the development of characterization, and the narrative point of view of both novels.

The Robber Bridegroom, by Eudora Welty, is a folktale that shares the main themes and plots of some stories by the brothers Grimm. In this book, Eudora Welty, the author intertwines into a parody several story plots from well-known stories and Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. This story, like most fairy tales, has a strong and long plot and we encounter many characters who are extremely influential towards each other.

Deborah Tannen focuses on this concept of the markedness of women in her essay “There Is No Unmarked Woman” and her interview in She Said He Said. Here, she explores the idea of how linguistics, appearances, and actions can indicate one as a certain type of woman. Her claims are validated not only by examples present in our everyday lives and literature, but also through film. The infamous Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove or:

In Marguerite de Navarre's work The Heptameron, ten travelers share stories with each other while taking refuge in a monastery. Inspired by the work of Boccaccio, Marguerite’s work closely parallels the structure of The Decameron, but with three significant departures: within the group of travelers there is equal representation between men and women, the travelers promise each other to tell only true stories, and the travelers comment on the ethical ramifications of each story that is shared. Through these three stylistic departures from the traditional frame tale, Marguerite is able to challenge her audience with a distinctly proto-feminist dialogue. Because of her proto-feminist ideas, Marguerite and her self-inspired character Parlamente act as what Lewis Hyde would call a trickster, for as Hyde notes, “every group has its edge, its sense of in and out, and trickster is always there.” Within the context of gender roles and sexuality in Medieval European society, Marguerite is pushing against the edge of what is considered acceptable by casting an eye on the hypocrisy of her contemporary society’s view of adultery, making her a boundary crosser through her authorship. Specifically, by analyzing the consequences of adultery for men as opposed to the consequences for women, Marguerite’s trickster nature is revealed through her proto-feminist narrative as she points out the hypocrisy of traditional gender norms in regards to adultery.

The protagonist’s marriage with her spouse, John, exposes stereotypical roles of both male and females, and the subordination of women in that era. John’s assumption of superior wisdom assures

In the story of The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter attacks the conventional gender roles of women. The conventional Gothic plot revolves around pursuit. A young heroine’s virtuous virginity, purity and innocence is sexually threatened. Thus, what Carter does in “The Bloody Chamber” is redefine female desire and sexuality which are rendered passive and repressed through traditional Gothic texts. Where the mother exemplifies the heroic woman, the “girl” is the traditional damsel in distress. Maria Makinen’s assessment of Carters feminine characters is both truthful and incorrect. Carter uses traditional female stereotypes as well as her unique women to make a contrast between these perceptions of women.

The novel "The Blind Assassin" by Margaret Atwood is a short story about Iris Chase Griffen and how she starts writing the story of her life for her granddaughter during the time of World War I. She tells the story with scenes from her present life as well as many flashbacks throughout her life. In the story, the protagonist, Iris Chase Griffen, has difficulty with the death of her sister, her unhappy marriage to her husband and her affair with Alex. During the story, she encounters her sister’s journals and ultimately learns that her husband, Richard was raping her sister Laura. Literature is to be known to have an emotional impact on the reader and this novel by Margaret Atwood is no different. There are several conflicts in this work, and they all help to convey themes of human nature vs. society and herself.

Joseph Conrad’s varying depiction of women in his novel Heart of Darkness provides feminist literary theory with ample opportunity to explore the overlying societal dictation of women’s gender roles and expectations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The majority of feminist theorists claim that Conrad perpetuates patriarchal ideology, yet there are a few that argue the novel is gendered feminine. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar claim “Conrad’s Heart of Darkness…penetrates more ironically and thus more inquiringly into the dark core of otherness that had so disturbed the patriarchal, the imperialist, and the psychoanalytic imaginations…Conrad designs for Marlow a pilgrimage whose

Crime and Punishment, written by Fyodor Dostoevsky brings up the question of whether or not there is a “greater man” that has rights above and beyond the common society. Set in mid-1860’s Russia, women at the time did not have equal rights as men, thus they were not eligible to be part of this higher level society. While it may be easy to assert that there is no intentional commentary made on the role of women in the book during this time period, one can examine how the female characters contribute to the overall statement that the book is making. Dostoevsky uses his style of writing to exemplify gender stereotypes and then comment on how these statements are false.

According to Judith Butler’s theory, gender is a social concept and not a natural part of being, therefore making it unstable and fluid. Gender identities are produced through what Butler calls “performativity,” the repetitive acts of expression that form and define the notions of masculinity and femininity. These repeated performances are engrained within the heteronormative society and impose these gendered expectations on individuals. In this respect, gender is something inherent in a person, however Butler writes “gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to pre-exist the deed.” In Olga Tokarczuk’s House of Day, House of Night identity is undoubtedly central to the characters’ stories, specifically the strict social constructs of gender that is snarled with one’s identity. Tokarczuk’s novel presents a mosaic of stories that put into question heteronormative gender roles, while offering an alternative way of existence. Analyzing House of Day, House of Night with Judith Butler’s gender theory demonstrates the characters struggles within the rigid constructions of gender and how some ultimately deal with moving past such restricting expectations.