Les Liaisons Dangereuses Research Paper

Like prostitutes, the women in “Porphyria’s Lover” and “My Last Duchess” also violate traditional gender roles. For that reason, the men take it upon themselves to bring the power relation back to that of convention, where men are bearers of power and have control in relationships. The means by which this power reversion is accomplished, however, are subject to examination.

Throughout history, our society has created gender norms that are followed consistently by members of communities. Though they differ from place to place, we recognize trends that seem almost prescribed to certain genders. Specifically, in the 1600s, men and women had explicit roles that were designated by people of stature. These expectations were followed loyally and people who failed to follow suit were shunned or sometimes even suffered seriously punishment including crude public beatings that were mot only pain inflicting but also status damaging (Rocke, Gender and Sexual Culture, 159). Looking deeper into the novel The Return of Martin Guerre, we identify from the start the expectations that are in place and how they play a role in the story. In comparison of Characters, taking into consideration the standard that had been set for men of this era, we notice that Pansette (Arnaud du Tilh) is an almost faultless example of what is expected for men and in contrast, Martin Guerre fails to meet these standards.

     The women in A Tale of Two Cites behave in extremely opposing ways.  Lucie Manette is a frail young woman.  She constantly becomes overwhelmed and faints at even the thought of danger.  She has never been exposed to poverty nor suffered through severe hardships.  Lucie is genteel; she is  constantly pampered and always has people looking out for her.  She is constantly being treated like a small child; "she softly laid the patient [Lucie] on a sofa, and tended her with great skill and gentleness" (23).  Madame Defarge is a ruthless, bloodthirsty, vengeful, and poor woman.  She is best described by Ms. Pross as "the wife of Lucifer" (336).  She readily cuts off a man's head and "she never missed [an execution]" (342).  Madame Defarge's sadistic nature is seen best during the execution of Foulon, an aristocrat.  She tortures him,  "as a cat might have done to a mouse" and his head is impaled "upon a pike, with grass enough in the mouth for all of Saint Antoine to

In Voltaire’s Candide, the women are constantly being victims of rape, abuse, and violence. They suffer no matter how rich or how poor they were. From Cunegonde to Paquette, and The Old Woman, none of these characters possess such importance as the male characters do. Voltaire ridicules gender roles and the lack of power these women had in the Enlightenment period, which was supposed to be a time of “intellectual freedom and equality for men and women” (Johnson)

In the late nineteenth century, women were beginning to take a stand for their equal rights in society. The term “new woman” was used to describe these women, openly proclaiming their independence from men. It was a woman’s way to threaten the conventional ideas of society, and to bring about their own changes (Buzwell). Following their well-known suffrage movement, women claimed their freedom sexually, physically, and in the workplace. For many years’ prior, women were expected to be the typical housewife, watching over the house, cooking, and cleaning. They were property of their husbands. During their equal rights revolution, women pursued careers like doctors or lawyers and fulfilling their sexual desires for purposes other than bearing children. As today’s society may never know the struggles and misfortunes during the Victorian era, Dracula leaves a time capsule behind to elaborate on the realities during such a prominent generation (Podonsky). Considering this given criteria, a new woman comes in a variety of forms; some women represent a stronger sexual desire while others demonstrate character traits on equality in work and education. In the case of Dracula, the two main female characters take two different forms; one blatantly sexual and one chaste (Humphrey). Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula portrays the ideas of a “new woman” in a modern society, utilizing Mina’s and Lucy’s characters to display opposite characteristics of the feminist movement which draw attention to

Looking at the life of Edna, she is a good example of those women. Edna was treated like a slave, with restrictions to everything. She was not allowed to go out as women would go out today, she also couldn’t bathe the way women could today. Her husband Leonce just gave Edna a home to live in and that was it. Edna soon decided to leave her husband, and started having an affair with Alcee. In the book “The Awakening,” by Kate Chopin, it says “It was the first kiss of her life to which her nature had really responded” (Chopin 112).This quote means that Leonce never really showed love to Edna. Leonce never showed the physicality which Alcee showed when Alcee kissed Edna. Edna never experienced the ignition with Leonce that she had with Alcee. In another quote from “The Awakening,” Kate Chopin says about Edna “Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual” (Chopin 127). This quote is talking about Edna and how she felt relieved. Edna felt that she was free from anyone telling her what to do. This added to her strength by allowing her to really understand herself, and what she was put on the earth

There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips” (Stoker, 38).

The “male gaze” is a philosophical concept that implies that men use the eyes to communicate with females in a manner that is both critical, or can be described as “sensual” in nature. This is the case in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and “The birthmark.” In “The Birthmark” Aylmer’s gaze of the birthmark is not only an obsession, but an erotic feature that leads him to commit unethical practices to get rid of his wife’s imperfection. Rappaccini’s Daughter” makes Beatrice feel guilty for her sexual allure. In addition, both male characters feel the need to dominate and control the women in their lives for feared of being overpowered by their sexuality. The male characters regard the female character as a symbol of sin for simply being women. Both characters in Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s daughter and The Birthmark the male gaze is used to dominate women in the form that is use to influence and manipulate women in a

The novels ‘Lady Audely’s secret’, Rebecca’, and ‘The wasp Factory’ possess analogous elements of the gothic. They present diverging concepts of femininity rebelling against imposed gender stereotypes, and focalise on the usually marginalised ‘abjected’ figures of society. (Kristeva, 1982:3) This essay aims to argue how the gendered the monster are embodiments of social anxieties and ideologies and how challenge these projections. Mutual notions within the texts such as: the use of gothic tropes, uncanny gender subverting society’s ideals, and monsters as metaphors will be explored.

What drives Sophia? She, unlike many female characters of the Enlightenment Era, is incredibly complex, agentive, and realistic. She contains multitudes, wishing for romance and scorn, loving to love and to manipulate, in a way she herself doesn't quite understand. And that, more than anything, is what she wants: to be understood.

The portrayal of men and women has varied in different stories throughout history. Many portray women as beautiful, deceptive, manipulative, and smart, while men are portrayed as being strong, masculine, and easily tricked. In many of the works covered in the course “Major British Writers to 1800,” men are advised to refrain from acting lustful, believed that it would harm their overall ability to succeed in whatever the characters aimed to do. An example of this is seen in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” when Gawain is deceived by Lady Bertilak in an effort to prove that Sir Gawain is imperfect. The depictions of men and women are very similar in Fantomina by Eliza Haywood, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Phyllis and Aristotle. .

     The weakness of women is found in various forms throughout the text. Henry refers to women as “a decorative sex” and that “they never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.” (Wilde 43) Nowhere is this better supported than during Lady Henry’s

Surprise! Women have sexual desires just like men do. Roles set for women in the 18th century demonstrated the constrictions women endured. The idea of sex, status, and character to a woman depended on what men thought of them. However Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina demonstrates what occurs when the gender power roles are reversed and women are the dominant gender.

With each letter in Les Liaisons dangereuses, Choderlos de Laclos advances a great many games of chess being played simultaneously. In each, the pieces—women of the eighteenth-century Parisian aristocracy—are tossed about mercilessly but with great precision on the part of the author. One is a pawn: a convent girl pulled out of a world of simplicity and offered as an entree to a public impossible to sate; another is a queen: a calculating monument to debauchery with fissures from a struggle with true love. By examining their similarities and differences, Laclos explores women’s constitutions in a world that promises ruin for even the most formidable among them. Presenting the reader glimpses of femininity from a young innocent’s daunting debut to a faithful woman’s conflicted quest for heavenly virtue to another’s ruthless pursuit of vengeance and earthly pleasures, he insinuates the harrowing journey undertaken by every girl as she is forced to make a name for herself as a woman amongst the tumult of a community that machinates at every turn her downfall at the hands of the opposite sex. In his careful presentation of the novel’s female characters, Laclos condemns this unrelenting subjugation of women by making clear that every woman’s fate in such a society is a definitive and resounding checkmate.

In this piece I will be showing the role of women in the 18th century