Magnificence And The Summer Solstice

In analyzing portrayals of women, it is appropriate to begin with the character of Margarita. For, within the text, she embodies the traditionally masculine traits of bravery, resilience, and violence as a means of liberating herself from an existence of abuse and victimhood. Even more, the woman plays upon stereotypes of femininity in order to mask her true nature. The reader witnesses this clever deception in a scene where the character endures a “wholesome thrashing” from her huge, violent, and grizzly bear-like husband, Guerra (81). Although Margarita “[submits] to the infliction with great apparent humility,” her husband is found “stone-dead” the next morning (81). Here, diction such as “submits” and “humility” relate to the traits of weakness, subservience and inferiority that are so commonly expected of women, especially in their relationships with men. Yet, when one

A difficult choice such as life and death is not an easy decision to make. In “Woman’s Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros, there is an important passage that through its language and structure provides the protagonist with a strong internal conflict. The passage comes with strange words and sentence structures which lead the reader to question why Sandra Cisneros would do that. The short sentences and the strange fitting words provide a reason why Cleofilas is different from the legend of “La Llorona”. “La Llorona” represents the women who committed suicide while suffering as victims of abuse. Through the lens of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler, about categorizing women into a general scope based on their common experiences is not correct

In this essay, female oppression in La Casa de Bernarda Alba will be discussed and analyzed. However, in order to be able to understand the importance of this theme and the impact it has had on the play, one must first understand the role of female oppression in the Spanish society in the 1930s.

In the poem, “Summer Solstice, New York City,” by Sharon Olds, a man stands on the roof of a building ready to end his life. The man hung at the edge of the roof until things started to change for him. Many men went up to the roof and one man talked him out of committing suicide. After experiencing the longest day of the year around the United States’ most populated city and busiest one at that, the man receives personal attention to keep him from stepping off the ledge. Olds utilizes the speaker’s environment to present that society’s happiness depends on our ties with human interactions rather than physical surroundings.

The issue of gender roles is one of the central themes of this novel. All the main characters of the novel spend their whole lives trying to conform to the standards of masculinity and femininity expected of them by the society. The inability of the main character of the book to meet the expected stereotypical roles not only causes them personal turmoil but also makes their social life miserable. They try to fit in the ascribed gender roles of their Dominican culture, but are simply incapable of doing that. However, the society does not understand their incapability and makes them pay for their nonconformity.

In “Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Transvestite in the New World” by Catalina de Erauso, a female-born transvestite conquers the Spanish World on her journey to disguise herself as a man and inflicts violence both on and off the battlefield. Catalina discovers her hidden role in society as she compares herself to her brothers advantage in life, as they are granted money and freedom in living their own lives. Erauso decides to take action of this act of inequality by forming a rebellion, as she pledges to threaten the social order.The gender roles allotted to both men and women in the Spanish world represent the significance of societal expectations in order to identify the importance of gender in determining one’s position in the social order in the Spanish World.

Women’s Escape into Misery Women’s need for male support and their husband’s constant degradation of them was a recurring theme in the book House on Mango Street. Many of Esperanza’s stories were about women’s dreams of marrying, the perfect husband and having the perfect family and home. Sally, Rafaela, and Minerva are women who gave me the impression of [damsel’s in distress].CLICHÉ, it’s ok though. It’s relevant They wished for a man to sweep them of their feet and rescue them from their present misery. These characters are inspiring and strong but they are unable to escape the repression of the surrounding environment. *Cisneros presents a rigid world in which they lived in, and left them no other hope but to get married.

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.

In the novel, Burned Alive by Souad, the author and the main character, explores the mistreatment of women based on her experiences and what she has witnessed in her village. First, women are supposed to look down while walking or else she will be judged; as the author states, "She may never stray from her path or look up, for if a man were to catch her eye, the whole village would label her a charmuta" (1). A woman does not have the privilege to look up unless she wants to be labelled as a charmuta or a whore. Then, in their village, it was normal for men to beat women. The beating usually happened because it was in their law, as the author declares, "It was the law of men. The girls and the women were certainly beaten every day in the other

This scene demonstrates what women expected to be treated by men, simply, the wants of women. Also, it demonstrates the tone and the language

American Literature has always been about men and for men. In this essay, we are going to analyze the women’s role in the book, as inferior and weaker gender.

In order to properly view a story from a feminist perspective, it is important that the reader fully understands what the feminist perspective entails. “There are many feminist perspectives, and each perspective uses different approaches to analyze and interpret texts. One is that gender is “socially constructed” and another is that power is distributed unequally on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, ability, sexuality, and economic class status” (South University Online, 2011, para. 1). The story “Girl” is an outline of the things young girls

In Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market, Laura is saved from death through the bond of Sisterhood: a female power that embodies both traditionally feminine and masculine characteristics and values. Ross Murfin’s essay “What is Feminist Criticism?” feminist criticism, in the study of literature, is described as a criticism that examines how the values and attitudes of patriarchal societies affect the portrayal and expression of women in text (186-194). French feminists have focused on analyzing the way meaning is produced and have concluded that a gender binary is formed by language (186-187). Meaning is created by what a thing is not; for example, men are men because they are not women. The gender binary determines what things are masculine and what are feminine. This essay will adopt a feminist perspective and examine the gender roles (the behaviours, expectations, characteristics and values assigned to each gender by a society’s gender binary) depicted in Goblin Market. The primary focus will be on how gender roles affect the actions and decisions made by Laura and Lizzie throughout the poem and how sisterhood, a construct that blurs the gender binary, is the means that saves Laura’s life.

All characters in the novel are living in a man’s world; nevertheless, the author has tried to change this world by the help of her characters. She shows a myriad of opportunities and different paths of life that woman can take, and more importantly she does not show a perfect world, where women get everything they want, she shows a world where woman do make mistakes, but at the same time they are the ones that pay for these mistakes and correct them.

Therefore, it is evident that literary techniques are utilised to exploit the Beauvoirian idea of women “denying [their] feminine weakness” in order to justify their strength, while the “militant male... she wish[es] to be” however, Marlene accepts femininity and only wears a skirt to work.