Margaret Atwood Alias Grace Gender Quotes

A literary reproach of the book "Moral Disorder," a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood examines the concept of the ethics of care, the relationship between patriarchal systems and feminist thought, and the study of narrative fiction. The topic of feminine domestic responsibility in the work is examined, focusing on several stories including "The Bad News," "The Art of Cooking and Serving," and "The Headless Horseman."

Besides, Margaret as the maid to Hero, is under the deceptive appearance that veiled her witty nature. When she is with the woman, her true self is shown through the use of sexual innuendo when she refers woman as ‘maid and stuffed’ with the idea of pregnancy. She can have bawdy talk just like man when she responds to Hero by saying ‘heavier by the weight of a man’. In a patriarchal society, though women are suppressed, they are not totally submissive and innocent as their true self is veiled by the deceptive appearance.

Nathanial Hawthorne writes a compelling story about a recently married scientist whose wife has a blemish on her cheek. “The Birthmark” written in 1843 is a critique of domesticity, feminine sexuality, and perfectionism. Cindy Weinstein takes the stance that “The Birthmark” is a critique of feminine sexuality. Weinstein suggests, “A key reason, then, that Aylmer wants to erase the birthmark is that it signifies a sexuality with which he is deeply uncomfortable” (123). This argument is seen throughout Hawthorne’s story, but Weinstein’s argument can be taken a step further to deal with the root cause, control. Aylmer is disturbed with Georgiana’s birthmark due to the fact that it signifies her sexual desires that he is unable to control.

The role of women in a patriarchal society is one of the most heavily enforced themes in ‘Emma’ and ‘Clueless’. Austen places great emphasis on how the dominance of men over women was of great importance within the patriarchal social structure of the regency period. Heckerling reimagines ‘Emma’, to show the ways that this perspective has been altered over the next century. Emma and Cher are both products of their own patriarchal, class-driven societies; they are affluent and repressed as women, which leads Emma Woodhouse- the heroine of Jane Austen’s “Emma”- to turn to charity and match-making to fill in her time along with domestic chores, painting and playing the piano, and Cher Horowitz - the

There are many moments throughout Persuasion where we can see women challenging their expected roles in society. The actions and beliefs of several of the women in the novel bring to question what is appropriate for and to be expected of women and allude to the fact that women are not as weak as they have been perceived and therefore deserve an equal place in society. It’s in these instances that the book challenges the idea that women are not equal to men as well as several of the stereotypes of women that were present during the era.

Due to Marian’s attitude, the reader understands Ainsley’s actions as a performance and a construction. Considering Ainsley to be authentically feminine, Len is attracted to her. Atwood through Ainsley illustrates how easily gender can be performed to look “real,” which in effect demonstrates its constructedness, as there is no such thing as “real” gender. Atwood besides shows the different ways gender can be interpreted—Marian calls Ainsley’s performance a “fraud,” whereas Peter is amused but suspicious, and Len is absolutely occupied by her assumed authenticity. Although Butler highlights the fact that gender is performative, nevertheless, she does not mean to say that a subject is able to take on gender.

Women have always been subjected to sexism throughout history and especially in the Shakespearean era. Much Ado About Nothing is a romantic comedy written by William Shakespeare and showcases a story about two people once divided by their past finally ending their hatred for one another and begin to fall in love for each other. It is a tale that shows how evil cannot destroy the love between two people. In this play, the reputation of a woman named Hero is at stake after being accused of disloyalty to her soon-to-be husband, Claudio. In Much Ado About Nothing, the important lesson of this play is how women must have a good reputation during this time period.

Across the world and time, women have struggled to fight society’s tendency to fit them into one of two stereotypes. A woman is either a weak, frail creature dependent on the men in her life or she is a vixen who uses her femininity to seduce innocent men into doing her bidding. For suspected murderess Grace Marks, the main character of Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood, the way others perceive her could lead to her freedom. Marks’ role in the Kinnear and Montgomery murders was sensationalized by the media, catalyzing the events of the novel as enough people remained convinced that Marks was innocent to petition for her release from prison years after the case had been settled. Grace Marks ultimately uses the way others perceive her to her

Lady Audley’s Secret is, at its core, a novel about the instability of identity. Mary Elizabeth Braddon uses the novel to play upon people’s anxieties about the anonymity of strangers. In the Victorian era, there was the idea that a person’s exterior appearance could accurately reflect the nature of that person. This roughly translates to the belief that those that are beautiful are virtuous and those that are ugly are wicked. Hand in hand with that came the even more disturbing (at least to a modern reader) belief that people of different social classes had distinguishing physical appearance, perhaps because of a genuine biological difference between the various social classes. Braddon thoroughly refutes this concept in Lady Audley’s Secret with the presence of Phoebe Marks, a lowly housemaid who bears a close resemblance to her upper class mistress. Phoebe plays a critical role in the events of the novel, but more importantly, she serves to disturb the Victorian reader with her inappropriately gentile physical features.

For example, in the society which Atwood creates, affairs lead to much more severe punishments for females than they do for males (Lü). After being impregnated by her employer’s son, Mary Whitney’s fate is sealed. She decides to have an unsafe abortion which kills her while her employer’s son remains unscathed (Lü). Also, in regard to Thomas Kinnear and Nancy, the male upholds his reputation as a gentleman whereas the female is scorned as “dirty” (Lü). Lü highlights that even after their deaths, Thomas’s tomb was better decorated. In my paper, I will expand upon many of the tenants of Lü’s arguments. Lü mainly writes about these situations from a feminist perspective, explaining how the men walked away scot-free while the females suffered, but I wish to analyze the socioeconomic implications. Poverty is a major factor in Mary’s pregnancy and Nancy’s affair, which to this point, has gone

The quote I’ve chosen that represents my beliefs, thoughts, or really speaks for myself in general is by a writer called Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. You might think you’ve never heard of her but in fact you have. You can hear her in the famous song by Beyoncé called “Flawless”. The whole song is empowering but the quote that attracts my attention the most is “Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.” I believe we should spread more awareness towards this topic because we’re already in the 21st century and we’re still facing misogyny everywhere. Girls, we have been taught since early years that we’re destined to get married, learn how to cook and clean to maintain our husband

Margaret Atwood’s novel The Robber Bride is a postmodern work of fiction which explores and unravels gender as a socio-cultural construct. It deals with how society and culture imprison both men and women into constructed stereotypes of masculinity and femininity attributing both men and women gender specific traits. The novel not only questions essentialist notion of gender identities as fixed and stable but also challenges the differences attributed to men and women owing to their biological sex. These biological differences in sex construct the gap between men and women’s position in patriarchal society exalting a man 's status and marginalizing women. In her novel, Atwood constructs the female character Zenia as a robber bride, a ‘man-eater’ and a trickster who embodies and represents the traits not only of femininity but also those that are associated with masculinity. The trickster figure can be defined in literature and legend usually as, “a male, who crosses boundaries, disrupts the social order, and embodies contradiction. He is a shape-changer and a liar” (Stein 143). It is through the character of Zenia, that gender identity comes out to be a “dynamic matrix of interrelated, often contradictory, experiences, strategies, styles and attributions mediated by cultures and one’s specific history, forming a network that cannot be separated meaningfully into discrete entities or ordered into a hierarchy” (Garland

What is a feminist? A feminists “looks at the way in which literature reinforce gender roles ( the idea of how women and men should act).” The reading of Chopin’s story reveals that women tend to soak up and bottle problems up, when times get hard, and it can lead up to a bad cause. Line 7, Chopin quotes, “she sat with her head thrown back upon a cushion chair quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and continue to sob in its dream.” This quote reveals feminist because, her behavior after the death of her husband was just like she had a knife in her heart.

This expectation of female behavior was deeply instilled in the mind of many, making a courageous female being viewed as distasteful. An example of this notion is shown in  Hope Leslie when Governor Winthrop, the landlord,  reacts to Hope, the tenant, coming home late and refuses to reveal why she came home at this time: “...Winthrop was not accustomed to have his inquisitorial rights resisted by those in his own household, and he was more struck than pleased by Hope’s moral courage” (184). Evidently, Winthrop’s reaction proves that women with “moral courage” are unladylike because moral courage is a manly trait. On the other hand, Esther Downing, another character in Hope Leslie, embodies the cult of true womanhood. Esther’s mere look at her love interest Everell is described as “a look of that meek and pleased dependence, which is natural for women to feel and which men like to inspire, because --perhaps -- it seems to them an instinctive tribute to their natural superiority”(219). So, “Esther’s look … of dependence” confirms that the expectation that all women are supposed to have the same behavior, gestures and personality is meant to not only please men but to also hide their true form. Therefore, the cult of true womanhood presents a internal battle in female writers and Sedgwick presents this womanly struggle through the contrast between Hope and Esther. Society wants women to be quaint housewives but publishing a

The topic for this ISP is the gender inequality within Atwood's "Alias Grace." This inequality was exemplified through Simon Jordan and Grace Marks' personal recounts of nineteenth century Ontario's patriarchal society. Subsequently, the book uses the disadvantageous aspects of being a women, as they were often became the victim of sexuality, social class, and reputation, to be the main force behind most significant events within the story.