Powerful Women of The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost Essay

Prior to and throughout the late middle ages, women have been portrayed in literature as vile and corrupt. During this time, Christine de Pizan became a well educated woman and counteracted the previous notions of men’s slander against women. With her literary works, Pizan illustrated to her readers and women that though education they can aspire to be something greater than what is written in history. Through the use of real historical examples, Christine de Pizan’s, The Book of the City of Ladies, acts as a defense against the commonly perceived notions of women as immoral.

     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

Envy is a sin that poisons the sinner and is self-destructive in nature. The common perception of envy is that it is an emotion that, much like jealousy, that comes from a desire to possess something that someone else has. However, envy goes a step further and causes an individual to not only desire what someone else has, but to also wish that the other person did not have it at all. Spenser uses the conventional view of envy stated above in conjunction with some unconventional imagery in order to elaborate on the nature and implications of being an envious person. In doing this Spenser is able to teach to reader an aspect of envy that they may not already know or understand. In his portrayal of envy in book one of The Faerie Queene, Spenser is trying to convey to his readers that people who are envious are trapped in and endless cycle of envy that leads to nothing but unhappiness and misery. Spenser’s interpretation of envy, like the other deadly sins in the house of pride, can be broken down into 4 images: the animal that he rides, his appearance, how he behaves, and the ailment he has. This paper will use the first three of these images to show how Spenser’s depiction of Envy is meant to teach the reader that the sin of envy can only lead to perpetual unhappiness and misery.

Shakespeare's works have persistently influenced humanity for the past four hundred years. Quotations from his plays are used in many other works of literature and some common phrases have even become integrated into the English language. Most high schoolers have been unsuccessful in avoidance of him and college students are rarely afforded the luxury of choice when it comes to studying the bard. Many aspects of Shakespeare's works have been researched but one of the most popular topics since the 1960s has been the portrayal of women in Shakespeare's tragedies, comedies, histories and sonnets.

Sir Gawain and The Green Knight is an example of medieval misogyny. Throughout Medieval literature, specifically Arthurian legends like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the female characters, Guinevere, the Lady, and Morgan leFay are not portrayed as individuals but social constructs of what a woman should be. Guinevere plays a passive woman, a mere token of Arthur. The Lady is also a tool, but has an added role of temptress and adulteress. Morgan leFay is the ultimate conniving, manipulating, woman. While the three women in this legend have a much more active role than in earlier texts, this role is not a positive one; they are not individuals but are symbols of how men of this

Avalon, the Goddess was not male as God was believed to be, and the followers of

In Candide Voltaire discusses the exploitation of the female race in the eighteenth century through the women in the novel. Cunegonde, Paquette, and the Old Woman suffer through rape and sexual exploitation regardless of wealth or political connections. These characters possess very little complexity or importance in Candide. With his characterization of Cunegonde, Paquette, and the Old Woman Voltaire satirizes gender roles and highlights the impotence of women in the 1800s.

The creature’s greatest desire is to be welcomed by man, and he is prepared to work hard to achieve this goal. He says, ‘“What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people; and I longed to join them, but dared not... I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching and endeavoring to discover the motives which influenced their actions,”’ (Shelley 77). Upon gathering more information about people, the creature leaves his hovel. When he is alone with the blind man, De Lacey, in the cottage, he says “‘...I trust that by your aid, I shall not be driven from the society and sympathy of your fellow creatures.’”(Shelley 98). The creature genuinely believes that despite his physical deformities, he will be accepted by mankind. He thinks that through his ability to contribute to society and his kindness, people will treat him with respect even though he is not physically like them. The creature’s confidence that he would be accepted shows that was overly optimistic about the morality of mankind. At the start of their tumultuous journeys, both the girl and the creature are confident, optimistic beings that seem on track for success.

The Book of the City of Ladies During the renaissance many different views of leadership surfaced. Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies, Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, and William Shakespeare’s Richard III each present distinct views of what would make a good leader during the renaissance period. Shakespeare and Christine de Pizan’s views align most closely with Plato’s.

As the world has grown throughout the centuries, females have generally been under the domination of males. This remained culturally entrenched until the late nineteenth century, when women began to appear in public more often and also began to join alongside men in the work force. In the network of employees and employers in the emerging institution of the Parisian department store, men and women depended on each other for survival in the workplace. Such interdependence is a microcosm of the bourgeois French society during that time, which Emile Zola wrote of in The Ladies’ Paradise, the eleventh book of the Rougon-Macquart series detailing middle-class life. According to Professor Brian

Women have played a significant role throughout time and this is portrayed in many works of literature, including Thousand and One Nights and the Canterbury Tales. In both of these works, women are shown to be very intelligent, experienced, manipulative, lovers, and fighters. Women since the beginning have been thought to be liars and both characters in Thousand and One Nights and the Canterbury Tales have all these characteristics and similar themes. The main characters are Shahrazad and the Wife of Bath, Shahrazad is fighting to live while the Wife of Bath is simply on a journey playing a story telling game. Although in very different situations they both have the same strengths and similar characteristics, and this adds up to show the

woman to avoid death. The knight and the old woman do not get along well, and

Milton was, by no means, a feminist, and was of quite a conventional outlook when it came to gender roles as is apparent in the fourth book of Paradise Lost, which has inevitably been scrutinized over and over again under the modern gendered eye. “Paradise Lost,” says Shannon Miller, “is Milton’s most sustained attempt to represent in poetry, gander roles, relations and hierarchy.”It is evident, she points out, in the course of his introduction of Adam and Eve in book IV, the stories of creation they relate there and in book VIII, and finally in the way Milton presents the consequences of the Fall. The reader observes the process by which gender is created as a cultural category.

Female seduction and sexual temptation are featured both in The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost, but are represented in different ways. In Paradise Lost, Eve leads to the eventual downfall of Adam because she

    Edmund Spenser in his epic romance, The Faerie Queene, invents and depicts a wide array of female figures.  Some of these women, such as Una and Caelia, are generally shown as faithful, virtuous and overall lovely creatures.  Other feminine characters, such as Errour, Pride, and Duessa are false, lecherous and evil.  This might seem to be the end of Spenser's categorization of women; that they are either good or bad.  Yet upon closer examination one finds that Spenser seems to be struggling to portray women more honestly, to depict the "complex reality of woman" (Berger, 92).  Spenser does not simply "idealize women or the feminine viewpoint" as he could easily do