Pygmalion And Galatea And My Fair Lady Research Paper

Gender roles have been a hotly debated topic in the most recent years, especially the role of women in society. Women have had set expectations that they are believed to conform to, which is shown in many pieces of film and literature. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the life of a man in the upper class in the 1920’s, as well as women in the 1920’s. The movie The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman, visually explains the treatment and expectations of women, and especially focuses on the “damsel in distress” stereotype.. Roxane Gay’s “Bad Feminist” explains the stereotypes against women and ways women can come together and fight these constraints. Based on these sources, societal expectations take away from each individual’s identity, forcing women to conform to society's standards. In order to fight against these expectations, women have banded together and formed movements against these standards.

Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.

Since society has existed, women have been known as different from men. For the longest time, women have been known as the “weaker sex” when compared to the male. There purpose, especially in the olden days is to obey and please the men. However nowadays there seems to be a more equality between the two genders. But even today discrimination between male and female takes place all over the world. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, you can see a lot of discrimination between the two sexes. The story takes place in the 1930’s and it has a bad view on women, they just got the right to vote for presidents, mayors, and senators. However most men thought that the women should only stay home and raise children, that they should not be involved in politics, and their ideas were not valuable. Women were treated as “house slaves” at times when all what they did all day, every day, was work around the house trying to improve the living for their husband and kids.

According to a quote by The Atlantic, America is still a “patriarchal community” (Cohen 1). The majority of humans live in a society influenced by men and have little to no understanding of a matriarchal society because it is not around. For centuries, women have fought for equality and it is a reoccuring theme in literature. This theme can show how people critique and analyze many works of art. Countless people can read a text and depict it differently, from the beginning to end. This depends on what critical lens they view it from, allowing people to comprehend the different ways literature is written. There is many different critical lens to choose from. An example of one of the critical lens is the feminist viewpoint. The feminist theory, analyzes the nature of gender equality. This approach shows how women can compare to men. This can be done politically, socially, or economically. In William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, he can be seen going against the feminist theory. This lens will affect Hamlet’s two main, female characters Gertrude and Ophelia. While viewing Hamlet through the feminist theory lens, many male characters can be seen as being, aggressively, dominant; creating the women to have many stereotypes.

     This female inferiority idea has been imbedded in the world for many years. Fairy tales are a very good example of how this notion has been present in the United States. The themes that exist in these stories normally deal

Reading literature, at first, might seem like simple stories. However, in works like William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily,” Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill,” and Kate Chopin's “The Storm,” the female protagonists are examples of how society has oppressive expectations of women simply because of their gender.

Throughout the years, different forms of literature  have generally shown women as weaker than men. They have played archetypes such as the mother archetype or the lover which have traits less desirable than the roles that men would take. These archetypes tend to limit their personalities and they become characters that are solely there for inconveniencing the hero. Stereotypes for women have affected these archetypes, but throughout history many people have made efforts to change these archetypes and make them more desirable. Even though archetypes for women have been shown as weak, it has changed throughout the years.

The position of women in the novel is not respected or honored because women are oppressed in a way. Women were not able to vote, own property, or get a proper education. It was made so that the women

Warner Brothers’ My Fair Lady (1964) a film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion has been seen as a success in terms of box-office profits and popularity of the work. In it, the protagonist Eliza Doolittle’s is portrayed as a Cinderella-like figure: In a short span of time, she rises from a humble family to become a well-mannered lady. It offers “a fairy-tale story” Paul Bauschatz says that is “bound to please most viewers, while retaining its potential for compelling visual display” (17). At the same time, musical components, witty dialogue, and splendid visual effects all have contributed to the popular appeal of the film to the general public. However, it seems to lose the edge of criticism of the conflict of social class and gender issues, as clearly manifested in Pygmalion. Eliza is presented more as a doll-like Cinderella figure than a woman in search of freedom. In the following, the essay is to discuss the transformation of Eliza from the dynamic and growing awareness selfhood to the romantic and pragmatic woman. Eliza’s quest for self-assertiveness and confidence remains, but she seems to lack the inner drive and momentum she used to have. A comparative study of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady (1964) will help learn the

These books look at each gender on an entirely different level of each other. The roles they fill are completely different. Socially they are held to different standards. I found this to be something that stuck out to me while reading this story. Women are looked at as property that switches from the fathers to the husbands in marriage. Likewise women seem to feel the need to have a man in their presence. These situations are throughout the story.

Since society has existed, women have been known as different from men. For the longest time, women have been known as the “weaker sex” when compared to the male. There purpose, especially in the older days is to obey and please the men. However nowdays there seems to be a more equality between the two genders. But even today discrimination between male and female takes place all over the world. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, you can see a lot of discrimination between the two sexes. The story takes place in the 1930’s and it have a primitive view of women, they just got the right to vote for presidents, mayors, and senators. However most men thought that the women should only stay home and raise children, that they should not be involved in politics, and their ideas were not valuable.

Reflecting upon their role in society, women in literature are often portrayed in a position

This topic is extremely important as it revolves around the subject of feminism and sexualism, two topics that need to be taken more into consideration when reading a novel. The portrayal of female characters in novels that are read around the world are very impactful towards the female portion of the world as it places them in a spectrum of what they should act and look like to meet the standards of society. Focusing specifically on the development of the female characters and how they are just as powerful as men is an interesting idea to navigate around, focusing on the feminist portion of the novel. In current academic studies there has been substantial amount of works that are about women empowerment, with authors that believe the exact same, such as Purple Hibiscus and The Help.

Women writers, this is to say, have been treated differently from men because they were women; and this has affected how they developed.

Feminist Criticism is described as literary criticism to presents different perspectives on how literature discusses issues of gender, focusing on education, financial and social difference in a male dominated society. Critics revolve around power relation between the two genders. They also review how females are represented in different texts and literature and how such representation is sufficient. In addition, feminist critics in politics present literature that seeks to raise consciousness about the important role of women and highlight how language is misused to marginalize women. Influential figures of this form of criticism are George Eliot and Margaret Fuller. They are two who mainly came up with the idea of Feminist Criticism and the basic principles followed by others today. Some famous authors who wrote through the lens of Feminist Criticism are Ellen Moers, Alice Walker, and Tillie Olsen... These writer’s focus on inequality between women and men. Many stories have been written using this thought process as the catalysts for the work.