Restraint of Feminine Power in Kubla Kahn, Heart of Darkness, and Death Constant Beyond Love

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

There was a time (not so long ago) when a man's superiority and authority wasn't a question, but an accepted truth. In the two short stories, "Desiree's Baby", and "The Yellow Wallpaper", women are portrayed as weak creatures of vanity with shallow or absent personalities, who are dependent on men for their livelihood, and even their sanity. Without men, these women were absolutely helpless and useless. Their very existence hinged on absolute and unquestioning submission…alone, a woman is nothing.

Feminists argue that women’s oppression is shown in almost every religion as they criticise that in almost all the religions, the gods are male although Karen Armstrong holds strong arguments against this and shows that from the start were not always about male dominance. The earth mother was a women/goddess and female priesthoods were found throughout the east around 6000

Our world has been a male dominated society from the beginning of time. In most cultures, especially in ancient times, women were thought of as secondary to their male counterparts. Women were considered a possession just as a house or piece of property is considered a possession. The role of women in these early societies did not receive an education but was to take care of the household and have children. The women of the Minoan and Mycenaean ancient Greece cultures held much more roles than homemakers and mothers; they were allowed more freedoms and rights also oracles, priestesses, and political advisors yet they are also seen by men as nothing more than a mere possession.

“The world is still sexist.” — Barbara Broccoli. From the creation story to modern day, women and men still struggle with a power dynamic of inferiority and superiority. The problem of sexism has been ever-present throughout history, and although it has been acknowledged by many, it has not been eradicated or resolved. Although the acknowledgment of sexism has grown over the course of the modern era, it is heavily rooted in society’s developmental process, which makes it continuously difficult to annihilate. Furthermore, throughout many historical texts, women are often represented as objects instead of real people. Within texts, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Bible, the Quran, and the Torah, women are constantly regarded as inferiors instead of equals with men. Throughout these texts, there is a clear separation between the treatment of men and women, with women always being referred to as property.

Mary Wroth alludes to mythology in her sonnet “In This Strange Labyrinth” to describe a woman’s confused struggle with love. The speaker of the poem is a woman stuck in a labyrinth, alluding to the original myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. The suggestion that love is not perfect and in fact painful was a revolutionary thing for a woman to write about in the Renaissance. Wroth uses the poem’s title and its relation to the myth, symbolism and poem structure to communicate her message about the tortures of love.

That woman today doesn’t have a lot of power because we live in a planet where in other countries and religion, men are to be believed to be superior to women. Also for the second point women should claim any type of abuses, even if it is a minor incident, to alert me to step away and not to mess with women, even if these types of defenses mechanics could be called by men as feminism.

Our roles in traditional gender roles have created a good girl and bad girl image for the way women should act and a patriarchy for men, creating norms and rules that make it difficult for women to gain power and be looked at for the right things, rather than the wrong things.

The four texts that I have studied all show an imbalance of power in the main character’s relationships. In William Shakespeare’s Macbeth we see Macbeth being manipulated by Lady Macbeth, he has stopped making his own decisions and just obeys Lady Macbeth’s wishes. In my three other texts; Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and two Katherine Mansfield short stories, Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding and New Dresses, we see the wives being dominated by their husbands and being treated more like an accessory rather than a partner. In all these texts the social norm was for woman to be mothers and be at home, though society has changed its laws for woman’s rights has society really changed what we view woman’s roles to be.

While at the same time as exemplifying masculinity through chivalry this line also begins the subversion of gender roles by putting the woman in the more dominant position - she is now in control of this situation. In the following line it is stated that “all the others honored her and offered to serve her” (166). The use of the verbs honor and offer are direct effects of the way they “see” her which continues to implicate the importance of her beauty while also putting her in a dominant role. This is emphasized once again in lines 611-612 “When they had looked at her well, when they greatly praised her beauty” (166). This is another instance in which a verb, “praised,” is a direct result of seeing her beauty. This direct relation between such verbs and her presence helps to demonstrate her force and impact as a woman along with her characterization as a sovereign being. In lines 613-614 it is stated that “she spoke in this way, she didn’t want to wait”

As Mary Wollstonecraft once said, “I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves.” In this quote, “themselves” is referred to as women of course. It is somewhat customary to pick up a paper in today’s light and perhaps see read about Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, or First Lady, Michelle Obama, even media specialist, Oprah Winfrey. The list could go on and on, but the point remains the same. If King Hammurabi of Babylon were living in today’s world and saw how dramatic the power of women has transformed over the years, he would perhaps declare himself Queen of Babylon. Kevin Reilly accurately depicts the struggling role of women from this early period of civilization through Assyrian

In Helon Howell Raines’ analytic document Norman Mailer’s Sergius O’Shaugnessy, Villain and Victim brings to light to ‘Myth and Reality’ the Myth of Woman; a myth she refers to as ‘static’, bearing the role in the birth of an unchangeable concept of women as object inferior to the male. The myth positions the man as the main and the woman as the “other”, resulting in the “male/female duality” (Raines, 71) as the myth is continues to be practiced the myth will continue to grow. De Beauvoir brings this myth under close eye by questioning its true origins and existence in reality as a whole. In her eyes it is the core belief that was brought from this myth that really determine how women are represented in art( in this case a small story), and

This paper will offer a new way to view epic poetry by focusing on the domesticity of the female characters in Paradise Lost and the Aeneid. Often in epic tales the main focus tends to be the heroic warlike aspect of the masculine individual. By focusing on the female characters it will prove that Eve is a revision of the Vergil’s Dido. Both Eve and Dido’s quest for independence and ferocity for enlightenment will inevitably lead to their own damnation and destruction. Together, Eve and Dido have a male counterpart whose decisions or actions correlate directly with the choices the women make which consequently guide them to transgress.

Joseph Conrad’s varying depiction of women in his novel Heart of Darkness provides feminist literary theory with ample opportunity to explore the overlying societal dictation of women’s gender roles and expectations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The majority of feminist theorists claim that Conrad perpetuates patriarchal ideology, yet there are a few that argue the novel is gendered feminine. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar claim “Conrad’s Heart of Darkness…penetrates more ironically and thus more inquiringly into the dark core of otherness that had so disturbed the patriarchal, the imperialist, and the psychoanalytic imaginations…Conrad designs for Marlow a pilgrimage whose

The themes of both poems show the complete mental consumption of the voice’s. Their pre-dominative behaviour appears to emerge from perverted good values. The paranoid voice of a woman, angered with her supposed cheating husband runs throughout the duration of ‘Medusa,’ seeming to grow in anger as it meets every line. In addition, Carol Ann Duffy creates an extended metaphor of this women’s transformation into the monstrous character ‘Medusa,’ using members present in Greek mythology, in order to paint a metaphorical juxtaposition of a once beautiful woman, now a hideous ‘gorgon’ due to the impact of detrimental human emotion. Detrimental emotion being, as shown by the phrase: ‘My brides breath soured, stank,’ with the use of sensory imagery demonstrating how a slight ‘suspicion’ has taken hold of the voice. Moreover, this build-up and outpour of the slight ‘suspicion’ and emotion over the poem suggests that the voice has succumbed to and has allowed herself