Scandal in Bohemia, Gender Roles Essay

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein primarily focuses on Victor and his monster, but women also play a part. There are three major female figures in the novel; the housekeeper for the Frankenstein family: Justine, Victor’s “adopted cousin” and later wife: Elizabeth, and the never completed female monster. To both Victor and the monster woman are desired objects that offer comfort and companionship, but as the novel goes on, women become targets for revenge. This goes to show that the women in Frankenstein prove to be both powerless and powerful when it comes to dealing with the men that surround them.

In most cultures, boys and girls are treated very differently. Despite the differences of gender, upbringing creates gender behavior, including aggression and gentility; societal stereotypes of gender, and most importantly, gender-based discrimination.

Norms in society are the expectations of actions in specific situations. Social norms keep human social relations and behavior stable. Norms are “rules” that have developed within a particular society taking into account its values, culture and way of living. Sometimes, it is even the case that individuals do not have a choice and rarely recognize that fact that social norms have arbitrary origins because they have experienced this during the ongoing process of living (Clinard and Meyer 2011:10). Thus, gender norms are sometimes seen as limiting, disenfranchising and oppressive. People who are in less-favored or less-accepted norms are sometimes pushed to “deviate” from the norm in order to achieve some form of “liberation” from their

The story ‘Scandal in Bohemia’ starts of very odd, “To Sherlock Holmes, she is always the woman’. This has already given the reader a hint of suspense as it is something unusual. It was always thought that Holmes had no feelings and no emotions for anyone, but according to this opening the above phrase is

Gender roles of diverse cultures have differed immensely throughout history. The evolution of gender roles first began in the Paleolithic Age and then began to transform with the transformation of the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age. Women in Mesopotamia, India, Greece, China, and Rome were not treated as equals and viewed as inferior to men. Cultures like Egypt and Persia had similar laws for women and treated them with more respect out of any of the other cultures.

Even the most casual reader can note the fact that there are very few female characters present in Robert Louis Stevenson's 19th century novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Those that are found within the work hardly constitute as substantial ones none of the women have more than a few lines of dialogue and appear within the tale for longer than a chapter or two. A bevy of critics have pointed out the fact that such an egregious omission is hardly coincidental in fact, more than a few have cited the fact that this piece of literature functions as a protest regarding the degree of women's liberation that the New Woman possessed near the turn of the 20th century in Victorian England (Reed 2). When considered through this feminist lens, it becomes easily discernible to the prudent reader that Stevenson portrayed no female characters in a positive light and simply used them to reinforce negative aspects of femininity, which he believed were rapidly changing for the worse.

The idea that women were suppressed by the rigid patriarchal society leading women to become innocent victims in society is explored significantly in Frankenstein . Through a feminine reading perspective, men dictated women in the Victorian era which lead to them being subservient to the hegemony and becoming silenced victims. This theme is a common gothic preoccupation as women were always depicted as passive and had to accept that they were powerless compared to the superiority of men. Many of the female characters suffered from the patriarchal ideologies such as Justine who mentions, "I have no power… I am only left to conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been placed in my pocket". Justine's dialogue characterises and reinforces the concept of women accepting their submissive role of having no voice and being vulnerable, therefore becoming silent victims of society. The vulnerability of women is further explored when the protagonist, Victor, discusses about Elizabeth and mentions that she "regretted she had not the same opportunities of enlarging her experience and cultivating her understanding" which emphasises

“A Jury of Her Peers” is a short story written by Susan Glaspell in 1917 illustrates early feminist literature. The two female characters, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, is able to solve the mystery of who the murderer of John Wright while their male counterparts could not. This short story had been adapted from Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles written the previous year. The play consists of the same characters and plotline as the story. In both works, Glaspell depicts how the men, Sheriff Peters and Mr. Hale, disregard the most important area in the house, the kitchen, when it comes to their investigation. In the end, the women are the ones who find clues that lead to the conclusion of Minnie Wright, John Wright’s wife, is the one who murdered him. Both of Glaspell’s female characters illustrate the ability to step into a male dominated profession by taking on the role of detective. According to Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, written by Lois Tyson, a reader-response critique “focuses on readers’ response to literary texts” and it’s a diverse area (169). Through a reader-response criticism from a feminist lens, we are able to analyze how “A Jury of Her Peers” and Trifles depict how a patriarchal society oppresses women in the early twentieth century, gender stereotypes confined both men and women and the emergence of the New Woman is illustrated.

Women in the novel are considered as the submissive sex compared to their fellow counterpart who are men. In characterization, Shelley characterizes the different women characters in the book as disposable, passive, as well as utilitarian. The female characters being submissive serve nothing in the novel other than an active channel for their male counterparts. This kind of treatment women get in the story teaches a lesson to the male actor. The female characters in the novel are Agatha, Elizabeth, Justine, Safie, and Margaret. An example of female character mistreatment is the framing of Justine for the death of William Frankenstein. Despite being innocent, her gender betrays her and therefore framed. Perhaps the most critical emotional channel in the novel is Frankenstein’s betrothed Elizabeth. Described as a passive, gentle character from the beginning, Elizabeth has always been a soft spot for her fiancé. Frankenstein views her as a possession: “I looked upon Elizabeth as mine - mine to protect, love and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own”.

Social criticism can be involved in detective fiction, we see equality of the sexes being laughed at. Men in “A Jury of Her Peers” written by Susan Glaspell story, make fun of women, and Glaspell is deliberately critiquing the way men see women. Also, Klein argues that in detective fiction stories the detective is a detective male and the victim is always female. Which refers to in most detective stories women are just the laughing victims in the story and not the hero or seen as the favorite.

In British Victorian society, women were the nurtures and the protectors of the children, and what some deemed as only monetarily valuable items. This female instinct to nurture is one stereotype that is greatly reflected in the personality of Irene Adler. Adler’s willingness to help is a quality that Watson, as well as other men in society, felt all women should possess. Watson acknowledges this nurturing tendency when he says, "but I know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself when I saw the beautiful creature against which I was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she

In Conan Doyle’s short story “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1888), Sherlock Holmes can tell that the stranger possess great wealth before he speaks a single word. Sherlock Holmes analyzes everything when it comes to people. He uses their appearance, how they carry themselves, and what kind of objects they have on them. The author uses descriptive words to describe the way the stranger looked. This essay will prove that Sherlock Holmes is so observant of everyone, that he can tell who you are before speaking to you.

In “A Scandal in Bohemia” by Arthur Conan Doyle, social classes took a big influence on who avoided punishments. Irene Adler, a strong and intelligent women accused Sherlock Holmes and the King of Bohemia with serious charges. Sherlock Holmes is a man who loathes being apart of society and keeps to himself. He is a detective well known with intelligent skills. The King of Bohemia is Holmes client, and former lover of Irene Adler. In attempt to recover a photograph that is crucial to the king of bohemias reputation, Sherlock Holmes as well as the King of bohemia are both charged with stalking and attempted robbery. In addition to this, further investigations take action and deduce charges of possession and the use of drugs against Sherlock Holmes, as well as plotting to throw a smoke bomb through Irene Adler’s window. As for the King of Bohemia, he is also charged with treason.

The female characters in Frankenstein represent the treatment of women in the early 1800’s. Women who are deprived of their female roles and are enclosed in a feminine sphere of domesticity. In the novel, Frankenstein, the women characters are treated as property and have little privileges in relationship to the male characters, the women suffer and are eventually destroyed showing how unimportant they are in the book’s society, and when it comes to reproduction of human’s, man thinks it pointless to have women play that role. These attacks on the innocent prove that women are second-rate in the novel.

While the men in the story where playing Sherlock Holmes looking for evidence that Mrs. Wright killed her husband, they missed the bad fruit and the bread left out of the bow, a quilt that was not finished and had a few bad stiches, an unclean table and a birdcage that was empty. They were so determined to find specific clues of the murder, that they missed the clues of the emotional abuse that Mrs. Wright was subjected to from her husband. They were also so busy criticizing everything that Mrs. Wright did or did not do, that they missed everything that was right in front of their eyes. They even slipped with some sexist remarks Mr. Hale says ‘Well, women are used to worrying over trifles’, not realizing that the women were in the room.