Sexism In Joyce Carol Oats Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

From the moment that the apple touched Eve’s lips, women have been seen as an embodiment of all that is evil. This reflects misogynistic societal beliefs that women are below men. While many of the prejudices towards women are hidden in modern American society, some misogynistic stereotypes are still present. In Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, one can see many misogynistic and sexist undertones. Big Nurse Ratched is in a position of authority over a large group of men and is seen as a tyrannical and unjust ruler. Although most of her methods would have been seen as awful when used by any person, the saturation of bad women in the novel creates an unfavorable picture of women in general. The balance of power in the ward is

Joyce Carol Oates plays upon the stereotypic female gender role through her adolescent character, Connie, in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” The story was written at a significant time in America’s history. It was a season when social and moral conventions were challenged. This period experienced the rise of women struggling for sexual freedom and gender equality in a patriarchal society. Oates portrays the protagonist, Connie, as naive, unaware and inexperienced; she has yet to find her identity and fully understand her place as a women in the world. She believes she has learned to play the game of the sexes and that she has the upper hand. This belief, though, is quickly subverted when she is confronted by Arnold Friend, a man who works to reinforce patriarchal standards by punishing Connie for acting outside stereotypic female role boundaries, she then realizes as a women, she has very little power.

Joyce Carol Oates's “Where are you going, Where have you been?” tells the story of a young girl's journey to find her own identity. Along the way she uses her beauty and sexuality to create, in her mind, a feeling of maturity which ultimately becomes her downfall. She believes that by spending her summer days in the mall, dressing in a way that is different than what she would wear at home, and flirting with older boys, while finding pleasure in ignoring boys she knows, she is being her own person and is creating her own identity—one that is different from that of her mother's or sister's. It is not until the end of the story, when Arnold Friend comes into her house, that she begins to realize what is truly important. The title of the

“A man’s heart is a wretched, wretched thing, Mariam. It isn’t like a mother’s womb. It won’t bleed, it won’t stretch to make room for you.”

The late 1950s was a time of cultural revolution which had a large influence on the American youth. “As the next decade drew near, issues such as civil rights, war, women 's rights, and the sexual revolution would deeply affect many American teenagers. The conservative family values and morals that predominated in the 1950s were just beginning to be challenged as the decade came to a close” (Moss and Wilson 3). As a result, many teenagers lost the conservative morals of the 1950s and became more independent. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, Connie represents the result of this cultural revolution. Criticized by her mother for her promiscuity, Connie is an independent girl who often hangs out with her friends trying to attract boys. In doing so, she attracts a sexual predator named Arnold Friend who visits her at her home to try to get her to leave with him to presumably rape her. At the end of the story, Connie chooses to go with him. Connie gets into this dangerous situation because of a mistaken belief on her self-worth, the loss of morals by her and the adults in the story, and the influence of the 1960s popular music. Looking at “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” through the historical and feminist lenses, suggests that the story is really about how the misconceptions on self-worth and the diversion of 1960s society from

hese women from the book “ Women Hollering Creek”, were abused and taken advantage of their own men. Sandra Cisneros explores the stories “Never marry a mexican”, Woman Hollering Creek”, and “One holy night”. The women in this stories made a mistake by being with the wrong men in their life. They became careless when they met their own men. These girls have lost their respect for themselves. They have destroyed their own self, for the guy who never really loves them. No one stood up for their rights as a woman. Love and hate made these women vulnerable.

Flannery O’Connor was such a powerful writer and everyone seemed to always come back to her well known short story ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’. Critics had many attitudes towards what O’Connor has done not because of her work but her gender. The source was not relevant to what my paper is going to be about but I just thought it was very absurd how people do not judge work but gender. Flannery O’Connor has made a huge impact on how I view writing after reading her

The abduction of Persephone through Hades mirrors that of Arnold Friend. Joyce Carol Oates, Author of “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” is a short story with themes that consist of search for self as well as identity. Through the use of imagery, dialogue, and characterization Oates displays similarities between the Greek myth, “Persephone and Demeter” to “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”.

In the piece of literature named “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros, one of the major types of literary conflicts is person vs. society regarding the main protagonist and society’s expectations of her. To elaborate, the protagonist Cleofilas Hernandez, does not have a strong female role model in her life and is living in a patriarchal society that leaves her and other woman like her unaware of their potential. An example of this unawareness caused by society is when Cleofilas is saved from her abusive relationship by a strong, independent woman named Felice who gave Cleofilas a glimpse of the life that she may achieve one day. A quotation by the narrator states, “Everything about this woman, this Felice, amazed Cleofilas. The fact that she drove a pickup. A pick up, mind you, but when Cleofilas asked if it was her husbands, she said she didn't have a husband” (220 Cisneros). An analysis this quote clearly illustrates to the reader that Cleofilas obviously did not have any knowledge of a woman being able to have her own car, inevitably leading the reader into wondering what else society does not want her to know. Furthermore, this quotation suggests that this society does not have independent women due to Cleofilas surprising reaction to just the simple thought of a woman having a car. This proves that the literary conflict of person vs society is evidently present in this short story because Cleofilas is unmistakably placed in a society who did not support or have empowering women figures like Felice. Ultimately, with Cleofilas not knowing her self worth or having a female role model in her life, it leads to her forgiving her husband for his abusive nature. With this visible fact, a major theme within the boundaries of societal expectation and discrimination of women in “Woman Hollering Creek” is domestic abuse. In the short story, Cleofilas is involved in an abusive marriage in which her husband emotionally and physically attacks her daily because she has no means to protect

“A Good Man is Hard to Find”: Comparing Flannery O’Connor’s Literary Technique to Grotesque Medieval Literature

Female power is suppressed by men in vampire literature. I will analyze the idea of women treated as inferior by men through psychoanalysis mainly based on Freudian concepts. The topics of psychoanalysis that I will be using to look at the texts are the ‘monstrous feminine’, the castration complex, and masculine instinct. The two texts that will be analyzed are the short stories ‘Carmilla’ and ‘Snow, Glass, Apples’.

       The women in Jack Kerouac's On The Road were, it seems, not afforded the same depth in character which the author gave the men. The treatment of the women characters in both word and action by Sal and Dean seems to show that women could only be a virgin/mother figure or a whore. Throughout the novel there are many instances in which women and their feelings or actions are either referred to flippantly or blatantly degraded. It can be said, however, that Sal (Kerouac) did not necessarily agree with this narrow female identity, and there is evidence to support this claim. The novel also shows though that Sal did participate in this male forced female stereotyping whether he

The novel, "Ulysses", by James Joyce shows the reader hour by hour a single day in the life of one man.  But this epic which specifically deals with Leopold Bloom and has reference to Stephen Dedalus, holds so much more appendage to other areas of life.  One, is the portrayal of women in Ulysses. A common speculation is that men seem to have a more dominating status over women.  However, in Ulysses that theory dwindles due to the women who  play significant roles in the story.  Although the women in the novel all use various tactics to entice the men to succumb and cower to them, it all ends up that the men do heed to the qualifying factors.

Feminism, if anything, has appeared majorly in the literature spectrum through all decades and forms. Feminism is the political, cultural, or economic movement aimed at establishing equality and protection for all women. No matter the time period or place feminism has always been a popular literary topic that has made a few works quite notorious, including Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. Both works contain the scenarios in which the main characters are taken advantage of due to the apparent feminist society.

In 1990 Judith Butler first published her book Gender Troubles, where she questions gender roles. Butler theorizes that gender, as in male and female, is a type of societal/gender colonialism created to keep people who do not fall within the gender roles from being part of the mainstream society. In her 1999 preface, in which she addresses the impact her book had in the decade since its original publication, Butler expresses the concern she had with the “heterosexual assumption in feminist literary theory (61).” Butler utilizes the works of other feminist philosophers to further demonstrate the inconsistency, and disconnect between fighting for women rights and fighting for human rights. Judith Butler makes an interesting argument on the failure to recognize the spectrum of gender, however, she makes a compelling argument on the use of language perpetuating a patriarchal society.