Sexual Despotism In Susanna's Seven Husband By Ruskin Bond

A woman’s alternative would be becoming a nun, giving up all social freedoms and dedicating your life to serving the poor and God. Women who were subject to this life received a much more thorough education than other women, in order to properly learn religious concepts and theory. Otherwise, a woman’s education was limited to basic reading abilities paired with instruction on how to do homely activities. A woman of this time period had utterly no voice in politics. Law was man’s law. The life of these women were controlled by the men who surround them, their opinions meaning little to nothing. The life of a woman in medieval times was bleak and varied little. Romantic literature was on the rise, full of damsels in distress that only further perpetuated negative stereotypes of women during these times. These romances were full of helpless women in situations only a man could get them out of, or else they would be doomed. Despite this cultural oppression of women in this time period, some strong female characters were erected in medieval romances. A perfect example of an abnormally strong and independent female main character would be Enide from Erec and Enide written by Chrétien de

The subject in it is not as important for the message the author wants to convey. The symbolic transition of the character, Sumita, from one culture to another, is portrayed in the short story through her clothes and her attitude towards the garments. However, this short story is not important only for the issue of culture, but also reflects the status of women in the Indian society and the differences as opposed to the American one. This comparison is yet again done in part through clothes.

Women in India were unaware of their miserable condition. It is in the post independence period the women’s quest for identity of her own commenced. The 20th century saw the shift from outer to inner sensibilities and no one can better understand a man or woman better a feminine writer. In modern English fiction a number of women novelists have arrived on the literary scene, they have set out making new forays in to the world of women. Nayantara Sahgal being a feminist writer has emphasized in her novels on freedom and a new definition of the New Women. Sahgal’s heroines are well aware of the injustice done to them in their marriage and they come out of this traditional bond.

This paper attempts to examine the fictional projections of Indian girls, to see how they emerge in ideological terms. Their journeys from self-alienation to self-adjustment, their childhood struggles against the hypocrisies and monstrosities of the grown-up world, eventually demolishing the unjust male constructed citadels of power that hinder their progress- are the highlighted issues. The point of comparison between the two novels focused on here is the journey of Rahel in The God of Small Things and Sai in The Inheritance from a lonely childhood to a tragic adulthood passing through a struggle with the complex forces of patriarchal society. Both the novels portray the imaginativeness, inventiveness, independence, rebelliousness, wide-eyed wonder and innocence associated with these young girls.

Throughout the history, in all cultures the roles of males and females are different. Relating to the piece of literature “Girl” written by Jamaica Kincaid for the time, when women’s roles were to work in the home. By examining

Marie de France lived in a time when social graces were paramount to a good reputation, lordships and to securing good marriages. A woman was considered less valuable if she lost her virginity; a wife was subjected to her feudal lord, father, brother or son after her husband’s death. According to Angela Sandison’s article “The Role of Women in the Middle Ages”, this was because in the Middle Ages the Church and the aristocracy controlled public opinion and the legal system. These authorities of the times believed a woman’s place was in a submissive role to a man. In The Lay of the Nightingale, we will see how this social and religious hierarchy will impact the behaviors of the three people involved.

Throughout history civilizations have been governed by patriarchal societies dependent on the status and respectability of men. Men held all the power while women were subservient and even sometimes owned by men. This notion is only emphasized the moment we go back in time in the Victorian Era. Women were subject to men’s oppression, held no actual roles besides motherhood and were reliant on their chastity to project an agreeable image of themselves and their spouse. The status of a Victorian woman is depicted in “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Lord Tennyson and in a more feminist approach in “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti as being dependent on their chastity, servitude to men, and ability to present themselves.

Our society has created an identity for women since ancient days. Women are considered as an weaker sex and inferior to men. Though she plays a important role in her life, she is not found as an individual human being with all emotions and sufferings. She is supposed to live a life of dedication, surrendering and devotion. In Indian fiction, the women are modelled with the above qualities. Those qualities of women created a large impact on the Indian psyche and the expectation of society, and consciously or unconsciously

Three key figures in twelfth century Europe had a considerable impact on marriage, religion, and sexuality. The first two figures were classic romantics who wrote love letters to each other and made love in the kitchens of convents. These two influential figures are Heloise and Abelard. This teacher and student love affair knew no bounds and it eventually led to a dismal chain of events, but led to various revelations. The third figure is a religious visionary who took a secret vow of chastity in her young age. This prominent nun is Christina of Markyate, who endures persecution by her family and was constantly on the run in order to keep her sacred vow to God. These three figures and their stories are intricately tied together and they bring to light how the Church perceived such actions that concerned marriage, religion, and sexuality.

This essay will analyze the themes of sexual and class exploitations in the story “The Wife’s Resentment” by Delariviere Manley. By exploring these themes we are able to get an idea of why Manley wrote this story. That is, she hoped to make young women, whether rich or poor, aware of the value of their virtue as well as their rights as married or single women to protect that virtue or honor. By revealing the themes that are presented in the story, we can see what Manley stood for and why she wrote this story in the period she lived in.

Considering the socio-economic and cultural differences of these female characters, how could their ends be so similar? In this essay, we’ll discuss why these late 19th century, early 20th century authors chose to make suicide, or the desire for death (or other drastic behavior), agency for their female characters in these two texts. We’ll do this by analyzing the feminist themes of Tagore and Ibsen, in light of the realist/naturalist literary movement at the time; as well as discussing the ways the authors allow for autonomy with their characters -- as well as the ways they restrict their options -- in these works.

Women in history have long been oppressed, with their maltreatment ranging from the denial of basic human rights to more subtle maltreatment such as the subjugation to gender roles. The wife “wanted to know, and be of the fighting host”, mirroring the desire of women in history to break free of the chains of society (p. 3). In like manner, the hyperbolic description of the vicar reveals how vital it is to women to be able to be free. Though he is not as physically strong, he is emotionally and intellectually superior to any man. He “moved in worlds beyond where her own menfolk existed” and the wife desperately wanted to know why (p. 3). She decided it was not anything on the physical realm that would satisfy her- it was transcendence. This self-realization would free women and allow them to raise above the men that have pushed them to be below them in society.

So, naturally this contradiction needs to be reflected in her characters as well. Anita Nair portrays about the fragility of the modern Indian marriage and the overwhelming challenges of raising their children in a milieu. This is an ambitious layered novel.

In her Tale, she mimics the use of classical text in The Legend of Good Women, to criticize the antifeminist strategy, which according to Dinshaw, “...deprives not only the female of her significance but the male of self-understanding.” (127). To atone for the rape, the Knight must learn what women desire the most and thus, he recognizes the feminine body and its desires and gains true understanding. This is an allegory to the hermeneutic ideal, one which accepts the integrity of the text and ultimately leads to truth. The vision of an ideal reading is perfected on the night of the marriage between the crone and the Knight, where he promises to conform his desires to hers and subsequently, the lady abides to the Knight’s desires. This mutual respect parallels the Wife’s fantasy she described with her fifth husband. It maintains patriarchal power but reforms it to observe female

However, none of the scholars has acknowledged non-duality within dualities of body/mind, self/other, and femininity/masculinity in these novels which makes this research unique. Looking at the novels through this particular frame of non-duality within duality, the study attempts to bring a new and useful addition to the scholarship on these novels which have not been worked by others. I analyze non-duality within dualities of self/other, body/mind and male/female in the selected novelists’ works through Irigaray’s ethical relation and ‘sensible transcendental’ to argue how the selected novelists defy the duality of the masculine discourse which opposes women’s self-development, and create a place for their female characters who are internally enabled and limited by the place of the other, as Irigaray defines love as a space between two distinct subjects in her ‘sensible transcendental’ and ‘sexual difference’. Through non-duality within duality, I argue how the female characters in these novels challenge the traditional binary oppositions by expressing their own female desires and articulating their subjective and gendered identity by having an ethical relationship with others within the