The Lambs Women

Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood, a true story about a brutal murder. However, his creative spin on the factual story makes the reader an investigator while reading the novel. While Capote’s opinions and judgments are not overtly stated in the book, he does exaggerate at times. This way, the author forces the readers to discover the truth, and to piece together the story to self interpret . Even though In Cold Blood is filled with real life accounts of the events of a tragic murder, Capote also includes more traditional stereotypes in his descriptions, not only the female gender role, but the the long-established look on religion too.

“Women cannot be murderers.” Even though this was not explicitly stated in the newspapers, The Boston Herald in its article “Lizzie Borden” conveys the perception that the feminine ways associated with women would make it impractical for women to commit murder. Lizzie Borden, a young lady accused of brutally killing her stepmother and father with multiple blows to their heads with a hatchet was described as a religious, sincere, and modest human being in The Boston Herald’s article covering Lizzie’s life before and after the murders. During Lizzie’s youth, she suffered from isolation because of her reserved personality and belief that nobody appreciated her presence, but in womanhood turned her life around and attain friendships who vouched for her good character during the time of the investigation. The Boston Herald’s article “Lizzie Borden: Her School and Later Life - A Noble Woman, Though Retiring”, successfully persuades the reader of Lizzie Borden’s innocence with the focus on her femininity through diction and logic.

An initial reading of A Jury of Her Peers suggests that the author focuses on the common stereotypes of women in the 1800s; however, a close reading reveals that the text also examines the idea that they are more capable than men may think. The fact that Mrs. Wright was able to pull off killing her husband by herself and without the men finding out proves that she is very capable and did not need the help of men to pull it off. The men at the time believed that women were incapable of doing things by themselves and thought that they should just stay in the kitchen, cook, and clean. They thought that they could not manage to do things that men could and did not trust them with a man's job.

The story of what Lizzie Borden could have possibly done to her stepmother and father is widely known, every aspect has been sensationalized, and every detail has been scrutinized beyond belief. Creators choose what they want to include, disregard, and draw attention towards to create their own possible outcome. But what Mary E. Wilkins did in her fictional interpretation, “The Long Arm”, was unique because she chose to let the story unfold in a completely different way. The story is set in a small town, like Fall River, where Sarah Fairbanks and her father Martin lived. Martin was murdered after a quarrel about a business deal with Rufus Bennett, but Rufus and his wife left town the morning of the murder. While the police only searched for a few days before they gave up, Sarah took matters into her own hands to prove to everyone that it was not her boyfriend, Henry Ellis, who Martin just happened not to like. A quiet seamstress named Phoebe who lived across the street from Sarah, the victim’s daughter, was the actual assassin. Phoebe’s dynamic with her roommate, Maria, takes on the “double” theme, where there are two characters, who are based off one person or idea, but one obeys the rules and succeeds while the other character rebels and therefore pays the societal consequences, in this case. Phoebe and Maria’s characters portray two versions of Lizzie Borden that were both played up during her trial. Maria embodies the innocent, feminine, and weak version of Lizzie that

Since the beginning of reconstruction, women have been fighting for equal rights. Women’s political parties have been formed, some states have ratified voting rights for women, and women in the workforce has increased. Women have always been viewed has “domestic”, only made to serve the husband and work within the household. However, these views were all scrutinized and drawn into question on when Lizzie Borden, the youngest daughter of the Borden family, was accused for the death of her father and step-mother. Kathryn Allamong Jacob, writer of “She couldn’t have done it, even if she did”, argues that Lizzie Borden couldn’t have commit the murders due to the “Victorian conception of womanhood”

Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling is a student in the FBI who worked hard to advance in her career is being asked to question Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist who has in a maximum security isolation for 8 years for killing his victims and eating them. Considering the fact he’s a very smart psychiatrist, the student must be careful to not fall for his mind tricks and be able to manipulate him to help her solve another case of the new serial killer by the name of Buffalo Bill. Buffalo Bill has killed about 5 females by skinning them and drowning them in few lakes around the western US.

A trait that stands out in the book is the symptom of bodily memories. In Melinda’s case, during a frog dissection in her science class, she remembers the opening up and even says, “She doesn’t say a word. She is already dead. A scream starts in my gut – I can feel the cut, smell the dirt, feel the leaves in my hair.” (81). One of the other symptoms that Melinda has is self-harm. The first time that this is shown in the book, Melinda says this, “I open up a paper clip and scratch it across the inside of my left wrist. Pitiful. If a suicide attempt is a cry for help, then what is this? A whimper, a peep?” (87). Melinda also has a hard time talking to her parents about the rape to which she says, “How can I talk to them about that night? How can I start?” (72). Some victims recover from such a traumatic experience, while others don’t and live a lifetime of depression and must undergo intense therapy. In Melinda’s case, she finds redemption by talking to her parents and the guidance counselor, and putting her faith into her teachers, friends, and her art project at school. Because rape can affect anybody anywhere, everyone should be aware of the circumstances, and how to deal with it.

In “A Jury of Her Peers,” Susan Glaspell uses the men’s belittlement and the women’s responses to show their differences. For example, when the men laugh about the women’s question of the quilt, Mrs. Hale responds with “our taking up our time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence. I don’t see as it’s anything to laugh about” (Glaspell 8). Seeing these differences bring

Gumb’s fantasizes of being beautiful like his mother, causing him to possess the unattainable goal of becoming his mother through the making of a suit of

In “A Jury of Her Peers,” Susan Glaspell uses the men’s belittlement and the women’s responses to show their differences. For example, when the men laugh about the women’s question of the quilt, Mrs. Hale responds with “our taking up our time with little things while we’re waiting for them to get the evidence. I don’t see as it’s anything to laugh about” (Glaspell 8). Seeing these differences bring the two women, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters, closer together. At one point in the story, “the two women moved a little closer together” in response when the men trivialize what trifles women go through (Glaspell 5). The women see things in the house that the men cannot due to the men never having to experience being in the place of a housewife. The men failed to see the little details that women could see. “Belittling the women, the condescending men exclude them from the legal investigation, doubting the women could recognize a forensic clue”, the men doing this causes their view of the crime to be incomplete, and they fail to recognize that the women were the men’s greatest investigators of this case (Kamir). Mr. Hale even completely ridicules the intelligence of the women altogether by saying “But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?” (Glaspell 6).

The pressure on Starling increases when the daughter of Senator Ruth Martin is kidnapped. As the only female assigned to the investigation, Starling is able to use her feminine perspective to better understand Bills victims, and how he picks them. But each day Starling spends on his trail puts her

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

Writers throughout time have taken it upon themselves to pen the injustices around them and hone their artistic skills to document and expose acts of injustice, intending to spark change, debate, and reform. Roald Dahl and George Saunders, two renowned authors, tackle the same responsibility in their works, in the hopes of critiquing society and its distasteful, unsavory elements. The short stories “Lamb to the Slaughter”, written by Roald Dahl, and “My Chivalric Fiasco”, written by George Saunders, utilize satire and stylistic techniques to critique society and outline their perspectives on the world around them.

The issue of female persecution throughout many of Hitchcock’s films has been fiercely contested, none more so than the controversial issue of assault and the attempted rape of a woman. Views that Hitchcock represents the archetypal misogynist are supported, Modelski suggesting that his films invite “his audience to indulge their most sadistic fantasies against the female” (18). Through both the manipulation of sound and the use of language, none more so than in Blackmail and Frenzy, the idea of rape and violence does effectively silence and subdue not only the women in the films, but the also the women watching them (18).

A strange tail that takes place in the not too distant future where once a person reaches a certain age and is single they are taken to a hotel to find a mate within the space of 45 days. Should they fail to do so then they are turned into an animal of their choosing. The story follows that of David who having been sent to the hotel displays similar traits to that of a Heartless Women in order to successfully forge a relationship, dodging his animalistic transformation. The Heartless Women eventually is unconvinced by his manner and as a test kills his dog (his brother) in order to see if he is truly heartless. However he is caught morning his pet and flees to the woods when she threatens to end the relationship. In the woods people hide as