Summary Of Imogen In Cloten

• Sax explores parallelism between Desdemona, who is anxious to present herself as a “vessel”, and Dessie who depicts herself as chaste, “I was like a blank sheet waiting for you to write your name on me”. This reflects the expectation of women of the contemporary context, untainted and pure, like a “blank sheet”, which significantly displays tendencies that resemble Elizabethan female attributes.

In Sophocles’ Antigone, gender roles are a major conflicting theme throughout the entire play. The setting of the play was written during the Greek mythological days, around 442 B.C. During these days, men were dominant and held all of the power, so women were automatically treated as less. Antigone and Creon portray the conflicting sides between male and female, and Ismene and Haemon portray opposing sides to Antigone and Creon’s actions. Antigone, Ismene, Creon, and Haemon each show differences in behavior due to their sex versus the actions each character chooses to take. Antigone tells Ismene about her plans to bury their brother, Polynices, which is going against Creon’s orders. Antigone and Ismene, have contrasting perspectives on

Throughout history, our society has created gender norms that are followed consistently by members of communities. Though they differ from place to place, we recognize trends that seem almost prescribed to certain genders. Specifically, in the 1600s, men and women had explicit roles that were designated by people of stature. These expectations were followed loyally and people who failed to follow suit were shunned or sometimes even suffered seriously punishment including crude public beatings that were mot only pain inflicting but also status damaging (Rocke, Gender and Sexual Culture, 159). Looking deeper into the novel The Return of Martin Guerre, we identify from the start the expectations that are in place and how they play a role in the story. In comparison of Characters, taking into consideration the standard that had been set for men of this era, we notice that Pansette (Arnaud du Tilh) is an almost faultless example of what is expected for men and in contrast, Martin Guerre fails to meet these standards.

Imogen therefore meets the qualifications of Article 4 by accepting degrading circumstances. Article #5 states that A brave dame has high ethical standards. These standards are met in Act 3, scene 6 when Imogen privately comments on the practices of her father and people in his castle. She maintains that To lapse in fullness Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood Is worse in kings than beggars. This aside displayed Imogens true moral position to be one of dignity and righteousness, therefore awarding her with the ethical superiority that Isaacs list requires. These Brave Dame qualities help Imogen to venture upon uninhibited terrain as a leading lady. Since the original production of this play, countless female protagonists have emerged both on page and on screen.

As a senior revising and expanding this essay, I realized how much I have grown as a writer and a student of literature. When I began revising, I realized that the focus of the paper needed to be narrowed and focused more on the play Arcadia, in which Thomasina is the exception to the types of women characters stereotypically

Often times in literature the body becomes a symbolic part of the story. The body may come to define the character, emphasize a certain motif of the story, or symbolize the author’s or society’s mindset. The representation of the body becomes significant for the story. In the representation of their body in the works of Marie de France’s lais “Lanval” and “Yonec,” the body is represented in opposing views. In “Lanval,” France clearly emphasizes the pure beauty of the body and the power the ideal beauty holds, which Lanval’s Fairy Queen portrays. In France’s “Yonec,” she diverts the reader’s attention from the image of the ideal body and emphasizes a body without a specific form and fluidity between the forms. “Yonec” focuses on a love not

An expecting couple awaits to discover the gender of their baby. The nurse announces that it’s a girl. The couple is extremely excited, but do they truly grasp the weight of what this implies? Gender is not simply a physical trait, as it affects nearly every aspect of a person’s life. Stereotypes repress the potential in all men and women. The same stereotypes are found throughout literature such as Medea by Euripides, Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, “Sonnets” by Shakespeare, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Frederick Waterman’s “The Best Man Wins”. A common thread between these pieces is that power can be gained by those who are suppressed by defying gender stereotypes and social hierarchies.

Presenting literature to the public that is meant to be a commentary on social or political issues, masked under the guise of entertaining and fictional, is a tool implemented by authors and activists for centuries. While not all satire is as overt as Jonathan Swift’s suggestion that we eat the babies, it does not diminish the eyebrow raising suggestions that are conveyed once the meaning has been discovered. In Aphra Behn’s The History of the Nun and Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina, the established expectations of the female role within society are brought into question then directly rejected. These expectations establish that women should be deferential to men, morally unblemished, and virtuous at all times. Men, however, are not held to these expectations in the same way. The masculine roles assumed by Isabella and Fantomina demonstrate a private rebellion against the established patriarchal society as it warns against the under-estimation of women and proves that women exist independently.

Clotel is an interesting piece of literary work by William Brown, as it exposes the depraved social conditions of Chattel Slavery and its effect on Marriage relations between slave and slave owner. Interestingly, I recognized the stereotypes that can develop from conditions of race and class in our society. More importantly, we see how race and class present higher priviledges to mulatto slaves (quadroons), than what William coins as the "real negro." Undeniably, there is a stereotypical belief in today 's society that light skin or fairer skin people have an esteemed privilege than that of dark skin people. Although fictional characters, Currer, Clotel, and Althesa are real-life representations of that belief because they were mulattos.

Frank Heywood, a female crossdresser, proves that women can do the same work as men. However, she can only succeed in doing so by rejecting her birth gender. Instead of doing housework and aspiring to marriage, Frank states that her work “must be father, mother, wife and children to me” (p. 302). She claimed that by giving up her womanhood, “I could go about unquestioned. No man insulted me, and when I asked for work, I was not offered outrage…I resolved to carve out for myself a place in the world as a man, and let death alone reveal my secret and prove what a woman can do” (p. 366-67). While Mrs. Bludgett is beaten, Flora is trapped in a loveless marriage, and Laura is abducted, Frank is free to work and do as she pleases. Her success in doing so proves Blake’s point that “gender” is a socially constructed and ridiculous concept. Blake succeeds in portraying the constant battles of women and through her examples of heartless treatment and behaviors from men. It’s important to note that Frank is the only women who truly succeeds in beating the

In Chaucer’s “Franklin Tale” the plot revolves around a married couple: the knight, Arviragus, his young wife, Dorigen, and a young squire, Aurelius who importunes and attempts to Dorigen. The characters can be said to oscillate between desire and their ego honor which affects what they say and do. Lacan’s definition of desire tells us that we desire for recognition from this “Other.” Our desire is to become what the other person lacks. Duby’s model of courtly love is a concept that focuses on chivalry, nobility and women being at the center. In this paper, I will examine what the story reveals about the relation each character has to his or her desire, how they act in accordance to their desire and the role magic or illusion plays in the plot and how it affect characters’ relation to desire.

Victor is taught at a young age that beauty is something to be highly appreciated based off his family’s values. Elizabeth is described as “fair, and very thin. Her hair was the brightest living gold… a crown of distinction on her head.” (30) Elizabeth’s beauty made her stand out to Victor’s parents, her seeming to be the only plausible choice among the other children. Her precious looks attract the main focus of anyone who lays eyes on her, reinforcing the priority of beauty over other qualities. His parent’s prejudice towards the other, more undesirable babies, lead to them choosing Elizabeth as the one to shower their love upon.

In A Doll’s House and Frankenstein, Ibsen and Shelley’s use of characterisation assists to communicate how the purposeful existence of preconceived appearances marginalises the capacity of independence for key characters. Ibsen utilises the social status of antagonist Nils Krogstad to illuminate his struggle against the negative perception society has on

The Theme of Appearance vs. Reality in William Shakespeare's Works Characters within one of William Shakespeare's greatest tragic plays,

Prior to Shakespeare’s ascendancy on the English stage, Bloom argues, there was no concept of the individual self, just types. These types persist in Shakespeare’s plays as residual stock characters displaying