Symbols Of The Nobility And The Proletariat

Both the 2011 drama film adaption of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help (1960s setting), directed by Tate Taylor, and the 1879 three-part play, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, challenge their audiences to consider the theme of society and class within their respective time periods. Both creators focus on female protagonists who set out to turn against the demands of their society and class to vocalise their values and beliefs. Taylor encourages the viewer to evaluate this concept, through the use of cinematic techniques that illustrate the impact of one character’s beliefs on multiple characters’ rebellion against their perceived society and class, in 1960 America. Conversely, through literary techniques, Ibsen challenges his audience to consider the possible psychological effects of conforming to one’s society and class, by focusing on the notion of female oppression as a Norwegian societal norm during the nineteenth century.

This article analyzes the way Austen portrays women in her novels. Kruger mentions that Jane Austen’s work is often deprived by the

Disparities between upper and working class women and their roles in society are made very obvious in gothic literature. However, they are especially highlighted in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, in which the protagonist sits between the upper and lower classes because of her own choice to marry a man from a higher class than herself. In the time period that the book was written, there were still large distinctions in class, though it was also a period that allowed for more social mobility because the older distinctions in class were beginning to fall away. The protagonist’s choice to marry a man so far above her in social class sets the stage for a love story that challenges society’s expectations of a woman’s role in her marriage and

This personal confession shows that Mrs. Mallard, though she will mourn at first, now is free to “live for herself,” (228) not for her imposing husband. Before her husband’s death, Mrs. Mallard believed she was in a healthy, normal marriage. This death revealed to her how while she cared about her husband, she despised the lack of freedom her marriage had given her. All of the realizations that Mrs. Mallard reaches during her time of reflection shows the readers exactly why she will no longer mourn the death of her husband.

The heroine, Mrs. P, has some carries some characteristics parallel to Louise Mallard in “Hour.” The women of her time are limited by cultural convention. Yet, Mrs. P, (like Louise) begins to experience a new freedom of imagination, a zest for life , in the immediate absence of her husband. She realizes, through interior monologues, that she has been held back, that her station in life cannot and will not afford her the kind of freedom to explore freely and openly the emotions that are as much a part of her as they are not a part of Leonce. Here is a primary irony.

Anthony’s fourth paragraph, in which she discussed the idea that if women are not citizens, then they are subject to living in a oligarchy, also raises an emotion reaction with the audience. After all, women do not want to feel that they are the lesser subject and do not this unjust ideal to lead to, “…dissension, discord, and rebellion…” in their homes (Anthony 513).

As a means of assessing the extent to which the work was successful, I evaluated the books ability to answer the questions the author himself posed to the audience. These questions were discussed in the introduction where Ozment presented two questions before he launched into the narrative in search of their answers. Ozment asked: “What exactly had [Anna] done to cause her father, the Burgermeister, to denounce her as an “evil serpent” and the government of Hall to declare her a renegade?” and “Why did the behaviour of one woman rivet the attention and disrupt the lives of so many important people for so long a time?”. According to Ozment, answers to these questions can be found “in the internal workings of a distant society and in the inner lives of people who were both like and unlike ourselves” (3). Therefore, in considering whether or not this book was successful I looked

Through Tea Cake’s character, Zora Neale Hurston shows that society is destructive. Whenever there is a group of people living together, “society” is inescapable. Tea Cake pretends to be a man who is not consumed with the evilness of society, however, Tea Cake’s influence on Janie forces her to become weak and dependent. Uncovering society’s faults force Janie to become aware of her situation, and become a realistic person, rather than the romantic she has always

She realises her role as the wife of Martin Guerre, “she understood her position in the household, [a] part of [the] structure.” However, once Martin defects from the manor, she is subservient to the condemnation she receives from Monsier Guerre anger that “[his] son should become a thief is [his] greatest shame.” Bertrande’s plight mirrors the issue of a woman’s place in society and challenging the ideology of a restricted homemaker role with a lack of control over life choices and education. Lewis considers the strength needed in order to defy the constraints society places one into and the potential a woman has to independence. Lewis teaches her readers the tenacity one must have in adversity, disregarding the restrictions placed upon a person’s gender.

According to Elizabeth Lowell, “Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it.” Sometimes what every situation needs is an outsider to flip the script and create a new outlook on everything. In Shirley Jackson’s novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” the speaker, Merricat, is an outsider of society on many levels, such as mental health, gender, and that she is an upper class citizen in a poor area. Although Merricat is mentally unstable, her outsider’s perspective criticizes the social standard for women in the 1960s, indicating that social roles, marriage, and the patriarchy are not necessary aspects in life such as it is not necessary to have the same outlook on life as others.

       As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time

The novel highlights the significance of class consciousness and how one particular class can become subjective to the hands of the dogmatic elites. The derogative attitudes regarding social class first occurs when Jane suffers horrible treatment from John Reed. He violently torments Jane and constantly reminds her that she is an orphan and a dependent of the Reed family, forcing into her mind that to be without a class is to be without worth. He imposes fear into Jane and reminding her that he is the superior being.

In the book “The Shawl” a family of a mother and two children are trying to survive during the Holocaust. It proves that humans’ strongest instinct is the will to survive and apparently the shawl is the only way to accomplish this. Throughout the story survival is linked back to the shawl itself. The main focus of the story is having the shawl and using it to survive. The shawl is a symbol of many things, but most importantly it is a symbol of protection, a symbol of comfort, and a symbol of nourishment.

Her relationship with the wealthy, charming Rodolphe Boulanger is a diversion from tedious country life as well as an intentional subversion of the establishment of marriage and an attempt to undermine her husband’s authority. After her first conjugal transgression, Emma distinctly feels “the satisfaction of revenge” and “savoured [sic] it without remorse, without anxiety, without worry” (161). Though her husband Charles is guiltless of cruelty or vice he is representative of a patriarchy that is entirely neglectful of the emotional, psychological, and intellectual needs of women and assertive of its superiority and power. She is expected to fulfill the duties of a simple-minded, submissive, and sexless creature who is devoted to the comfort of her family and upkeep of the home. By pursuing a sexual relationship with Rodolphe, Emma invalidates the authority of the prohibitive government institution over her actions and demands autonomy in the face of a banal provincial life.

It is not a coincidence that the play Miss Julie hits the cultural bulls-eye. The writer Johan August Strindberg was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1849 and was a citizen of Sweden for a majority of his life. Many of the themes of the play such as socio-economic classes, religion, and gender roles doubled as themes of Strindberg’s life. “In his autobiographical novel The Son of a Servant (1886), Strindberg underlines the class difference between his parents as one source of the conflict in his nature