The Female, Bildungsroman, By Carol Lazzaro Weis

Women have fought throughout history in order to achieve different roles as well as to acquire recognition, independence, equality and respect. It has not been easy since they have had many barriers to overcome; their role in the family as wives, mothers and daughters; their role in society fighting for their rights, being heard and treated as men; their role as career women, not only receiving an education but also being able to work.

The biological sex of a person, in most cases, today can still be considered one of the main identifying characteristics of an individual. In the past the sex of a person was more than an identifying characteristic, it was who they were. They were either men or women, there was no in between or changing it. Society today has come a long way in terms of gender identity and gender roles, but the concept of patriarchy still has the upper hand when it all boils down. Allan G. Johnson’s, The Gender Knot, provides for a more diverse outlook on the women’s expected roles in life, how they are expected to handle difficult situations in marriage, and how they demonstrate courage, in Mona Lisa Smile.

Prior to and throughout the late middle ages, women have been portrayed in literature as vile and corrupt. During this time, Christine de Pizan became a well educated woman and counteracted the previous notions of men’s slander against women. With her literary works, Pizan illustrated to her readers and women that though education they can aspire to be something greater than what is written in history. Through the use of real historical examples, Christine de Pizan’s, The Book of the City of Ladies, acts as a defense against the commonly perceived notions of women as immoral.

The Holocaust was very extreme, forcing victims to make a choice between prioritizing their own survival or allowing a close friend or family member to live. Some people would not have survived unless they could steal clothes or food from another person else, and countless others selflessly surrendered their own resources allowing a family member to stay alive. Night is a novel written by Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel. In Auschwitz, the officers deprived Elie and the other prisoners of food, resources and clean living space. Prisoners had to sacrifice morality if they wanted to live. My Life in Germany is a short story by Rosa Marie Burger. It takes place in the Holocaust's early days and highlights the sharp loss of rights that the German Jews endured. They felt betrayed when their fellow citizens did not speak out. Most people will not remain loyal if it means putting themselves in imminent danger.

Teresa of Avila can be known as an autobiography of Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, or even as Teresa refers to her piece as a confession. Throughout this historical, religious confession, Dr. Raquel Trillia pointed out throughout her lecture how Teresa used strategies that many women must use in order to be viewed as a writer. These strategies are used so that a woman’s writing will be accepted, or at the most respected within the literature society. With that being said, the main theme brought forth during Dr. Raquel Trillia’s lecture about Teresa of Avila is how much women are struggling to be a part of the literature community and to be graced with respect from other (male) authors within the novel industry.

In her book “Gender Outlaw: On Men, Woman, and the Rest of us,” Kate Bornstein goes over a lot of the major issues regarding gender awareness and identity politics. She talks about the ideas of labeling ones self, understanding gender differences, how people view laws, behaviors, and the medical and scientific privilege that make transitioning challenging for a lot of people. Bornstein touches on many of the issues today that affect trans people. She includes poetry, pictures, quotes, essays, and a play to raise questions and discuss the idea of gender. This is a great book to introduce and discuss the issues that affect the lives of trans people as they navigate and explore the lines that define gender.

Feminism is a prominent controversy in present times and is relevant through literary works. In the article, “Throwing like a Girl,” James Fallows analyzes that saying exactly for what it means in our society, and more importantly if there’s any truth to the stereotype. In the article, “Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History,” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich shows how feminist historians, by challenging traditional accounts of both men's and women's histories, have prompted more vibrant accounts of the past. While Fallows analyzes the styles of throwing to identify a possible theory of the stereotypical saying, “throwing like a girl,” Ulrich discusses and encourages women to be strong and accomplish their goals, by using her phrase “well behaved women seldom make history.”

For this primary source paper, I decided to write a comparison on the source Women’s Place in Renaissance Italy: Alessandra, Letters from a Widow and Matriarch of a Great Family and The Virgin Suicides written by Jeffrey Eugenides. Immediately reading the first paragraph of Women’s Place in Renaissance Italy, it strongly resonated with The Virgin Suicides in a way. I thought these two would make an interesting comparison due to the way they both address men, death, complexity of being a female, and family.

The article, The Cult of Womanhood: 1820 - 1860 written by Barbara Welter discusses the philosophy towards women in America during the mid 19th century. A set of demands and expectations based upon four principles: piety, purity, submission and domesticity were placed on women as well as certain behavioral expectations left 19th century women feeling guilty. It also left women feeling this way during the industrialization period as well as having a huge presence of incompatibility with society. Welter shares her viewpoint that the Cult of Womanhood was an attempt to preserve pre modern values in the industrial age. Men held a dominant place in society and continued to prevent new opportunities for women to explore. Narrow minded

“Silence. These were the habits that I wore as I lived what survivors of the Holocaust now call a U-boat, a Jewish fugitive from the Nazi death machine, hiding right in heat of the Third Reich.” With these words, Edith Hahn lays down the foundation for her captivating memoir. Born in Vienna, Austria in 1914, Edith Hahn was a Jewish girl who strived to go further in the education and not become a housewife. Despite her hopes and dreams, at the age of 27, and only one test away from achieving her law degree, Edith was turned away from her University due to the rules set up by Hitler and the Reich during the Anschluß. As they are witnessing the Nazi rise to power, Edith's sibling, all but her, leave. One sister takes refuge in Israel, and her brother in England. From then on, Edith and her mother were stripped of their home and forced to live in the slowly degrading conditions of the Jewish ghetto.

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.

When comparing the epic poem of The Song of Roland to the romantic literature of Ywain, the differences between the early medieval period and the high medieval period become evident. Both The Song of Roland and Ywain depicts the societies from which each story derives its fundamental characteristics. Through close observation, one is able to see the shifts in customs and mentality that make the move from the epic to the romance possible. In his chapter 'From Epic to Romance', R.W. Southern shows how this transformation manifests itself through changing ecclesiastical and secular thoughts and feelings.

The poem of Beowulf is one of the earliest recorded pieces of literature in history, written at an estimated time of around 1000 A.D. and set in the pagan world of sixth-century Scandinavia. Disregarding the poem’s age, the writing uses many of the same literary devices people use modern day-- such as kennings, alliteration, and caesura. Kennings are compound expressions used in Anglo-Saxon writings that have a metaphorical meaning. For example, the word sea-traveler could be used to describe a boat. Alliteration is when there is a repetition of words that start with the same letter. Caesura is a type of verse unique to Anglo-Saxon, Greek, and Latin literature that breaks the text into two with each side sharing a similar number of syllables to create an intense, ominous tone of rhythmic sound. With the use of these three devices, pictures are painted in the minds of readers, and characters are both directly and indirectly developed to enhance the story. Often in this epic poem, courage is expanded upon and interpreted in different ways with the use of these tactics.

Throughout history, women have been seen in many different lights. From a woman’s perspective she is strong, smart, helpful and equal to men. In the eyes of men, she is seen as the weaker being, the housewife, and the caretaker. By looking at the following pieces of writing, one can see that through the centuries, women have struggled to break out of the mold that man had put her in and make themselves known in society as important.

As a Professor of Comparative Literature and Program of Critical Theory, Judith Butler received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale in 1984 and has received nine honorary degrees since then. Her work has an air of postmodern thought, focusing not on whether cultural practices are correct or not but goes in depth on the use language and its effect on how “gender” limits or even hinders women and those that don’t identify as either. In the 1990’s when Butler wrote this book during a time of great change in the portrayal of the female role. Women started having more empowered roles, no longer simply