Who Is Melia In The Ruined Maid

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall contains one of the earliest examples of marital abuse written in the Victorian Era. It prominently displays women being abused, separated from society and their subsequent solitude. The author, Anne Brontë, did not shy away from certain ‘taboo’ topics, like alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and sexual assault and has been criticised for it, even by her own sister Charlotte. Domestic violence has been around for many years and yet it was, and still is, treated as a forbidden subject that should be handled quietly and without causing a commotion. Anne Brontë does not ignore these issues. She gives a clear look at how someone can change overtime and how the effects of alcohol are not to be taken lightly. The Tenant

A true libertine of the Restoration Era, John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester – better known as his literary persona Rochester – is recognized for his poetry that often breaks barriers and social conventions in obscene ways. One such poem that is particularly explicit, some might even say pornographic, is entitled “A Ramble in St. James’s Park.” Including the sex, alcohol, and debauchery that is so characteristic of Rochester, this poem creates a unique balance between depravity of content and elegance of literary form. While there is much evidence that Rochester represents sex explicitly with obscene and shocking language in “A Ramble in St. James’s Park” for the purpose of satirizing both himself and contemporary love poems, I will argue that in doing so, he also makes a broader statement regarding the tension between the public and private spheres of sexuality, specifically representing female sexuality in the public sphere and erotic female bodies as communal property; finally, the lewd language hints at an anxiety about the power of the feminine over men, thus queering gender roles by becoming the abject feminine.

Jane Eyre and Incidents in the life of a slave girl are two opposite literary texts which, despite being 19th century texts, belong to different historical periods. Brontë sets her character in the Victorian England. Jacobs, on the other hand, writes about slavery during the civil war in order to relate the treatment of slaves, and more precisely that of female slaves. We will analyse, in this essay, the differences as well as the similarities which exist between Jane Eyre and Incidents in the life of a slave girl written by herself. We see that they differ in terms of genre, the period of history in which they find themselves, the way the characters are presented and so forth. However, they share some of the main

In Gertrude Atherton’s Black Oxen, a man named Clavering falls in love with a woman who is not what she appears to be. When Clavering first sees Madame Zattiany, he views her as an object. He refers to her as “it” rather than “she” when he describes her at the beginning of the book. He states that, “in spite of its smooth white skin and rounded contours above an undamaged throat, it was, subtly, not a young face” (Atherton, page 45). Atherton is using Clavering as a vehicle to argue that men tend to see women as objects. It is easier to defend injustice if one can dehumanize the opposing side. It seems as if he is taking stock of her features, as if she were a cow being sold at a market, Clavering is observing her in the hopes of later devouring her. Clavering sees her and knows she is different because she draws attention to herself, she doesn’t just sit in silence. She simply isn’t behaving as Clavering believes a woman should. There is an uncertainty that comes when Clavering sees Mary disregarding the manners of the time. Then he observes her in great detail. His inspection reveals just how superficial Clavering is. He examines her so thoroughly, as if she was a prized mare at auction: “ her forehead was perhaps too high, but it was full, and thick hair was brushed back from a sharp point. Her eyebrows, thank Heaven, were many shades darker than her hair” (Atherton, pages 44-45). It is through these observations that Atherton emphasizes men’s obsession with the

In Nathaniel Hawthorne 's “The Birthmark”, we find the tragic story of a woman named Georgiana who sacrificed her life for the sake of appeasing her husband, Aylmer. What did Georgiana do that it was more favorable for her to die than to continuing to displease her husband? Georgiana, who was otherwise hailed as incomparably beautiful, had a birthmark on her face. Aylmer desired this to remove this birthmark, which he considered the one thing keeping her from being “perfect”, from her face. In an attempt to remedy his wife’s “imperfection”, Aylmer makes an elixir for her to drink. While this elixir successfully removes the birthmark, the same elixir also causes Georgiana to die soon after. This story brings to light several examples of how society belittles women and puts their desires below the desires of men.

In Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Arthur Huntington, Helen’s husband and Arthur’s father, is presented as an alcoholic, disgraceful, narcissistic “gentleman” (Brontë 311). Despite Helen’s efforts to shelter their son, Arthur, from the corrupted masculinity embodied by Huntington and his friends, Huntington encourages Arthur’s “manly accomplishments” that mirror his own character, such as excessive drinking, swearing, and selfishness (297). For fear of Arthur becoming “a curse to others and himself”, like his father, Helen has acquitted herself to prepare for an escape; however, Huntington seizes her journal which reveal her plans (203). In this passage Mr. Huntington is not only devaluing aspect of his corrupted masculinity,

but has a 'gift' that 'Cousin Kate' is not likely to get; a son. The

Women who had no claim to wealth or beauty received the harshest of realities in America’s Victorian era. Author Charlotte Bronte – from America’s Victorian era – examines and follows the life of a girl born into these conditions in her gothic novel Jane Eyre (of which the main character’s name

The themes of both poems show the complete mental consumption of the voice’s. Their pre-dominative behaviour appears to emerge from perverted good values. The paranoid voice of a woman, angered with her supposed cheating husband runs throughout the duration of ‘Medusa,’ seeming to grow in anger as it meets every line. In addition, Carol Ann Duffy creates an extended metaphor of this women’s transformation into the monstrous character ‘Medusa,’ using members present in Greek mythology, in order to paint a metaphorical juxtaposition of a once beautiful woman, now a hideous ‘gorgon’ due to the impact of detrimental human emotion. Detrimental emotion being, as shown by the phrase: ‘My brides breath soured, stank,’ with the use of sensory imagery demonstrating how a slight ‘suspicion’ has taken hold of the voice. Moreover, this build-up and outpour of the slight ‘suspicion’ and emotion over the poem suggests that the voice has succumbed to and has allowed herself

“I am no bird and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will” (Bronte, Jane Eyre 293). In the Victorian time period Charlotte Bronte lived the unequal life as a woman, like many others. The only difference is Bronte did not believe in living in inequality, and she wrote about her hardships in her literature. In her book, Jane Eyre, the reader can see many similarities in her main character’s life and her own. Jane Eyre has many ways of showing how Victorian women were expected to be and act, included in the life of Jane. Bronte also continues her portrayal of the inequality of women and the decision of love versus autonomy through two of her poems, “Life” and “The Wife’s Will.” Charlotte Bronte displays the inequality in life of women in the Victorian era by taking her life and revitalizing it into themes of her works, by providing a journey of discovery of love or autonomy.

unpleasant social peculiarities, via a most careful use of irony in the dialogues and thoughts of

The male gaze is a penetrating force every woman has dealt with in her life. It is normalized in our society as a whole, despite the fact that it involuntarily violates women and leaves them vulnerable. Victorian society was no exception to this unfortunate constraint upon women. As such, Thomas Hardy deconstructs the destructive male gaze through the heroine of Far From the Madding Crowd, Bathsheba Everdene, and her unique command of her love life. Moreover, in doing so, he creates a self-directed woman who does not need a man’s aid to find happiness. She may not be the perfect female character, but she knows what she wants from life and she is ready to take it.

A woman could not escape commodification even if she didn’t enter this particular market – matrimony and the nunnery were also means of buying and selling of women’s ‘wares’. The hymen itself was a commodity, as

All through Canterbury Tales, women are dealt with as objects in everyday life. In the “Miller’s Tale,” an old man marries a younger, attractive women for her looks. In the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” a virgin woman has her virginity and innocence taken from her by what is suppose to be a noble and honorable knight and when his punishment is later to marry an older, less attractive women, all respect for his newly wife vanishes. A woman’s level of recognition in Canterbury Tales are through her class in society, whether she is young and beautiful, or old and disgusting, and her degree of experience in life. Women are not desired for their intelligence, wisdom and capabilities which might of kept a relationship deceitful-free. The “Wife of

Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular novels written by Jane Austen. This romantic novel, the story of which revolves around relationships and the difficulties of being in love, was not much of a success in Austen's own time. However, it has grown in its importance to literary critics and readerships over the last hundred years. There are many facets to the story that make reading it not only amusing but also highly interesting. The reader can learn much about the upper-class society of this age, and also gets an insight to the author's opinion about this society. Austen presents the high-society of her time from an observational point of view, ironically describing human behavior. She describes what she sees and adds her own