Women In The Big Sleep

Not only does this say a lot about Olive’s immature nature, but sells herself as blinded by her own desires to cover-up her romantic dream while rejecting the expectations that society places upon women being housewives in marriage. During the 1950’s, materialism, consumerism and other economic affairs, were all part of a pivotal era for Australia. The pre-WWII and Great Depression era saw through the freedom of women entering the labor workforce in the absence of men, but at the start of the 1950’s, women were pushed to return to their domestic role as housewives. Lawler conveys through the character of Olive that women in that era wanted more freedom, they wanted to be liberated from the roles that came with a lifelong commitment in marriage as well as the pressure of living up to society’s

No woman could earn Marlowe's friendship. Chandler makes his misogynistic message clear in Marlowe's statement that "You can have a hangover from things other than alcohol. I had one from women. Women made me sick" (159). Carmen's childish displays and Vivian's sexual appeal and cunning were more than Marlowe could handle. He disliked Carmen because she was the typical silly, cute female. He hated Vivian because, although she was his intellectual equal, she was not noble. She also used her sexual appeal to manipulate him. Together, Carmen and Vivian represent two typical stereotypes of women; the cute (but crazy) airhead and the manipulative but smart temptress.

151) This is immediately followed by Carmen Sternwood appearing, naked, in Marlowe’s apartment. Unlike any other scene in the book, this causes Marlowe to show a great deal of annoyance and anger to Carmen, resulting in him angrily kicking her out of his apartment before letting loose his anger on his bed. (Chandler, Pg. 153-159) Where Spade fell in love with his femme fatale, Marlowe is on the opposite end of the spectrum. He subverts the trope in an entirely different way. Because he knows that the women in these investigations may attempt to manipulate him, he uses that knowledge to manipulate them back so he can get closer to the truth. The biggest example of this is in the final scene where Marlowe heads to an empty makeshift gun range with Carmen. He already knows she’s responsible for Rusty’s murder, and he uses that to turn the tables and get her to admit the truth by placing blanks in his gun before she attempts to murder Marlowe. (Chandler, Pg. 215-220) Chandler’s Marlowe doesn’t get involved with the femme fatales at all, showing the biggest different between Marlowe and Spade, who is put in bad situations as a result of his.

The view presented in this essay is one that is also held by Mary Anne Ferguson in ”The Dominating Wife: The Bitch”. In it she argues that: “Bitches are not born: they are at least partly made by their environment, including the men in their relationships. Margaret Macomber’s open contempt for her husband may have been a result of the cowardice he exhibited except for a few moments in his short life”. But she misses the fact that even when he does show courage Margot does not seem happy at all. And it is also after his courage that he is shot by Margot, not when he is a

Throughout literature women are often displayed as idealized characters. Women in the eyes of society are plagued with the stereotype of being kind, nurturing, and tender individuals while men are established as ambitious, assertive, and tough. However, when the time comes for women to possess the qualities of men and men of women, a turnaround of events can occur. Women were the individuals that then shape the males into their ending personna. Shakespeare's Macbeth, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby demonstrated the reversal of gender roles through portraying women as the instigator of the male character’s ultimate demise.

As a result of the abuse female characters have faced, it has become an objective for authors to prevent this. There have been clear strides recently, putting women as the protagonists, and not in a manner that has them dealing with persecution. The amount of strong, female characters is a large stride in the right direction to end the conflict regarding women’s roles in literature. However, this sudden influx of women in literature may lead to the reversal of the issue; the absence or abuse of men. While certainly literary equality is the end goal, to flip the issue would be just as bad and lead to sexism on the opposite spectrum. To truly mend the rift between genders, there must be no discrimination, the idea that an author is trying to use sexist undertones by not writing the lead as a female should not have to be an idea that readers think about when analyzing modern books. While even still there are issues of gender inequality in literature, there must be moderation from both ends for a resolution to be possible. The only way for equality to be achieved is with the absence of sexist ideals from all

The impression the reader gathers about Carmen from the first conversation she has with Marlowe and the description is that she is immature and very childlike. Contrary to the description of Carmen, Marlowe's description of Mrs. Regan's is one which allows the reader to see she is a more sophisticated and intelligent woman

This subsequently allows audiences to understand the role of gender inequality in society and how it has historically permeated into literature. However, Atwood later acknowledges the restricting role feminism also played in the depiction of female characters in more modern literature. Atwood uses hypophora in order to direct the audience, “is it not today - well somehow unfeminist - to depict a woman behaving so badly? Isn’t bad behaviour supposed to be the monopoly of men?”, “Were women to be condemned to virtue for life, slaves in the salt-mines of goodness?”. This continued use of questioning catalyses a reflection upon the ironic idea that feminism, a movement created to equal the sexes, has supported a similar one-dimensional view of women as being solely good. In doing so Atwood ultimately challenges the audience’s view upon how female characters should be represented within literature, ultimately arguing for a barrierless approach which enables writers to explore the complex nature of female

The portrayal of men and women has varied in different stories throughout history. Many portray women as beautiful, deceptive, manipulative, and smart, while men are portrayed as being strong, masculine, and easily tricked. In many of the works covered in the course “Major British Writers to 1800,” men are advised to refrain from acting lustful, believed that it would harm their overall ability to succeed in whatever the characters aimed to do. An example of this is seen in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” when Gawain is deceived by Lady Bertilak in an effort to prove that Sir Gawain is imperfect. The depictions of men and women are very similar in Fantomina by Eliza Haywood, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Phyllis and Aristotle. .

To facilitate musical form Carmen the novel was changed to incorporate a new story line. Carmen, the opera, incorporates Don Jose as the main character. Here he is represented as a soldier, a well-respected position in society, as opposed to a barbaric savage. As he is outside his post, Micaela, who has willingly followed the request of

Phillip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart), P.I, is hired by the rich General Sternwood to out a blackmailer, but quickly finds himself tangled in the Sternwood family’s dirty laundry — it’s the classic film noir narrative. At the center of it all seems to be Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall), a Sternwood daughter, and the woman attempting to cover up the murder at the bottom of Marlowe’s case. I used Vivian’s tidy adherence to the femme fatale archetype to dig deeper into its true message about women’s nature, beyond the mysterious façade.

In most early British literature a woman is often presented as only one thing: an object. They can be objects of desire, objects of beauty, or merely objects to be owned, but it is rare that a woman is anything more than that. It is even more uncommon to find a female character in literature that is presented as an equal to the men around her. In William Congreve's The Way of the World he plays on the similarities of both his female and male characters to establish just how much of an issue gender really is because though their actions might be similar, the consequences are not.

“It has often been remarked that woman have a curious power of divining the characters of men”(75). This quotation from The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens reflects the opposite of what a typical Dickensian society is supposedly based upon. In this standard society, the plot would be based around the life of a dominant male. Although the title reflects a male name, the movement in the novel is directly related to the exploits of a particular character, Rosa Bud. Fondly called Rosebud by her peers, she is the apple of every man’s eye and the envy of every woman’s. She takes control in the plot not because she evidences forceful or masculine qualities, but because the powerful characters in Cloisterham, males, are all in love or

Johanna Smith gives many examples of Marlow’s contradictions that his ideological discourse of empire and gender work to mystify. In Heart of Darkness the women are often silenced. Smith points out the example of the laundress: the company’s chief accountant insists that she had to be taught to launder his clothes properly and that she had a strong disliking for the job. But you never truly hear her side of the story; Smith suggests “Marlow’s silencing of the laundress shows Marlow’s authority as the masculine narrator of his story, to conceal not only her story but also those of the other silent women in Heart of Darkness” (Smith 193). Marlow’s Way of self asserting his dominating silence of the women is a clear example of Marlow’s view towards women and is a key illustration of just how much Marlow believes he, as a male, is far more superior than a women.

World War II brought a new era for women since they took over the job force as men were fighting in the war. Soon, women were successfully engaging in jobs that were once believed could only be done by men. However, once the war was over there was an expectation that women would give their jobs back to the men. With some women resisting to return to their traditional pink-collar domestic, secretarial, and industrial positions, ubiquitous images of propaganda still recognized today symbolize this idea. “Rosie the Riveter” is a primary example as her image radiates competence and power, which were traits associated with masculinity and were not appropriate in women. As society’s view on women began to change and broaden, characteristics that were stereotypically male accommodated this new idea of femininity and attractiveness. Henry Hawk’s film production of The Big Sleep (Warner Brothers, 1946) and Raymond Chandler’s novel, The Big Sleep highlights the changes in social construction of the portrayal of women in the form of female empowerment and its involvement in a predominately-male society.