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Gender Criticism In Stonehearst Asylum

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Recommended: Gender issue in literature

Based on an Edgar Allen Poe story, Stonehearst Asylum is about a woman, Eliza Graves, committed to an insane asylum by her father’s wish. Throughout the story she is a pawn in the doctor’s game. Eliza is a great example of gender criticism because of how she came to be admitted, and how the other women in the asylum are oppressed by the superior acting men. Gender criticism is an extended version of feminist literary criticism, focusing not just on women but on the construction of gender and sexuality. In Stonehearst Asylum, the women in the asylum are controlled by the men. Some are locked up in the dungeons, and several are raped and killed. But Gender criticism isn’t just about how the women are inferior to men, it’s about how they act and react to the males. In the movie, Eliza’s young roommate, Millie is boy crazy and a hopeless romantic, always looking for someone to love her. During the turn of the century party, she was told to stay in her room with the door locked for fear she may be harmed, but she disobeyed the command and snuck out to dance around the asylum with imaginary …show more content…

Edward Newgate saw Eliza when she was a class demonstration at Oxford University, he was another asylum patient, he escaped and pretended to be a doctor at Stonehearst just to be near Eliza. What he found at the asylum was not what he expected at all, but he fought for her and wanted her safe because he loved her. All her life she had be a possession to her father, husband and doctors; but for Dr. Newgate, it was her who possessed him. They barely escaped with their lives from a fiery death to be with each other. All in all, this movie about an ass-backwards asylum is very hard to describe and should be watched to truly understand the meaning of this critical lens essay. And end this essay with a parting quote from the movie, “We’re all mad, Dr. Newgate; some are simply not mad enough to admit

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She wanted real love and actively pursued that desire, proving her autonomy to all. However, this “real love” was tainted in a way she was unable to see, it was in fact seduction, not love. The seduction twists Eliza’s drive for independence and uses it against her. She attempts to decide her own fate, and society punishes her for it. The seduction ruins her name and her life, leaving her alone and with child, then eventually dead.

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