People worldwide were affected by the events of WWII. Ever wondered what had happened to those descendants of the Japanese, after Pearl Harbour? In the book When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka, she writes from the point of view of a Japanese-American family after Pearl Harbour. A Japanese-American family had been told that they were to leave in the morning to go to the internment camps, because of the attack on Pearl Harbour. In the middle of the book we find out that before they were told they would be put in these camps, their father had been taken in the night while trying to sleep.
Baldassare Castiglione wrote about how a woman's sole purpose is to amuse and entertain men (3). Castiglione’s ideas reflect the patronizing attitude towards men that was seen throughout the era. This book is a reliable source because it is aimed at women seeking to become the proper lady as it gives advice on how to achieve that status, while showing historical truth because the author genuinely wants all women to behave in this manner. John Knox attacked women in positions of power by saying that they are cruel, weak, and insulting to God (5). This idea is not an uncommon one as female leaders were continually mocked throughout history.
Chivalric romances are often centered upon the efforts of gallant knights seeking to achieve a concept known as “true knighthood” which involves embarking on quests or adventures to obtain honor, love, and Christian virtue. The brave knights of these stories are met with many obstacles to overcome, commonly in regards to rescuing or protecting a lady. In other words, the typical role of women in this period is that of the damsel in distress or a helpless, dependent lady in need of a hero. However, the stories of Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain, the Knight of the Lion and Friedrich Heinrich Karl La Motte-Fouqué’s The Magic Ring strays from the typical role of women as the damsel in distress.
A group of young women are able to control the courts with their acting. Because the judges believed the girls it caused mass hysteria. This hysteria led the judges to unfairly punish those who were scapegoated. For example, the judges would accuse John Proctor and Giles for “contempt of the court” when they were only defending themselves. Because the court was consumed by a feeling of mass hysteria, the court ran unfair trials.
During the play the county attorney states, “But you know juries when it comes to women... a thing that would connect...” (Glaspell, 191). In the setting of this play, women were not allowed to become juries meaning that they cannot influence many courts’ decision when women were being accused of a crime. In result, men hold the power to make many decisions in the legal system, while it also enhance their power and influence in society. Furthermore, the county attorney reminded Mrs. Peters, “For that matter, a sheriff’s wife is married to the law” (Glaspell, 192).
Rough Draft: the Basic Outline of a Paper Passing the bar exam and becoming a lawyer in the United States during the 1800s was a very strenuous task, even more, difficult for a female. In fact, prior to Arabella Mansfield, the idea of a female passing this onerous exam and entering the field of law was ingeniously unheard of. Women during this time period were often looked upon to complete chores, and to look after the children while the men did all of the unyielding work. "Old-fashioned ways which no longer apply to changed conditions are a snare in which the feet of women have always become readily entangled,” Jane Addams, Suffragist 1834.
In many societies today, individuals are led to believe that the concept of women possessing their own strength or independence is abnormal. As a result, women experience the world in a constrained way in comparison to men, even if they are in higher classes of society. However, these extensive aspects of females are contradicted in some ancient Greek literature. In the epic poem, The Odyssey, Homer portrays women as a vital and powerful force through the characters Penelope and Circe, who counter the normality of misogyny in Homer’s time. Penelope’s character displays how some women are able to exceed society’s standards and show strength and cleverness when it is necessary.
“A Jury of Her Peers” is a valuable resource for anyone curious to what life was like for women in the twentieth century for which it demonstrates women struggling to publish and define
Throughout “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell a noticeable power struggle between the women and the men occurs. “A Jury of Her Peers” exposes the social injustices that women faced during the turn of the century. In the story Mrs. Wright lashes out against her husband as result of built up anger and societies social pressure. In the essays “from Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell’s ‘Trifles’” by Suzy Clarkson Holstein and “from The Case of the Battered Wife: Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and ‘A Jury of Her Peers’” by Lillian Schanfield embody the theme of social injustices among women. The social gaps between men and women in “A Jury of Her Peers” and “Trifles” helped drive the plot and allowed a unique outcome to be achieved.
The roles and social status of women in ancient times are being described by many well-known playwrights and poets. Yet, different works shows different opinions towards “women power”. In this essay, I am going to compare Homer’s Iliad and The Code of Hammurabi along with Sophocles’ Antigone.
Women of the Medieval Times Women have always had a significant role in history even though they were treated horrible in most cases. During the Medieval Times was really the first time women were allowed to become more than just a house wife. The fight for equality has always been a struggle and even in today’s society is still an ongoing battle. Although women of lower and middle class were treated poorly in the Medieval Times, some powerful women held great responsibility and were looked up too by both men and children; despite being admired, “men were thought to be not only physically stronger but more emotionally stable, more intelligent, and morally less feeble” (Hopkins 5). “The position of women in the Medieval Society was greatly influenced by the views of the Roman Catholic Church” (Heeve).
Perrault, a 17th century French author, wrote about women as damsels in distress in his fairy tales, while Atwood, a 20th and 21st century Canadian author, offers a more realistic and modern approach in her writing. Sharon Wilson, author of the essay “Margaret Atwood and the Fairy Tale: Postmodern Revisioning In Recent Texts”, calls Atwood’s use of fairy tales to talk about current issues in society as “meta-fairy tales”. Atwood’s “meta-fairy tales” offer insight on gender politics in a current patriarchal society. Instead of using generic conventions to tell her story, like Perrault does, Atwood uses them and then dismantles them in order to show the reader the problems within the genre like she does in her poem.
Numerous schools of criticisms have attempted to find the meaning behind most of our favorite childhood stories. From Marxist who pursue the idea of social classes portrayed in literary works, to Psychoanalysts who depict the sexual tensions and desires that are subconsciously embedded behind characters’ motives and actions, to Historicists who try to show the preservation of tradition in stories, many different concepts exist for each fairy tale. The Feminist school of criticism greatly focuses on unveiling the patriarchal system and sexist roles that are displayed in stories, and more specifically, fairytales. Four versions of the well-known fairytale of The Little Mermaid will be compared and discussed while focusing on many distinctive
Nowadays our world is changing hourly – its political, social and economic global picture depends on the decisions (more or less important, but still important), which are taken every minute. Sometimes it seems that all significant events have taken place, moreover it was a long time ago. At the same time we forget that there are areas of life, our daily lives, which have been completely different recently. In modern Western societies the right to receive education and to vote for women is natural part of life, contrast to the Third world counties, where women still do not have opportunity to take part in decision-making and influence various spheres of life in their countries. Skeptics may wonder: “What is so special about the fact that women are allowed to vote?”
A Modern View of Feminist Criticism William Shakespeare 's "Othello” can be analyzed from a feminist perspective. This criticism focuses on relationships between genders, like the patterns of thoughts, behavior, values, enfranchisement, and power in relations between and within sexes. A feminist examination of the play enables us to judge the distinctive social esteems and status of women and proposes that the male-female power connections that become an integral factor in scenes of Othello impact its comprehension. I believe that the critical lens that provides modern society with the most compelling view of literature is Feminist Criticism because it analyzes distrust and disloyalty among relationships, women being treated as possessions
