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Neverwhere Gaiman Analysis

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Fantasy has the ability to re-enchant the audience into a world far away from their own, a world that follows different rules and is crowded with imaginary creatures. Or at least that’s the case for high fantasy. 
What I think is compelling about urban fantasy, and why I decided to write in this genre, is that it finds a way to let magic enter our own world, despite the fact that science, facts and experience are what forms the basis of our society, leaving very little space for fairy dust. 
In Neverwhere Gaiman pictured London, a real well-known city, and asked: what if there is a part of London we don’t get to see? And that part is an enchanted London, where Knightsbridge is no longer the shiny residence of Harrods but becomes a mysterious …show more content…

The main character being a mermaid longing for the human world is an homage to Andersen’s fairytale The Little Mermaid, although the contemporary setting allowed me to explore different implications.
Fantasy is excellent for metaphors and parallels - one of its premises is to talk about issues of our society while discussing something that is apparently the furthest away from it. I’ve encountered feminist themes in Angela Carter’s re-imagined fairytales, where she gives women the agency they lacked during her time. The movie Maleficent deals with growth, rape, self-healing and the role of women through a retelling of Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty from the antagonist’s point of view. 
So while Astrid struggles to follow a career she is supposedly not predisposed for, that reflects back into our society’s need to label and categorise and to make assumptions based on qualities people have no control over. For the same reason, I decided to have an hinted queer romance rather than a straight one, giving the final liberation from the “forbidden love” rule a more explicit meaning. 
Overall, fantasy has turned out to be a very interesting genre to work with: it is built on a long tradition of figures, images and plots that readers can pick up on but that a writer can play with and subvert to serve the purpose of a larger story that is ultimately a reflection of our

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Most women and teenage girls loved the idea of the mermaid that it grew into a new trend of fashion. Their obsession over this new trend even encouraged them to walk on beaches with mermaid suits and their breast exposed to male voyeurs. Millhauser wanted to justify to his readers that this societal attitude the people had on the creature can get out of hand and lead to madness and instability within the town. For example, a fourteen-year-old girl was assaulted at a party by some high school girls, painted her hips down a green, bound at the ankles and tossed into her into a stream.

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The Little Mermaid: Hegemonic Femininity The transition from a girl to a woman is created by the socially constructed ideals of femininity often depicted in commercials, books, and mainly films. One of the famous animated princess Disney films, The Little Mermaid can be easily added to yet another Disney film portraying hegemonic femininity. In the 1989 film The Little Mermaid, (Ron Clements, John Musker) a beautiful, young mermaid is willing to make a risky deal with an evil sea-witch because she yearns to walk on land and fall in love with a Prince, while secretly the sea-witch wishes for the mermaid to lose the deal. Ultimately, mermaid ends up achieving her dream of marrying the Prince, although the evil sea-witch tries to destroy the plan.

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feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights based on the equality of the sexes. Since before time women have been less than and it is shown by how women get paid less and are seen as dependent to men. In the play A Doll’s House written by Henrik Ibsen Nora was keeping a secret from her husband Helmer, but because she went behind his back brought lots of scandal to their door. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Jane has a problem with the wallpaper and lets it consume her to the point that she went crazy. Both stories belittled women however they differed in coping with oppression and their freedom from oppression.

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Applying for a job starts with understanding who you are and what you can do. Whether you actually get the job or not comes down to how successful you are in branding yourself. When a company creates a brand they send a message that brings you back to check out what new things they have. A good example is Apple, the company enjoys immense success through branding the iPhone as the revolutionary phone device annually, refreshing the consumer with a fresh design every year, leading to more purchased devices every time. Tom Peters’ article “The Brand Called You” highlights Apples success story.

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Princesses’ in Disney movies are tied down to a recurring theme: the princess that must be saved from the evil woman by the charming prince. A significant contrast to the usually weak and easily persuaded figure of the father. Even though the women are portrayed as weak, nobody stops to think how strong they have to be to carry the responsibility of an entire household on her shoulder, while the men always seem to be traveling or ill. Fairytales are based on a patriarchal way of thinking and as time passes by, it’s proven to be detrimental to society Women and men are constantly being bound to a series of stereotypes.

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1427 Words | 6 Pages

These songs include “Part of Your World,” “Under the Sea,” “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” and “Kiss the Girl.” “Part of Your World” is sung by Ariel to express her desire to change from a mermaid to a human, and despite the fact that “she’s got everything” her mermaid “world” and all its materialistic “treasures” is not as fulfilling as the humans’ appears to be. The song explicitly describes of a longing for female independence and proof that their degradation by the males is detrimentally affecting their happiness. “Betcha' on land, they'd understand, bet they don't reprimand their daughters, bright young women, sick of swimming ready to stand,” Ariel sings of the unfair and unjust treatment she and the other women of the sea experience and their need to stand against their suppressive dictators and “explore the shore above” to seek a better life. She sings this song in a secret cove that contains all her treasures, emphasizing the need for women to be private with the part of their lives that society deems as “unacceptable” and that does not align with their gender roles and expectations.

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However, of all the high-skill professions and arts, literature has probably been the most open to women over the past century. Many women have received literary education, and if necessary they have concealed their gender behind male pseudonyms (Bainbridge, 1082). In literature, feminist authors have emphasized the dominance and oppression of women by men. Research indicates that women prefer feminist works to other forms of literature. Women also gravitate towards fictional protagonists who exhibit traditional feminine values; warm loving characters who display sensitivity and

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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Wicked: The Life and Time of the Wicked Witch of the West possesses feminist ideals represented through the characterization of female characters. Iconic characters such as Dorothy, Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba), Wicked Witch of the East (Nessarose), and Good Witch of the South (Glinda) portray feminist characters that have developed and showed their strong personality, influencing women in today’s society. This leads to the question – To what extent is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Wicked empowering women through the presentation of women? The Wonderful Wizard of Oz paved the way for the increase in number of feminist novels.

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Throughout history, women have made a name for themselves. By rising up and fighting for something that they believed in, the Mirabal sisters made a name for themselves in the Dominican Republic and in Julia Alvarez’s novel In the Time of the Butterflies. By applying a theory to a novel, readers can relate the book to the world they are living in today (Davidson). Feminism can be defined as a dynamic philosophy and social movement that advocates for human rights and gender equality (“Feminism”). Feminist Theory involves looking at how women in novels are portrayed, how female characters are reinforcing stereotypes or undermining them, and the challenges that female characters face (Davidson).

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In the novel Dracula, Bram Stoker highlights the theme of sexuality that challenge ideas of sex to both the female and male characters. The author objectifies the female characters in the novel to be over sexualized and portrays sex to empower women. Stoker may present the theme of female sexuality; however, he demonstrates gender inequality triumphs at the end leaving women in the shadows again. Women in the eighteenth century hardly had any type of power outside of overseeing the household and they probably contained much less power expressing any type of sexual emotions. Stoker’s novel gives readers a different perspective of the female sexuality as if almost empowering women and stating that they too can be sexual creatures like men.

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1785 Words | 8 Pages

Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author who is considered one of the best and most culturally important fairy tale writers in history. His stories have been translated into over one hundred and twenty-five languages. The cultural significance of Andersen is an interesting topic to analyze. Hans Christian Andersen’s stories, “The Little Mermaid” and “The Shadow”, are culturally significant for many different reasons. “The Little Mermaid” tells a story of a young unnamed mermaid who decides to take control over her own life and destiny.

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881 Words | 4 Pages

Taking into consideration the first and main version of The Little Mermaid, author Han Christian Andersen’s, Little Mermaid, written in 1837, has different characters than the 2006 interpretation of the short story, Aquamarine. From an addition of two new female characters to the subtraction of the royal titles that each character possessed, Aquamarine is based on a twenty first century setting. The plots between the two also greatly differ and even lead up to different endings. Similarly, both mermaids are searching for love and both mermaids asked to be human. Both mermaids have a due date that forces them back into the ocean if they do not find love.

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1156 Words | 5 Pages

Within the scope of this discussion, different dimensions of “queer” are presented as emulated by villains. “Queer” can be described as an umbrella term used for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual nor cisgender. Correspondingly, Disney cinema villains obliterate all established notions of gender and sexuality, especially heterosexual norms. Through this frame, Disney cinema villains such as Ursula, Maleficent, and Elsa may be read as queer-coded in contrast with the relatively more heteronormative heroes. Queer-coding is essentially understood as fictional characters, who have not been revealed as queer, but are given traits or are being read as non-heteronormative, because of the style, behavior, gestures or overall appearance.

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During times of crisis, women have been marginalized continuously, and although many would like to think so, conditions for women have not changed much over time. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak both reflect that. Women in literature and in real life who deserve lead roles are often forced into supporting roles. Most people understand this but few acknowledge it. Strong female characters such as Liesel in The Book Thief, Penelope in The Odyssey, and Antigone in Antigone need to be honored the same way strong male characters are.

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In this article, Andersen’s story of the mermaid wishing to be loved by a human prince is one of the few classic made-up fairy tale. It’s one of the greatest Disney musical version to the young readers. An artist duo Metaphrog serves a great example in recreating the little mermaid though the young readers that’s only familiar with their vision that can be shocking by the end, which is true to the original story. The author keeps both rhythm of Andersen’s writing as well as the unhappiness that he loved so much, but none of the character in the story smiles and their brows are crumple by the worry

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