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Violence In Morrison's O Mother, Where Art Thou?

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Actually, what Morrison has called “Paradise” is quite a misleading concept to the readers’ expectations. P. Fultz contends that “The nature of Morrison’s paradise must be interrogated” (38).Morrison thus subverts the conventional connotations that the title carries since the first lines of the novel illustrate the destruction of thisparadise,"They shoot the white girl first. With the rest, they can take their time”(3). The next pages of Morrison’s novel bring to light the reasons that have sparked the above violent scene. As a matter of fact, many studies have been conducted on the struggle between Ruby’s men and the Convent women and theensuing violence and fierce actions towards the women. In this chapter, I am going to explore the …show more content…

An Irigarian Reading of The Book of Chronicles, Julia Kelso investigates the child’s immersionwithin the father’s realm. She asserts that “For Lacan, within patriarchal order it is the father’s name(nom) and prohibition(non) against the desire of the mother, in both senses of the genitive, that carvesout a symbolic place for both the male and the female child” (37). In Morrison’s novel, the female characters’ immersion within the patriarchal realm hinders them from reaching an individualization oftheir feminity and their identities as true females. Consequently, their permanent escapism from the men of Ruby society asserts their need for another world where their individualism as females’ is achieved.Thence, the first empowerment tool to be discussed in this section is the women’s act of mirroring that serves a dual purpose as it represents the female characters’ intimate relation with reflection and their powerful of resistance against the patriarchal rigid ideologies.
In her insightful study entitled “Reflections in Contemporary Feminist Literature”, Theodora Hermes provides deep understanding concerning the use of the “Mirrors” and their relations to both females “psychological and physical development. Hermes introduces us to two different types of “Mirrors,” “The physical and the metaphorical one.” In her study, she tries to subvert the ordinary use of the “Mirrors” by emphasizing

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Over the decades, women have progressively moved towards embracing independence. The role of women has transformed as females everywhere are breaking the social stigma and the stereotypical obligations the world has put on them. From the duty of housewife to the position of CEO, opportunities for women have grown into a plethora of possibilities that is never ending. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston prolifically displays Janie’s metamorphosis as a female in the Post Civil-War era.

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Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Robber Bride” is an iconic piece of modern day literature that centralizes around the concept of female empowerment and acutely focuses on representation through the defined actions, dialogue and perspective of these women. For one, there is a fight against oppressive gender inequality. Women have always been looked down upon while unapologetically regarding them as accessories which they are often seen through the male gaze. However the fight for terminating these outdated stereotypes is shown when Roz’s fifteen year old twins opt for substituting every character role in stories as women for “the twins remain true to their principles, they do not flinch. They opt for women, in every single role” (Atwood 376).

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Judith Butler’s Gender Troubles emphasizes gender as the constant repetition of non-existent ideals to uphold a masculine-dominant culture. Likewise, “Body Politics” highlights this belief within the overtly feminine qualities of city women. As a whole, the poem contrasts idealized feminine “city women” with a “real woman” who possesses both feminine and masculine qualities. The mother figure challenges both the gender binary and the patriarchal order by rejecting the feminine gender norms of the society. This feminist reading of the poem makes many valuable and probable claims, however the feminist approach contains some weaknesses.

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Serano goes on to explain how working class trans people and trans people of color are at the highest risk for transphobic violence, and how her narrative should only be seen as part of a much larger story (xxiii). This statement truly illuminates the reader to the absence of race as an intersection in the book, which limits the view of transgender identity, shows this dire issue is able to be ignored because the writer, Serano or Clare,

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Scholars have described the Female Gothic as something that “[…] not only engendered a body of critical work which focused on the ways in which the Female Gothic articulated women’s dissatisfactions with patriarchal society and addressed the problematic position of the maternal within that society, but placed the Gothic at the centre of the female tradition. ”1 In other words, Female Gothic focuses on, not only the literature written by women but also on criticizing the position in which women have been put for centuries. Women have been undermined by society, taking away their freedom as individuals, turning them in submissive, quiet beings. Disregarded as only useful at home to take care of the children.

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Within the field of literature, the exploration of the monstrous-feminine has served as a captivating lens to examine the intricacies of female identity and the depths of the human psyche. Gillian Flynn’s haunting novel Sharp Objects and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s gothic novella Carmilla both delve into this dark territory, focusing on the monstrous qualities of motherhood and the complex dynamics between mothers and daughters. This essay argues that both Sharp Objects and Carmilla depict the monstrous-feminine archetype of the archaic mother as a product of societal expectations and unresolved trauma, thereby challenging conventional notions of motherhood. By examining the entwined narratives, we gain a deeper understanding of the enigmatic

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This simply implies that when we assign someone to gender, it is ultimately a reflection of ourselves as we are the ones who make those generalizations about gender, which is why the mirror is so prevalent throughout the novel. That we constantly place a division on people through their identities such as sexuality, gender, and race, and we categorize them in a way that ultimately divides us rather than unites us. We see this played out not in only us stereotyping the gender of the characters, but also in the sexuality of characters as well. Due to the things that are categorized as feminine or masculine, we may associate not only the genders of the narrator and A*** but also their sexuality. This is why the mirror is in place to stop us from making these generalizations.

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Jonathan Hernandez Mrs. Franklin English 11 September 9, 2014 The Male Overcast Widely renowned Toni Morrison, is an award winning author and a Nobel recipient; within her novel A Mercy (2008), reveals the effects of hierarchy from a physiological standpoint. She supports her revealing by first introducing a female character that comes to power in a male dominant world, then the character (Rebekka) strikes tragedy as her only male support dies leaving the female with a mantle solely made for men which causes Rebekka to lose a place in her mentality of social hierchy; as such she turns to God as a replacement which can only be seen as a replacement for the vast hole in her heart for a male representative. Morrison’s purpose is to give her readers of a new perspective based on the social stratifiction so heavily influenced by the difference in gender during the late 1600’s in order to educate the minds of those that predominantly view the gender social order as a petty argument for the wealthy. She adapts the reading to revolve around a general tone of consequence and repentance.

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Women’s Body The Figuration of the female body is well described in both Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El-Saadawi and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Both novels show that the women bodies are not their own and controlled by others which it turned into an object in order to survive. In this paper, I would like to argue how the objectification of the female bodies in both novels resulted in their oppression and sufferings. Moreover, what is the definition of the figuration of a body to both Offred and Firdaus? And is there a way out to survive this tragedy in both novels?

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Slaves faced extreme brutality and Morrison focuses on rape and sexual assault as the most terrifying form of abuse. It is because of this abuse that Morrison’s characters are trapped in their pasts, unable to move on from the psychological damages that they have endured. “Morrison revises the conventional slave narrative by insisting on the primacy of sexual assault over other experiences of brutality” (Barnett 420). For telling Mrs. Garner what they had done, she was badly beaten by them, leaving a “chokecherry tree” (16) on her back. But that was not the overriding issue.

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1386 Words | 6 Pages

The primary thematic concern in most Morrison’s novels is the trauma of slavery and racial prejudices experienced by Afro- Americans. She uses language to retrieve the experience of Afro- American cultural traditions, and sense of identity. Language becomes a means by which the lives of African Americans history and culture are preserved. The Theory of Trauma argues that for its victims, denial of horrible events seems to be the easiest way out. It is also due to traumatic suffering that they do not speak of the occurrences and the ‘self’, itself that is subject to trauma, is kept

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2515 Words | 11 Pages

She was influenced by the ideologies of women’s liberation movements and she speaks as a Black woman in a world that still undervalues the voice of the Black woman. Her novels especially lend themselves to feminist readings because of the ways in which they challenge the cultural norms of gender, slavery, race, and class. In addition to that, Morrison novels discuss the experiences of the oppressed black minorities in isolated communities. The dominant white culture disables the development of healthy African-American women self image and also she pictures the harsh conditions of black women, without separating them from the oppressed situation of the whole minority. In fact, slavery is an ancient and heinous institution which had adverse effects on the sufferers at both the physical as well as psychological levels.

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Mothers in Morrison’s narratives are depicted as having their own sexuality, but at times, the sexual encounters in the novels are expressions of the characters’ need to feel close to someone in their search for security, rather than sexual desire. Sethe attempts this intimacy with Paul D and she tries to enjoy her body that was abused before by men when she was a slave. Sethe also tries to escape, as mentioned previously, by trying to connect to a man but it is difficult since she has been betrayed by her lover before. Eva’s sexual life is more limited but her flirtations and charisma keep men fascinated. However, another explanation might be applicable to Eva’s sexual behaviour.

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826 Words | 4 Pages

This novel is also autobiographical. Throughout history, women have been locked in a struggle to free themselves from the borderline that separates and differentiate themselves from men. In many circles, it is agreed that the battleground for this struggle and fight exists in literature. In a

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The role of women in literature crosses many broad spectrums in works of the past and present. Women are often portrayed as weak and feeble individuals that submit to the situations around them, but in many cases women are shown to be strong, independent individuals. This is a common theme that has appeared many times in literature. Across all literature, there is a common element that causes the suffering and pain of women. This catalyst, the thing that initiates the suffering of women, is essentially always in the form of a man.

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