Complex and unstable gender relations are found not only in culture, but havealso been expressed in literature. Oppressive patriarchal structures have given preference to males in societial structure. Furthermore for the first few centuries of printing, women had no voice. For a period of time, the female character was only represented by males, or by females writing under a male pseudonyms. Now that women have robustly emerged in the printed word, the gender wars have taken on a more balanced dimension. Analyzing seminal writers Browning, Spera, Hemingway, Updike, and Oates how the gender wars have been represented in literature. In Robert Browning’s poem My Last Duchess the female does not give the female character a voice.
…show more content…
This implies that the Duke had his wife killed because he was not satisfied with her subservience and fear of him. Throughout history men have viewed and treated women like possessions, and the more money a man had, the more he required his female to be finer possesion. However, it is not enough that a man possess the female 's body,but rather many men demand the mind also reflect its confinement. Women that were viewed as too confident drew aggression to themselves from men that feared the empowerment of women. For example in the case of the dead Duchess, she simply smiled at too many men; “Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,/Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without/Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;/Then all smiles stopped together” (Browning 4). One of the tragedies of this literary reference is that women were trained how to smile, were also instructed about all manners of how to treat their lord and masters. Women were trained and punished to such a degree that very little original identity was left in them. This conditioning destroyed the capacity for authentic behavior, rationality, or critical thought. As such the late Duchess may have thought she was acting kind, and in accordance with her lord’s wishes by smiling. However,without the capacity to absorb new information due to the psychological frozen state of being a prisoner, she was not able to gauge her
This implies that the Duke had his wife killed because he was not satisfied with her subservience and fear of him. Throughout history men have viewed and treated women like possessions, and the more money a man had, the more he required his female to be finer possesion. However, it is not enough that a man possess the female 's body,but rather many men demand the mind also reflect its confinement. Women that were viewed as too confident drew aggression to themselves from men that feared the empowerment of women. For example in the case of the dead Duchess, she simply smiled at too many men; “Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,/Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without/Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;/Then all smiles stopped together” (Browning 4). One of the tragedies of this literary reference is that women were trained how to smile, were also instructed about all manners of how to treat their lord and masters. Women were trained and punished to such a degree that very little original identity was left in them. This conditioning destroyed the capacity for authentic behavior, rationality, or critical thought. As such the late Duchess may have thought she was acting kind, and in accordance with her lord’s wishes by smiling. However,without the capacity to absorb new information due to the psychological frozen state of being a prisoner, she was not able to gauge her