In Medieval Europe, women were an essential part of European society, especially during the Middle Ages. Although the Middle Ages were known to be a time where men and their accomplishments were the center of attention, women had several roles they carried out that contributed to Europe's growth. Many of these roles varied from being a peasant woman to being a Lady of the Manor, all depending on the women's social class. However, many women were mistreated and were given limited freedom during their lives. They were set high standards and were punished if these standards were not met.…
Women's rights have come along way since the 1930’s. The 1930’s was at the height of The Great Depression. Many people were barely making enough money to feed themselves. Women rights have come a long way since those days though. Today woman can work if they please.…
Europe emerged from the Dark Ages in about 1350 C.E., with a rebirth of artistic styles in the Greek and Roman tradition that lasted for centuries. The Renaissance saw depiction of human emotion, Christian imagery, and realism in portraying the human body. See Titian’s Venus of Urbino. A completely naked Venetian courtesan, Angela del Moro, reclines among feathery pillows and vibrant flowers in an elegant Italian palace. She gazes directly at the viewer with a look that makes this work, "the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses", as Mark Twain famously stated.…
“Trifles”, by Susan Glaspell, demonstrates how the female characters feel suffocated by the male characters carrying out their suppressive gender stereotypes. Glaspell uses latent symbolism as well as extensive character development to help the reader visualize and interpret the divide between the genders. The play is set in the early nineteen hundreds around a time when women were still not equal to men, which is why the main character, Minnie Wright, is idolized by the other women in the play even though she is never directly present. Throughout the entirety of the play the men and the women were never together, they always divide themselves by gender while looking for clues.…
Through years the role of a man was and still is to be the provider, fighter, and the “main man” politically, socially, and culturally. They are expected to hold their woman on the highest pedestal they can put her on, and is the strong and well endowed one in the relationship. While as the woman is and still is perceived as the one who practically moves up the social hierarchy by marriage, and is seen as peculiar if they “wear the pants” in the relationship. In Marie de France’s Lanval, she battles this stereotype through female empowerment by reversing traditional gender roles.…
Two important works that are good examples of traditional gender roles are Susan Glaspell ’s play Trifles and Lynn Nottage’s play Poof. On the surface, these plays don’t seem to have very much in common; a closer look, however, reveals that both plays show similar themes and issues. The issues highlighted in both plays are suppression of women and ramifications of society.…
The motif of violence is manifest throughout Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, not only in the form of acts that are explicitly forceful and destructive, but in the implicit conflicts that are explored within the play, whether between men and women, light and dark, reality and fantasy or the Old South and the New South. Violence is most often associated with the character of Stanley, who progresses violent behaviour and exudes a sense of brutishness that contributes to the play’s overall parallelism to an “urban jungle”, in which Blanche will inevitably become a victim. Sexual violence is a prevalent facet of the play, which makes eminent the subordination of the female characters under the claimed prerogative of men. In particular, domestic…
The use of gender roles in the play mirror how men and women acted towards each other during Shakespeare’s…
Twelfth Night was written near the end of Queen Elizabeth 's reign in England. The notion of a strong female, such as Elizabeth, choosing to lead a country without the help of a man began to provoke people to consider what truly a woman’s role was (Callaghan, 86). For the most part, up until this time literature strongly focused on powerful male leads that expressed dominance and intelligence greatly surpassing the minor female characters in literature (Callaghan, 32). Shakespeare 's Twelfth Night strongly questions whether men are superior to women or society has simply forced women into the background, ignoring women 's ability to rival men 's talents and rationale. Feminism in Twelfth Night detects negative attitudes towards women of the…
The Role of Women in Voltaire 's Candide In Voltaire 's Candide, the author characterizes the women being relentlessly misused and raped, insensitive of any social or political class. Female characters such as Cunegonde, the old woman, and Paquette were set on that stage to due to the social standards in the eighteenth century. Cunegonde, the old woman, and Paquette weren 't major characters, but Voltaire stressed the gender roles and weakness of women in the society throughout the novel. A perfect example of indifferent of any social or political class would be Lady Cunegonde, who is from a prosperous family with political influence.…
The Sweet Girl Graduate by Sarah Curzon focuses on this specific representation of gender where the heroine of the play is attempting to comply to societal norms by cross-dressing in order to receive a higher education. The heroine is obliging to the gender hierarchy that exists, and as a result, this portrays the heroine as someone who is attempting to break away from male dominance, while at the same time accepting it as women were expected to. The representation of gender roles in The Sweet Girl Graduate creates a contradictory perception of what women are meant to achieve in the play, and this is due to the portrayal of the heroine as a free individual; however, at the same time she is subjected to follow the status quo forced…
Voltaire’s Candide: Women’s Role in Society Women during the 1700s, the time period during which the novel is set, understood they had very little power; and it was only through men that they could exert any influence. Women at this time were seen as mere objects that acted as conciliation prizes for the gain of power and their sole use was for reproduction. Maintaining the duty of tiding the home and looking after the children, no outlet for an education or a chance to make a voice for themselves. Men acted as the leading voice in society, making all substantial decisions for women. The hierarchy of genders was ever so present and was based on the physical differences between men and women.…
He addresses women education in a very different way. For example, even though the play was written in the seventeenth century, the female characters in Tartuffe, represent one of the most fundamental parts of the play. Moliere creates the female characters in such a way that they are completely different from what people are often used to see in female characters. One of the reasons why the character are so different is because the female characters are characterized in this play by having instinctively strong opinions about what is happening around them they are not submissive, quite, and passive. The characters’ voices are often self-driven, witty, and unafraid.…
In this play one specific action stud out, As stated " Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming. That’s all one: you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will"(pg10). Ergo, this illustrates how women were not allowed to be in plays or in any type of activities, because they were under looked by society and they were viewed as a minority, they were not…
Throughout history, the expectations and duties of women have evolved immensely. In some societies women have been confined to the four walls of their homes, and in others women have stood as the heads of government. The role of women in the French Revolution is a complicated one, and it may seem as though these females carried out a multitude of functions. Indeed, women during this era engaged in a diverse array of activities and movements, ranging from dressing in patriotic garb, to writing political documents, to stabbing their enemies to death. However, all of the individual actions taken by these women point toward one primary goal: to use whatever means possible to contribute their ideas to the Revolution.…