In the opening of both the play and the novel we are introduced to the two main female characters which we see throughout both texts. The authors’ styles of writing effectively compare and contrast with one another, which enables the reader to see a distinct difference in characters, showing the constrictions that society has placed upon them.
'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' is essentially about Tennessee Williams as a writer uncovering the broad truths to an unsuspecting audience, by testing the social boundaries. The characters in this 1950s patriarchal play are amplified and give us an ambiguous ending to confirm to the audience that the constraints women face in the play are something to be considered. Williams introduces Maggie in ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ as a self-evident, dominant character from very early on. Describing her voice to be “both rapid and drawling” Saying “she has the vocal tricks of a priest delivering a liturgical chant” In the play she is the first one on stage and lengthily stage directions are used conveniently to exhibit her significance in the play. The detailed description of her voice helps to build curiosity. By doing so Williams use of a dramatic technique, slowly creates tension, which is effective to the reader as it helps stimulate the beginning of the play. Very early on Maggie is illustrated as a genuine beauty “Way he always drops his eyes down my body when I'm talkin' to him” She is depicted as a very cunning woman, with the way she presents her body and looks to get what she wants. She recognises that her role in society is to be displayed as a trophy wife and be kept behind the scenes in many situations; in many ways she abides to this role, while also using it to supplement her own personal motives...
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...as part of the family. This shows that society has the power to shape and change people’s moral values. Nilofaur, the innocent child, believes in the acceptance of all, which is why she accepts Mariam despite her being a “Harami”. The step mothers, the eyes of society, wants Mariam to be married off, a social norm. Even though Jail’s heart may despise this idea, it is his duty, being a part of society and a decent family, to force her to marry Rasheed. Which we then later on learn she regrets this heavily. In contrast to Maggie her relationship breaks down when one retreats from life and the other runs towards it. “Because it's got to be told, and you, you!—you never let me!” Brick and Maggie's their marriage malfunctions when Brick tries to suppress her. Maggie being such a bold character cannot be suppressed, and must tell the truth about her history with Skipper.
Both works shed light on the turbulent and confusing new world that these awakening young women find themselves in. Because of the changes that the girls' are undergoing, it is a time of rediscovery, both of the world, as well as and especially of themselves. There is general confusion in the air, characterized in "The Wind Blows" by the wind itself. "In waves, in clouds, in big round...
Throughout the plays, the reader can visualize how men dismiss women as trivial and treat them like property, even though the lifestyles they are living in are very much in contrast. The playwrights, each in their own way, are addressing the issues that have negatively impacted the identity of women in society.
Each play represents the issues faced by each gender during the time period in which it was written. However, many of the issues are similar in each time period, as well as throughout most of history. These issues will likely continue to affect both women and men for a long time in the future.
...ndicates a level of justification each felt in their actions. These actions, immortalized in two of the most widely read classics of all time, even today call into question the values each society held so dear, and led the modern reader to explore what honor and traditional gendered values mean both in these societies and our own.
Many readers feel the tendency to compare Aphra Behn's Oroonoko to William Shakespeare's Othello. Indeed they have many features in common, such as wives executed by husbands, conflicts between white and black characters, deceived heroes, the absolute vulnerability of women, etc. Both works stage male characters at both ends of their conflicts. In Othello, the tragic hero is Othello, and the villain is Iago. In Oroonoko, the hero is Oroonoko, the vice of the first part is the old king, and the second part white men in the colony. In contrast to their husbands, both heroines—Desdemona and Imoinda—seem more like "function characters" who are merely trapped in their husband's fates, occasionally becoming some motivation of their husbands (like Desdemona is Othello's motivation to rage, Imoinda's pregnancy drives Oroonoko restless to escape). While Shakespeare and Behn put much effort in moulding them, to many readers they are merely "perfect wives". This paper aims to argue that, Desdemona and Imoinda's perfect wifehood may be the product of compliance to male-dominated societies, where women are
In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and in Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid, two ladies are presented, that are not necessarily the leading protagonist, but they help unravel the plays’ plots into something amazing. Twelfth Night features Maria, the lady in waiting to Olivia. At first Maria comes off as a dilettante, later on we find out that’s not the case at all. Meanwhile, in The Imaginary Invalid, there is the disputatious Toinette, who is the maidservant and nurse to the imaginary invalid himself, Argan. Maria and Toinette are two strong women characters, their strength and wit is depicted through Maria and Toinette’s deceiving schemes to make their plays more stimulating as well as their objectivity throughout all the chaos in their respective play.
In Cat On A Hot Tin Roof Williams goes out of his way to question whether a very close male friendship can be purely and completely innocent. Winchell discusses this idea throughout his essay, but never gets to the simple point that literature up until the time of this play may have questioned the innocence of a female companionship, although even this was rarely overt, but,li...
Throughout history, women’s place and role in society has changed. Women are often seen as a lower status and have a need to be taken care of by men. There are conflicts with the idealization of women as they are often overlooked and viewed as secondary characters. This idealization is well established in the characters of Desdemona in Othello and Daisy in The Great Gatsby. In F.Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby and Shakespeare‘s play Othello, Desdemona and Daisy are both responsible for their tragedies due to the manipulation and impact of the outsiders, their loss of innocence, and their vulnerability as women.
In order to understand what changes happen to twist the views of the 2 main characters in both novels, it is important to see the outlook of the two at the beginning of the novels in comparison ...
...seful miscommunication between men and women. Lastly, when looking through the imagined perspective of the thoughtless male tricksters, the reader is shown the heartlessness of men. After this reader’s final consideration, the main theme in each of the presented poems is that both authors saw women as victims of a male dominated society.
Both stories show the characters inequality with their lives as women bound to a society that discriminates women. The two stories were composed in different time frames of the women’s rights movement; it reveals to the readers, that society was not quite there in the fair treatment towards the mothers, daughters, and wives of United States in either era. Inequality is the antagonist that both authors created for the characters. Those experiences might have helped that change in mankind to carve a path for true equality among men and women.
...hey affect the lives of the women around them, yet somehow do not change to a great extent throughout the plays. On the other hand, both characters are comparable in that their eventual fate could be argued as being in many ways as a result of their own deeds and possibly the strains of society.
...re many similarities when it comes to technique, characterization, themes, and ideologies based on the author's own beliefs and life experiences. However, we also see that it appears the author herself often struggles with the issue of being herself and expressing her own individuality, or obeying the rules, regulations and mores of a society into which she was born an innocent child, one who by nature of her sex was deemed inferior to men who controlled the definition of the norms. We see this kind of environment as repressive and responsible for abnormal psyches in the plots of many of her works.
Lies and Mendacity run rampant in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. They help keep the play going and keep it interesting. The play shows us the lies that people tell themselves and other instead of the truth that is hard to accept but must be said.
In this play, the men and women characters are separated even from their first entrance onto the stage. To the intuitive reader (or playgoer), the gender differences are immediately apparent when the men walk confidently into the room and over to the heater while the women timidly creep only through the door and stand huddled together. This separation between genders becomes more apparent when the characters proceed in investigating the murder. The men focus on means while the women focus on motive: action vs. emotion. While the men...