While reading The Book of the City of Ladies, I really like how Christine De Pizan personifies reason, rectitude, and justice to address the social issue of men dehumanizing women by generalizing the bad attribute(s) of a few women to all women. This is a really clever literary style because many of the men she brought up claimed that reason, rectitude, and justice are the general qualities that women lack. It is understandable to take defend oneself against false claims, but the major message here is that the line of contention exists. By illustrating these women who are noble and naming them after what women apparently lacks according to some of the men, Pizan is making a statement that women with high moral standards do exist. By using
As people age they will often still recall a good childhood story. A well told, meaningful story can go a long way when attempting to argue a point or convey information. In the essays, ''The Myth of The Latin Women: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria" by Judith Ortiz Cofer, "Gains and Losses" by Richard Rodriquez, and "Piecing It All Together" by bell hooks, the authors connect to the reader and create a better audience through their writing. Through the portrayal of a story the authors help the reader understand their point of view, they transfer information to the reader with better ease, and keep the reader engaged the authors argue a point or convey information more efficiently.
Lafayette uses signs, which are motives, throughout her novel La Princesse de Clèves. She uses the dialogue between the husband and the Princess Mme. de Clèves to show the motive of passion. She also uses Mme. de Clèves to show her way of expressing toward the situation that the Princess has. Fabricated letter is also used in her novel to represent the signs of taking over the Princess’s feelings. In her novel, she utilizes characters For this essay, I would like to explore the structure of her novel through signs, as shown in Dalia Judovitz’s article The Aesthetics of Implausibility: La Princesse de Cléves.
Looking back through many historical time periods, people are able to observe the fact that women were generally discriminated against and oppressed in almost any society. However, these periods also came with women that defied the stereotype of their sex. They spoke out against this discrimination with a great amount of intelligence and strength with almost no fear of the harsh consequences that could be laid out by the men of their time. During the Medieval era, religion played a major role in the shaping of this pessimistic viewpoint about women. The common belief of the patriarchal-based society was that women were direct descendants of Eve from The Bible; therefore, they were responsible for the fall of mankind. All of Eve’s characteristics from the biblical story were believed to be the same traits of medieval women. Of course, this did not come without argument. Two medieval women worked to defy the female stereotype, the first being the fictional character called The Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The second woman, named Margery Kempe, was a real human being with the first English autobiography written about her called The Book of Margery Kempe. In these two texts, The Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe choose to act uniquely compared to other Christians in the medieval time period because of the way religion is interpreted by them. As a result, the women view themselves as having power and qualities that normal women of their society did not.
In the past, women were an object of pity and pleasure and a subject to rule over by men. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, the author tries to convince women to become and obtain the true characteristics of a human being regardless of their sex. The reason is that the patriarchal society did not give women the same rights and respect as men. Thus, women were always seen as a lowly creature rather than a human being. As the author tries to encourage the women by saying, “it can be demonstrated that women is essentially
In Chrétien de Troyes' Ywain, women represent the moral virtue and arch of all mid-evil civilization. Women of this time had to be an object of love, which meant they had to have beauty, goodness, and be truthful. They had to be a representative of all chivalrous ideals. They also act as civilizing influences throughout the story. Women are put in the story to give men a reason for acting brave and noble. Men become knights in order to demonstrate to women that they are strong and capable of defending themselves against danger. This, they hope, will win the women's heart.
The Middle Ages was a time when women were supposed to be models of virtue, yet they acted contrary to such beliefs. As young women, they were supposed to strive for perfection and protect their virginity (Bardsley 96-97). In reality, women were often free with their virtues, and according to Francis and Joseph Gies, “The chastity of women was eternally suspect in the eyes of canonists, who perceived them as ever eager for sexual gratification.” Women were presented with conflicting messages when told that they were sources of evil, but were also told they were to exemplify the model of Mary (Bardsley 172) By modeling Mary, women were to be virtuous and holy and not self-seeking. However, women were far from this model of Mary, and they received little respect from men. Men dominated women, and they never escaped male control. As girls, their fathers controlled them, and later in life they were subject to their husbands (McLean and Singman 24). Because of this, women were seen as scandalous if they attempted to obtain power, money, or land.
Traditional female characteristics and female unrest are underscored in literary works of the Middle Ages. Although patriarchal views were firmly established back then, traces of female contempt for such beliefs could be found in several popular literary works. Female characters’ opposition to societal norms serves to create humor and wish- fulfillment for female and male audiences to enjoy. “Lanval” by Marie De France and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer both show subversion of patriarchal attitudes by displaying the women in the text as superior or equal to the men. However, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” also incorporates conventional societal ideas by including degradation of women and mistreatment of a wife by her husband.
The achievement of gender equality is one of the most important movements for advancement of society. In the High Middle Ages, however, it was even more challenging to bring such sensitive debate. Christine de Pizan, a highly educated and religious woman, chose an unusual pathway for a woman in her era that she became a writer to support her family. Christine’s work, “The Treasure of the City of Ladies,” could be seen as feminist because she offered a broad view of how an ideal artisan’s wife should be.
She proclaims the female to be equally capable of reason as the male. In order for the female to recognize and utilize this capability, society's males and females must alter their prejudicial definition of the feminine.
In Christine Stansell’s City of Women, the main issue discussed is “the misfortunes laboring women suffered and the problems they caused” (xi). Throughout the book, Stansell delves into the different aspects that affected these female New Yorkers’ lives, such as inadequate wages, societal stigmas about women laborers, and the hierarchal class system, within antebellum America. She argues that since the nation’s founding, in 1789, the bedrock of these tribulations working women would be mercilessly exposed to was gender inequality. Women’s opportunities and livelihoods were strongly dependent on the dominant male figure in their life, due to the fact that in that period there was very few available and accepted forms of employment for women. Stansell claims, “Paid work was sparse and unstable. Laboring women were confined within a patriarchal economy predicated on direct dependence on men” (18). As the work continues, she illustrates these women’s desires to break away from their reliance on men, as well as the avenues they took to achieve this desired independence. To help solidify her
tendencies and weaknesses of women in general, He also gave due credit to their abilities and
In Christine De Pisan's The book of the city of ladies, in the beginning she began to examine her own character as a natural women. She looked at women who surround her form the highest a princess to the lowest a lower class woman. She tried to examine the ideas this philosopher had said to be true about women. She began to feed into the idea that it was impossible for such famous men to be wrong about the ideas of women. She came to the conclusion that the God had created a bad creature when he made a woman based upon the works of these men. She completely doubted he r own gender based on the opinions of the famous philosophers. In her story she explains how three women came to her out of pity because of her ignorance. They began to explain that just because these famous philosophers come up with the idea that women are inferior doesn't, not mean that the idea is true. They began to explain that they contradict each other so how could someone possibly rely on the information that they give. They began to further explain that there have been men that have allowed or believed in their daughters to pursue their education. In fact some of them have been so good that they have even been able to teach others. The argument form the foolish men as they called it that it displeased ...
The battle between what is right and wrong is a classic struggle that has existed from the beginning of time. The most honorable people face the crossroad of choosing either the angel’s path or the devil’s; one path leads to an honest yet difficult life while the other is an easy and selfish one. Throughout history, women have been portrayed as the reason of Man’s downfall. The male dominated world has created stereotypes to blame females for their defeats due to ignorance. Leo Tolstoy’s “The Devil” explores the dichotomy of the objectification of women as the angel and the devil.
Everyone knows the stereotype of how women belong in the kitchen, while the men go to work and come home to a finished meal. Labeling which gender belongs to what job to be done throughout the day can be viewed as sexist. Although this is not necessarily how society is today, sexism still exists. Sexism can be described as someone who is being judgmental or hateful towards another based on that individual’s sex or gender. In most stories, the reader will find an underlying message or theme occurring in the text: ranging from a life lesson to a person’s opinion on a certain matter. Through the story, the reader can get an insight on the author’s beliefs. In Paradise Lost by John Milton, there are multiple examples of sexism displayed through the character of Eve. Milton’s sexist attitude towards women was portrayed through Eve by his descriptive detailing on how beautiful she was, and well, that was about as complex as she was. She was characterized in such a way that the
Through the centuries, the image and the role of women have been observed and studied in various ways, and the acquired knowledge has been recorded in literature, works of art, religious texts, mythology and codes of social behaviour. Women appear in the stories of men, but only in roles defined by men. It is men who create