Anne Kingswill Finch’s “The Apology” and Gwen Harwood’s “Home of Mercy” exposes the confines of gender dynamics, escaping societal indignation of women. The persona of Finch’s polemic lyric critiques the paradoxical and hypocritical standards of patriarchy, subverting it to insist upon everyone’s inferiority, through satirising the grandeur of her period’s idealisation. Harwood’s Italian envelope sonnet rebukes the institutionalisation of female youth, and oppression through a denial of youth, condemning religion as a fundamental factor for women’s marginalisation.
Finch manifests a scathing ironic diatribe utilising the prettified sensibility of her time. The capitalisation with the florid Rococo ideologies (“To follow through the Groves
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It interrogatively parallels slandered women’s poetry to type-casted personas, who metaphorically “paints her face” as an outspoken, artistic statement, attaining gender equality only through alcohol consumption (“to the manly Bumper flys”), which stimulates the undeveloped mind alongside men alike to composing poetry (Why should it be in me a thing so vain/To heat with poetry my colder Brain”), as well as reprehending the scornful, patriarchal judgement that sardonically ignores the unappealing (“In ev’ry place to let that face be seen which all the town rejected at fifteen?”). This imitates both the supposed half-mindedness of women to male’s skewed perspective and confining rule, and the aspiration for freedom, through the Zeitgeist rhetorical mock …show more content…
It condemns the “old nuns”, professedly celibate, who “silences their talking” as the aural death of carnal freedom and the obligatory interjection of her convictions onto the girls. The nun’s inhumanity, self-righteousness, derogatory and false piety through the idiomatic (“plaster saints”) is further paralleled in the juxtaposed, profound, and tragic irony (“they smooth with roughened hands”) to denounce the nuns and Catholicism for their repression of the youth, who are experiencing maternal instincts of caressing their unborn, thus being punished brutally and through detainment for their sins and the purloining of adolescence. Harwood seeks to fortify women through aiding each other, and gender unity to vanquish further
protagonist postulant Mariette Baptiste. Hansen’s challenges readers to explore beyond his descriptive narrative to find further meaning in the themes of suffering, power, and gender. Mariette Baptist represents a prideful, young woman who challenges and undercuts the Priory of The Sisters of The Crucifixion through her eccentric faith. Mariette’s piety generates discourse within the convent about the sincerity in her disposition for a religious life. The sisters are challenged to see Mariette’s faith as real and pure. Her religious practices involving self-inflicted penances disrupt the conventional ways of the priory. Furthermore, Mariette implores herself
Muske asks, “The question of self, for a woman poet…is continually vexing…what is a woman’s self?” (Muske 3). Women have historically had their self created for them by the patriarchal society in which they live, which leaves contemporary women wondering how to define a woman’s self at all. Even if they, as women, can create a self, how accurate is it? Muske muses on what is a truth telling self since a woman’s perception of truth is colored always by what the patriarchal society is telling her is truth. Muske says in her poem “A Private Matter”, “…there are the words, dialogue of people you once became or not…”. It is in these words that a woman finds herself, a poem of all the selves in a self, but not without a cost. In “Epith”, Muske muses:
She draws a picture of her equality to men by expressing her strength and hard-working efforts as she “ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me.” Again, following this statement, “Ain’t I a woman?” She rhythmically continues this pattern, making a claim to her equality she feels with males and then following it with the powerful question “Ain’t I a woman?”.
Throughout a collection of Gwen Harwood’s poems is the exploration of women during the 1950’s-90’s and their roles in society as it evolved in its acceptance of allowing a woman equal say in her identity. (struggling to end this essay)
...mely carefully chosen rhetoric, she has demonstrated how women can break free of men. She has taken away the fear than many women feel when they want to stand up against the male figure in their life. When women are able to be strong, and use the power that they have always had, they are able to move mountains with that power. They can remove themselves from a man who takes advantage of them or objectifies them, and reduce them to nothing more than the coward that they are. Larcom’s poem painted a clear picture of progress that women have made against men, and how they are tackling the issues set before them. Because of Larcom and her ability to use her voice through writing to portray and strong vision of women, has empowered many others to do the same. They are able to break free from the chains of repression that so many men have restrained women by for so long.
Many sonnets revolve around the idea of gender roles and love. Mary Wroth can be identified as one of these poets. Regardless of feminist and gender-specific ideologies in Wroth’s sonnets, Mary’s perspective as a sonneteer has been wrongly identified as being commonly
The comedy itself is entertaining to watch, yet, it holds an important message that human beings need to understand. The main character battles between her desire to live her exotic life, while her reason to live a simple life in the convent exemplifies the power struggles that human beings face every day. Just as Mary Magdalene was condemned and saved by Jesus, Deloris has found her sanctuary and has reached salvation. Director Emile Ardolino utilizes the empowering female roles of nuns to shed a new light on the power structure of religion and discover a unity between religion and ordinary
Gwen Harwood and Judith Wright are two female poets who hold a celebrated place in Australian poetry and culture. Their poetry offers an insight into the representation gender differences to which a society consciously or unconsciously subscribes. Through symbol, juxtaposition and powerful imagery, Harwood and Wright demonstrate the subservience of women to men in ‘Burning Sappho’ (“Burning’) 1968 and “Eve to her Daughters” (‘Eve’) 1963, but Harwood suggests possible change in ‘Prize Giving’ (1963). All three poems illustrate the tendency of society to categorize the roles and expectations of the male and female, thus providing an insight into social history in regards to gender.
...witty comical banter helps spread the understanding of the underlying themes behind the humor. It makes it easier for the artists to connect with the audience about feminism without an aggressive and hostile approach to the work. I believe viewers are more likely to communicate upon the works of the Guerrilla Girls with one another in society when they take on a more comedic approach. This investigation has examined the Guerrilla Girls through direct connection to the inequalities of compliance of power over women in the art world. Several themes were highlighted within society that reinstated these cultural norms of gender and sex within the institutions of art. With a variety of forms used by the Guerrilla Girls to redefine women's identity in history they were able to break down such barriers that stood in the way which denied the prosperity of female artists.
As insinuated through her poem’s title, “A Double Standard,” Frances Harper examines a double standard imposed by societal norms during the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as the different effects this standard foisted upon those of different genders. Harper’s poem is narrated by a woman who has been derided by society for her involvement in a sexual scandal, all while her male counterpart experiences no repercussions. By describing how her situation involving the scandal advances, delineating the backlash she receives for her participation, and reflecting on the ludicrously hypocritical nature of the situation, the speaker discloses the lack of control women had over their lives, and allows for the reader to ponder the inequity of female oppression at the turn of the 19th century.
...appearance with a sense of revulsion and harshness, which shows the differing nature in which males are able to evade serious repercussions as well as responsibility whereas females are left for judgment. In this way, the text appears to lower the significance and value of having knowledge and being informed while simultaneously highlighting the deceptive and complex nature that lies within each individual.
... she is indeed angered and fed up at the fact that there is a stereotype. The way in which she contradicts herself makes it hard for readers to understand the true meaning or point to her poem, the voice was angry and ready for change, yet the actions that the individual was participating in raised questions of whether or not he actually fit the stereotype.
Throughout the world, there are rudimentary gender characteristics, both physical and psychological, that differentiate a man from a woman. However, some people do not associate themselves with these stereotypical characteristics. Notwithstanding the amount of progress achieved in the past few decades, gender stereotypes are still solemn. Qualities like strength, intellect and sexual deviance are usually associated with men, while qualities like irrational, emotional and insecure are more relevant to women. In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Dorothy Livesay’s “The Unquiet Bed”, each poet captures the expression of female
To what extent does Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Medusa’ challenge stereotypical masculine and feminine attributes?
In the second stanza, the poet says that women are the cause that make her write poems because of the stereotypes against them, which give her a strong desire to challenge. Therefore, she takes women’s stories and writes them in poetry. She describes herself as a “seamstress” and without the dresses of women, she would be a seamstress without work, but her friends give her their dresses (their stori...