A common complaint with Kathy Acker's work, particularly with Blood and Guts in High School, is that it is anti-male. This criticism, while valid, neglects to understand the methodology used in order to create a text in which patriarchal norms are no longer rampant. Despite its purpose of removing a gendered voice, postmodern fiction still contains elements of an authority which is predominately white and male. Acker changes this connotation by creating a “female text” in which women's bodies and desires must be internalized in order to create a new type of characterization unburdened by prior patriarchal texture. The absurdity of this technique makes the acts 'unsexy'—it departs from pornography as its intended purpose is to not be arousing or to divulge into male fantasy. Acker blends vulgarity, hypersexuality, masochism, and continual attempts of self-discovery (and ultimately failure) to incorporate a sense of change or revolution for a reader to interpret. Janey's first person journal narrative (and possibly Acker's autobiographical input) creates the allusion that there should be a strong emotional bond between reader and character, however Janey remains a flat and unchanging character for the duration of the text. Why is that? As a piece in which perspective must be shifted, Janey is required to be a flat character for the story to stay female. Her identity is structured around interactions and responses with other characters (many of which have already existed prior to this book). In fact, Blood and Guts in High School is as much plagiarism as Acker's Great Expectations or Don Quixote, since the underlying goal is to re-appropriate postmodernism as feminist by deconstructing male models through their interactions with Jane...
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...etween the end of the story and the epilogue entitled, “The World”, the voice must change because of the main protagonist's death. This is where the layering of Janey/Acker becomes especially important. Without Janey present, Acker must use her own voice to finish off the story Janey's body was physically unable to undergo. Or is Janey truly dead? Her voice may actually be present in the epilogue but only as a voice without any body. Both Acker and Janey's voices must pick up where the female body left off. In terms of the post-modern, female death results in total death.
Works Cited
Redding, Arthur F.. "Bruises, Roses: Masochism and the Writing of Kathy
Acker."Contemporary Literature: 281. Print.
Brennan, Kelly. "The Geography of Enunciation: Hysterical Pastiche in Kathy Acker's
Fiction." boundary 2 21: 243-268. JSTOR. Web. 20 May 2014.
The concern of this paper is the “happy ending,” typical in Women’s Fiction according to Harris (46), present in A New England Tale, in which Jane Elton sacrifices her autonomous self through marrying Mr. Lloyd. I will critique this ending by applying several of the points Harris makes, including the conflict between theme and structure, the “extended quest for autonomy” (50), and the issue of the self-willing and “socially determined self” (54); also, I will discuss the sexual and religious politics Jane faces, as well as the importance of her role as educator. Readers can understand the autonomous self to which I refer in a nineteenth-century context: this do...
She analyzes the significant languages, images, and symbols used in the text. After Barbara analyzed the short story, it basically pinpoints that Gilman’s was trying to make a feminist statement. Suess also goes into details about the representation of patriarchy in society and she tied it to text. The article showed that a form of patriarchy is introduced in the story, and that Gilman used John to represent a patriarchy and society. Barbara stated that in the story, John is a clear representation law, order, and reality. The article revealed that John 's suppression of Jane 's efforts to gain control of her own life through her choice of medicine and the opportunity to write reflects the more general oppression of Jane, as a woman and as a mentally ill person. I believe this article would be beneficial for my research paper because it goes into details about the story and talks about specific symbols used in the text that point towards my theory of how Gilman is making a feminist statement in the
In “Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid’s use of repetitive syntax and intense diction help to underscore the harsh confines within which women are expected to exist. The entire essay is told from the point of view of a mother lecturing her daughter about how to be a proper lady. The speaker shifts seamlessly between domestic chores—”This is how you sweep a house”—and larger lessons: “This is how you smile to someone you don’t like too much; this is how you smile to someone you don’t like at all…” (Kincaid 1). The way in which the speaker bombards the girl overwhelms the reader, too. Every aspect of her life is managed, to the point where all of the lessons she receives throughout her girlhood blur together as one run-on sentence.
In John Updike’s “A&P”, the revolution of the young people of the current age against authority is explored and explained. “A&P” reveals the shift from conservative and deferential to avant-garde and disrespectful. Through the observation of the behavior of the characters in the story, one can receive a clear picture of the evolution of the sexual revolution that has come in this age. Sammy is the first character that is introduced, he is the protagonist and narrator of the story. Stoksie and Lengel are next, Stoksie is a fellow store clerk with Sammy as well as a good friend and Lengel is the manager of the store. Finally, Queenie is introduced. “A&P” begins with Sammy noticing these three girls that come into the store in nothing but their bathing suits. Sammy then proceeds to analyze each of the girls bodies, finally coming to rest on the leader of the group, his favorite, who he affectionately names to himself, “Queenie”. Although Sammy and Stoksie joke back and forth about the girls sexiness, he is privately revolted by the butchers bluntly ogling the girls as they search for whatever they wish to purchase. Throughout this recounting of the experience, one begins to wonder, when did girls become pieces of meat to be observed and handled by men? They used to be cherished and protected as they should be. The sexual revolution of the past and current decades have changed all of that.
Through this, the protagonist has the family who loves her. Even though her family loves her, the society is not changing. According to “Who Is Jane? The Intricate Feminism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman,” Veeder argues that the Jane is the intricate feminist vision of
...t we already know about female subjec- tivity under patriarchy, but also the film is as aesthetically ludicrous as the cake (which is why it’s often funny) and is en- tirely complicit in the production of its own symptomatology. Behind the spoonfed clichés is the specter of male narcis- sism, which is willing to take any form or do anything to seek satisfaction and prevent injury to itself (including dressing in drag and stuffing a bulimic with cake). Nothing is achieved by this film other than its own climax and it’s in this sense that it’s “autoerotic.” I don’t mean at all that it’s intended to titillate—the film satisfies itself in this regard and, in the process, leaves us as cold as the dirty old man on the subway or Duchamp’s perpetually grinding Machine Célibataire. Nina is nothing but the stain to be cleared up at the end.
The two main approaches to this type of criticism are very different, but help make distinctions in the text. Essentialists focus on the biologically determined sex of a character in literature, while others focus on constructivism or the qualities determined by society as strictly male or female. Constructivists argue that patriarchal gender roles harm women’s confidence and assertiveness, promoting stereotypes and false binaries. Gender constructivism favors the idea that gender and sexual categories are a societal construct that prefers men and restricts women. The application of this literary criticism to a text looks into the character and their relevance to the plot. Focusing on how the character promotes or rejects the imposed gender roles is a significant part in the use of this lens (Hildreth January
In Judith Halberstam’s piece “Female Masculinity,” she offers the audience a few potential definitions of the term ‘masculinity’ and how the term applies to “feminine masculinity.” She states that “although we seem to have a difficult time defining masculinity, as a society, we have little trouble recognizing it” (935). Halberstam suggests that female masculinity is often blatantly ignored in culture and studies due to the indifferent feeling often associated with the topic. Halberstam uses her essay to explain a variety of aspects associated with female femininity like tomboys, queer methodologies, and the bathroom problem. Halberstam’s description of the term ‘Tomboys’ is reminiscent of the character Emily Fields from the Pretty Little Liars book series by Sara Shepard. Progressing through middle school with a group of ‘girly’ friends, Emily is easily labeled with the term ‘tomboy’ due to her sporty exterior. Her overly conservative Christian family and classmates see no ‘threat’ or meaning behind Emily’s tomboy appearance because they believe it is just a stage in her life. As soon as Emily enter tenth grade and starts hanging out with a homosexual female, her family and classmates grow concerned about Emily’s masculine looks and behaviors. In the book titled Prettty Little Liars, one of the liars, Emily’s evident masculine ways raises concern to her thesis-go back and fix it .
This twentieth-century tradition of dystopian novels is a possible influence, with classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 standing prominent. The pessimism associated with novels of this genre—where society is presented as frightening and restrictive—exposes the gender inequality between men and women to be deleterious. An aspect of the way male/female relationships are presented in both texts is the repression of female sexuality by men, possibly stemming from a subliminal fear of women attaining power in a male-dominated society. Brocklehurst—a possible reflection of Bront’s Evangelical minister at Cowan Bridge, her own poorly run school—is a male authoritative figure whose relationship with the girls at Lowood is one of imposed tyranny. He means to “tame and humble” them through deprivations and restrictions, but such removal of liberties like cutting off the girls’ hair, consequentially robbing them of female attributes, can be interpreted as the male repression of feminine sexuality.... ...
...ini and Ross-Bryant appear almost polarized in their opinion of the nature of Roethke's feelings for Jane: Parini contends that Roethke mourns for us all; Ross-Bryant feels that Roethke's grief is intensely personal. Other than the nature of than Roethke's feelings for Jane, these four critics find little to disagree about in "Elegy for Jane."
Within every story or poem, there is always an interpretation made by the reader, whether right or wrong. In doing so, one must thoughtfully analyze all aspects of the story in order to make the most accurate assessment based on the literary elements the author has used. Compared and contrasted within the two short stories, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, and John Updike’s “A&P,” the literary elements character and theme are made evident. These two elements are prominent in each of the differing stories yet similarities are found through each by studying the elements. The girls’ innocence and naivety as characters act as passages to show something superior, oppression in society shown towards women that is not equally shown towards men.
Fisher, Jerilyn, and Ellen S. Silber. Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print.
These women authors have served as an eye-opener for the readers, both men and women alike, in the past, and hopefully still in the present. (There are still cultures in the world today, where women are treated as unfairly as women were treated in the prior centuries). These women authors have impacted a male dominated society into reflecting on of the unfairness imposed upon women. Through their writings, each of these women authors who existed during that masochistic Victorian era, risked criticism and retribution. Each author ignored convention a...
“Munro’s people are the immanences of our daily lives” (Bloom 2). This quotation, written by Harold Bloom, American literary critic, captures the essence of Alice Munro’s work splendidly. Munro does not aim to be a great literary hero, though she is, but rather to write about life as it is. Her work is naturalistic, one of the greatest appeals of her writing. Through that naturalism, Munro writes of ordinary sorrow, ordinary love, and ordinary passion. Nothing is meant to transcend the human existence, but rather exist in harmony with that existence. Within the human existence, Munro breaks societal norms by writing about the aspects of humanity that are uncomfortable and foreboding. From her methods, to her reasoning, to the importance of her work, Alice Munro disassembles societal expectations of normality in regards to sexuality.
“Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.