Atwood uses symbolism to convey how a person’s personality can disintegrate by living in a repressive society. In the beginning of the story, Kat goes through a surgery to remove a large ovarian cyst which she keeps and names “Hairball”. This large cyst is in fact, a symbol that represents Kat’s personality disintegration. Most cyst that develop in the human body are dysfunctional, and Kat can be seen as a dysfunctional woman when she decides to keep this cyst. “The cyst turned out to be a benign tumor. Kat liked that use if ‘benign,‘ as if the thing had a soul and wished her well” (304). This specific passage shows the readers how Kat is slowly loosing her mind by thinking that her cyst has a soul of its own. In addition, she humanizes her cyst by naming it “Hairball” and by giving it human characteristics: “Hairball’s baby teeth glint in the light; it looks as if it’s about to speak” (312). Moreover, Hairball is described as having baby teeth which can represent how it is like a baby who still developing. This developing cyst can also symbolize how Kat is trying to develop her own personality. However, this becomes a challenge for her because she lives in a society where male domination is present. She works as a photographer for an avant-garde magazine, and tries to express her ideas, but the men whom she works with don’t let her do so. Kat trying to develop her personality within her society leads her to become lost, and back to becoming dysfunctional just like a cyst trying to be a tumor. The author uses Hairball as a symbol to highlight how Kat’s personality disintegrates by living in a society where gender inequality is supported.
Characterization plays an important role when conveying how one’s personality can disintegrate by living in a restrictive society. Although Kat is slowly loosing her mind, in the story, she is portrayed as a confident woman who tries to strive for excellence. This can be seen when she wants to name the magazine “All the Rage”. She claims that “it’s a forties sounds” and that “forties is back” (311). However the board of directors, who were all men, did not approve. They actually “though it was too feminist, of all things” (311). This passage not only shows how gender opportunities is apparent in the society Kat lives in, but also shows the readers why Kat starts to loose her mind.
Teenage rebellion is typically portrayed in stories, films, and other genres as a testosterone-based phenomenon. There is an overplayed need for one to acknowledge a boy’s rebellion against his father, his life direction, the “system,” in an effort to become a man, or rather an adult. However, rarely is the female addressed in such a scenario. What happens when little girls grow up? Do they rebel? Do they, in a sudden overpowering rush of estrogen, deny what has been taught to them from birth and shed their former youthful façades? Do they turn on their mothers? In Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Possessive,” the reader is finally introduced to the female version of the popular coming-of-age theme as a simple haircut becomes a symbol for the growing breach between mother and daughter through the use of striking images and specific word choice.
...nfluence of society on Lucille, as seen in her desire the ‘look the way one was supposed to look’. As Lucille attempts to integrate and conform into society, she becomes increasingly attached to her physical image, while Ruth describes her own appearance to be ungainly and awkward. Lucille’s attachment to keeping a favorable image symbolizes her conformity and displays the theme of emphasizing physical objects and images. This idea connects with the book, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as the patients there who are not committed are scared to enter the real world due to their lack of confidence in their image and their acceptance into reality becomes a fear that hinders their consciousness, for example Billy Bibbit, and would rather stay in the ward. All in all, the theme of emphasizing physical objects and images relate to Lucille’s conformity towards society.
Feminism is an ideology that focuses on women being treated as equals to men in life. “Hairball”, by Margaret Atwood is a feminist story because it illustrates one woman in control of multiple aspects of her life that many women seem to struggle with or lose to a man. It demonstrates the reality of pride hindering success and consequentially suffer loses. In “Hairball” Kat, a middle aged woman, demonstrates control with her health, as she acquired treatment promptly for a health concern involving the female reproductive system. Intimacy, as she controlled her own sexual endeavors, her relationship as she had an upper hand and Identity, and lastly as she controlled her image. Let’s proceed to the first observation I’ve made while reading this short story of demonstrating the importance of health.
The lives of men and women are portrayed definitively in this novel. The setting of the story is in southern Georgia in the 1960’s, a time when women were expected to fit a certain role in society. When she was younger she would rather be playing ...
... among the first people to break out of these roles Diana leaves herself open to ridicule. This can be seen in the strained relationships she has with her best friend and others in her high school. Moreover, because Diana defies the gender stereotypes she has a hard time being accepted by both boys and girls—society does not know how to treat her since she does not fit into any of its categories.
For readers who observe literature through a feminist lens, they will notice the depiction of female characters, and this makes a large statement on the author’s perception of feminism. Through portraying these women as specific female archetypes, the author creates sense of what roles women play in both their families and in society. In books such as The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the roles that the main female characters play are, in different instances, both comparable and dissimilar.
...ce in society. And the effects of the ideals behind these magazines are all the more powerful because of their subtlety." Women walk away from these magazines with an empty feeling and feelings of many inadequacies and they really don't know exactly why. The subtle undermining of women's intelligence and cause strips away their sense of worth ever so slowly and leaves them feeling depressed and in search of something that really can't exist together. Growing old while staying young takes many years of complete and internal happiness not many years of collagen injections and the added stress of having to stay unattainably perfect. While some consider these journalists for women's magazines talented writers, I consider them horrendous displays of talent in which they sell out the naturally beautiful women of the world for a quick buck and a popular magazine.
During the 1920’s women were fervently depicted as inferior to men and incapable of the success. In the novel The Great Gatsby female characters are subject to gender based stereotypes and blindly follow culturally accepted norms which dictate their place and position within society. The expectations placed upon the female characters to comply with the norms of society limit their potential to become successful in comparison to the male characters, who are successful in the 1920’s. Within The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald illustrates the female characters as socially and economically limited and dependant, due to the strong implementation of patriarchal roles of men in society. Women are confined
...ation of men and women to the reader; we accept the cliché’s and gender-roles as the collective standard.
Many different depictions of gender roles exist in all times throughout the history of American culture and society. Some are well received and some are not. When pitted against each other for all intents and purposes of opposition, the portrayal of the aspects and common traits of masculinity and femininity are separated in a normal manner. However, when one gender expects the other to do its part and they are not satisfied with the results and demand more, things can shift from normal to extreme fairly quickly. This demand is more commonly attributed by the men within literary works. Examples of this can be seen in Tennessee Williams' “A Streetcar Named Desire”, where Stella is constantly being pushed around and being abused by her drunken husband Stanley, and also in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper”, where the female narrator is claimed unfit by her husband as she suffers from a sort of depression, and is generally looked down on for other reasons.
From the beginning of Kat’s life, she was at odds with her environment. When she was a child, she was Katherine, a doll like representation of what her mother wanted her to be. As a teenager she was Kathy, a representation of what she believed others wanted, “a bouncy, round-faced [girl] with gleaming freshly washed hair and enviable teeth, eager to please and no more int...
As Cliff walks into the Kit Kat club he enters the world of promiscuous uninhibited dancers, and people of the like. Men approach him to dance, and women entice him with their charms. He obviously wasn’t all that accustomed to this kind of happening, but he didn’t shy away from it. The first night he lived this almost unreal experience, he met a woman. Sally was a one of a kind woman of her time, being on her own, making her own living, whether that living be on stage or with a man who suits her interest for a while.
In "Where the girls are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media," Susan Douglas analyses the effects of mass media on women of the nineteen fifties, and more importantly on the teenage girls of the baby boom era. Douglas explains why women have been torn in conflicting directions and are still struggling today to identify themselves and their roles. Douglas recounts and dissects the ambiguous messages imprinted on the feminine psyche via the media. Douglas maintains that feminism is a direct result of the realization that mass media is a deliberate and calculated aggression against women. While the media seemingly begins to acknowledge the power of women, it purposely sets out to redefine women and the qualities by which they should define themselves. The contradictory messages received by women leave women not only in a love/hate relationship with the media, but also in a love/hate relationship with themselves.
As Mark Twain once declared, “What would men be without women…” This quote is clearly illustrated in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless masterpiece The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is the tragic love story of a poor man who falls in love with a rich girl and spends the rest of his life getting rich to impress her; however, in the end he dies alone without his love fulfilled. Although Fitzgerald’s novel is mainly androcentric, he uses several females each unique in their personalities to highlight the male characters, and to show that although people may have different desires, motivations, and needs they are not that different from each other.
Women are seen from a biased point of view in pop culture as they are often criticized and portrayed in degrading ways. The Great Gatsby takes place in the early part of the 20th century which is also known as the Roaring 20's. In regards to feminism, the women in The Great Gatsby are mainly depicted as second class to men. The story gives readers an insight of the roles that gender played in past World War I America. In The Great Gatsby, the author Scott Fitzgerald shines a light on the submissiveness of females toward males during the Roaring Twenties by giving the women in the novel an unfair representation as they are often identified as passive or negative “objects”.