More handpicked essays just for you.
20th century gender roles in literature
Literature gender roles mid twentieth century
Literature gender roles mid twentieth century
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: 20th century gender roles in literature
"Compare and contrast the characters of Hedda Gabler and Miss Julie in the plays by Ibsen and Strindberg. Support your findings with comments on the writers attitudes to their characters."
August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen were both great playwrights of the 19th century, and both played a large role in the evolution of modern day naturalism/ realism. The plays I will be discussing are Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, (1890) and Strindberg’s Miss Julie (1888). In Karen’s lecture on Strindberg, she told how the two playwrights were rivals in a sense, mainly caused by Strindberg’s attitudes on social issues- Namely his thoughts and theory on the role of women in society. Thus, I am lead to believe that Hedda Gabler was written by Ibsen as a direct retaliation to Strindberg’s Miss Julie, just as ...
Impressionist paintings can be considered documents of Paris capital of modernity to a great extent. This can be seen in their subjects, style of painting, and juxtaposition of the transitive and the eternal.
I’ve chosen this statement for several reasons. Ibsen’s character, Hedda Gabler, represents the women of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Hedda stands the issues of self-worth and the deflated value that each woman places upon her own importance as a result of male dominance.
Before Impressionism came to be a major movement (around 1870-1800s), Neoclassical and Romanticism were still making their impacts. Remembering last week’s lesson, we know that both those styles were different in the fact that one was based on emotion, while the other was practical and serious. However, one thing they both shared was the fact that the artists were trying to get a message across; mostly having to do with the effects of the French Revolution, and/or being ordered to do so. With Impressionism, there is a clear difference from its predecessors.
In Act I Scene IV, Ophelia starts to talk to her father about the growing relationship between herself and Hamlet. Although she believes it is real, her father does not think so since he is a prince and tells her she is not allowed to see him anymore. She is unable to express herself or her feelings for others if it does not follow her father’s standards. In Act III Scene I, after Hamlet started becoming distracted and no one knew what was wrong with him, Ophelia was sent to find out information from him. No matter how much she loves Hamlet she will betray him to follow her father’s orders. In Act III Scene II, there is a play put on for the royal family and guests. Hamlet teases her and asks her if he should lay in her lap and then continues to tell her to go to a nunnery she cannot do anything about it. The only way she can keep her reputation and her father’s honor intact is by ignoring it and acting like it means nothing to
Hedda Gabler is a text in which a very domineering society drives a woman to her suicidal death. Many argue that Hedda’s death is an act of courage, as rebellion against the rules of the society, however other believe that Hedda’s actions show cowardice, as she is unable to cope with the harsh reality of the her situation. Hedda's singular goal throughout the play has been to prove that she is still in possession of free will. Hedda shows many examples of both courage and cowardice throughout the play, differing to the character she is with.
In both plays, Hedda Gabler and A Streetcar Named Desire, the authors create very complex characters whose obsession creates conflict regarding their private lives. Tennessee Williams creates Blanche, whose the heroine and the antagonist Stanley, whose the antagonist. On the other hand, in the play Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen creates Hedda, the heroine and the antagonist, Judge Brack, the antagonist. Both authors establish antagonists, such as Stanley and Judge Brack, containing some sympathetic elements to help the reader understand their motivations towards the heroines, Blanche and Hedda. The characters of Stanley and Judge Brack obtain motivations analyzed by the reader to be known as vengeance and scornful but sympathetic acts to oppress the protagonists of the story.
In a time when artistic freedom was severely limited, the French Impressionists tirelessly explored new artistic frontiers despite hostile encounters with the public, ultimately redefining the world’s perspective on art.
Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler portrays the societal roles of gender and sex through Hedda as a character trying to break the status quo of gender relations within the Victorian era. The social conditions and principles that Ibsen presents in Hedda Gabler are of crucial importance as they “constitute the molding and tempering forces which dictate the behavior of all the play's characters” with each character part of a “tightly woven social fabric” (Kildahl). Hedda is an example of perverted femininity in a depraved society intent on sacrificing to its own self-interest and the freedom and individual expression of its members. It portrays Nineteenth Century unequal relationship problems between the sexes, with men being the independent factor and women being the dependent factor. Many of the other female characters are represented as “proper ladies” while also demonstrating their own more surreptitious holdings of power through manipulation. Hedda Gabler is all about control and individualism through language and manipulation and through this play Ibsen shows how each gender acquires that or is denied.
Everyone has faults, some people are greedy, some don’t know how to use manners, and others neglect a person’s feeling all together. Most of the time people just have one “fault” that they try to get better at. In Hedda’s case, she has all three problems but she encourages them instead of trying to learn to control them. In the play Hedda Gabler the author Henrik Ibsen shows that Hedda’s ill-behaved manners, greed for power and lack of emotional understanding of others will come back and bite her in the butt.
The Modern Breakthrough of Scandinavian literature, which occurred at the latter end of the 19th century, was a direct reaction to the Romantic ideas of idealism and emotion so heavily emphasized throughout the previous century. Characterized by presenting realism and naturalism, the movement brought social issues, like the drive for equality and personal liberty, to question. August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen brought such ideas to the forefront of literature in “The Father” and “A Doll House.” Multiple characters in the plays are on journeys towards seeking their personal liberty, but the theme is arguably most exemplified in said journeys of the two stories’ main female character. Using the medium of their female leads (Laura and Nora, respectively), Strindberg and Ibsen diverge in their construction of the drive for personal liberty, where Laura represents a negative dismantling of the traditional family and Nora conversely represents the positive progressive catalyst in her drive for social equality and personal liberty.
The story of Hamlet is a morbid tale of tragedy, commitment, and manipulation; this is especially evident within the character of Ophelia. Throughout the play, Ophelia is torn between obeying and following the different commitments that she has to men in her life. She is constantly torn between the choice of obeying the decisions and wishes of her family or that of Hamlet. She is a constant subject of manipulation and brain washing from both her father and brother. Ophelia is not only subject to the torture of others using her for their intentions but she is also susceptible to abuse from Hamlet. Both her father and her brother believe that Hamlet is using her to achieve his own personal goals.
The reader is left guessing on Hamlet’s true feelings for Ophelia through his various insults, sexual innuendos, and admitted desire. Hamlet’s claim, “God hath given you one face, and you / Make yourselves another.” (3.1.155-156) is laced with irony and hypocrisy given Hamlet’s own deception regarding true feelings. This proclamation comes at the end of a lengthy tirade against Ophelia and womankind in general for their conniving deceit leading men astray. The fact that Hamlet cannot see this duplicity in his very own actions shows the double standard he holds for females. Ophelia’s immediate reaction is one of shock and defense due to the aggressive nature of Hamlet’s attack. She calls out “O, woe is me!” (3.1.174) in distress to the ferocity of Hamlet and is unable to form a particularly coherent response akin to the ones seen against Laertes and Polonius. She does show her intelligence and rebellion from this assumption of power by Hamlet in her songs while Hamlet is gone. While many attribute her madness to the death of her father, a large portion of her instability should be attributed to Hamlet and his earlier actions. In her first introduction as insane she sings, “And I a maid at your window, / To be your Valentine. / Then up he rose and donned his clothes / And dropped the chamber door, / Let in the maid, that out a maid / Never departed more.” (4.5.55-60). Due to her references to sexuality and deceit the
Lovborg asks Hedda, “Was there no love in your friendship for me either? Not a spark--not a tinge of love in it?” In this he expresses that he truly felt love for her, and that is what gave her power over him.
The Impressionism period for the longest time was considered to be the first distinctly modern movement in painting. The Impression period first started in Paris in the 1860s and its influence spread throughout all of Europe and eventually made it’s way to the United States. The originators of this time period were artists who rejected the official; government subsidized exhibitions, or what the French would call, “salons”, and they were consequently shunned away by powerful academic art institutions such as the, “Acedémie des Beaux Arts" (Academy of Fine Arts). Removing themselves from the fine finish and details to which most artists of their day aspired, the Impressionists during this time, their goal was to capture the momentary, sensory
This exhibit was put on in a studio in Paris that was owned by the famous photographer Nadar and featured around 30 different Impressionist artists (Lewis 149). In the beginning of the impressionist 's “career” as impressionists, they were mocked and not always credited as real artists, but they accepted the name of Impressionist 's, turning the derogatory term into one to identify themselves with. The entire Impressionist art movement was “an unthinking form of naturalism” and also “… the fruitful renovation of the French schools…” (Lewis 23, 155). This oppression can be seen as synonymous with that of the actual oppressed people of France of which Karl Marx was calling to change their future. Impressionists took control of their own art and didn 't back down when mocked, they found the passion inside themselves. They were mocked since Impressionism was a shift of creativity that was now “…identified with the individual, not within the social…” (Lewis 26). When one looks at an impressionism painting from that period of time, the passion and emotions of the scene come through the painting causing the viewer to feel how the artist felt when they experienced this scene while painting