Essay On Femininity In Ligeia And Der Sandman

978 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: gender in 20th century literature

The construct of a fictional doppelgänger lacks restraints of a definitive denotation, as it has often been familiarized and integrated into literature as a condition limited to the male gender, fortified by the demarcation of a gendered identity. Through the manipulation of the male lens, the feminine personality is subjugated to a classification of sheer obligation and domestication to man. Within doppelgänger narratives, such as Ligeia and Der Sandmann, the incorporation of the uncanny often institutes thematic elements concerning the anonymity of identity and the ambiguity of reality. Though the juxtaposition of the uncanny and the fallibility of vision, relative to the castration complex, denunciates femininity as the absence of the male standard, consequential of a phallocentric society, the doppelgänger’s influence as a femme fatale has revolutionized and transcended societal perceptions of femininity and womanhood. Governed under the principles of male supremacy and superiority, it is comprehensible as to why female sexuality has been coined a “dangerous mechanism” …show more content…

In Der Sandmann, anxiety stemming from the contingency of the conception of blindness is merely interpreted as a substitute for the fear of castration. Correspondingly, Nathaniel’s fear of the Sandman removing his eyes is analogous to the removal of a definitive trait that causes irreparable damage to one’s self-image and character. Therefore, this parallel concerning castration emphasizes the significance of male sexual characteristics as indicators of power, authority, and identity. Contrary to the prior contention, this parallel also comparatively elucidates to the indignity and inferiority women are burdened to bear within society as a consequence of natural, biological developments of primary sexual

Show More
Related

  • Critical Analysis Of Women Beware Science The Birth-Mark

    1240 Words  | 3 Pages

    The writer further argues that Hawthorne’s story was concerned of morals outlining ethical implications of several characters who have diverse ideas. The issue of potential actions characterized either both external and internal drawbacks has deeply being concerned with the often buried factors, which make people to interact with the moral nature and face its consequences. The article also analyzes the men’s spontaneous fear of the difference in bodies with the women. The story is seen as undergone challenges to extend of lovely women with men, like Aylmer being obsessed by the wife’s obsession.

    Read More

  • Disorderly Women : Gender And Labor

    936 Words  | 2 Pages

    Accordingly, I decided the purposes behind women 's resistance neither renamed sexual introduction parts nor overcame money related dependence. I recalled why their yearning for the trappings of progression could darken into a self-compelling consumerism. I evaluated how a conviction arrangement of feeling could end in sexual danger or a married woman 's troublesome twofold day. None of that, regardless, ought to cloud an era 's legacy. I comprehend prerequisites for a standard of female open work, another style of sexual expressiveness, the area of women into open space and political fights previously cornered by men all these pushed against ordinary restrictions even as they made new susceptibilities.

    Read More

  • The Character of John in The Yellow Wallpaper

    2044 Words  | 5 Pages

    Jordanova, Ludmilla. Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the 18th and 20th Centuries. London: Harrester Wheatsheaf, 1989.

    Read More

  • Comparing Shakespeare's King Lear with Henrick Ibsen's Doll House

    1128 Words  | 3 Pages

    Women in most cultures have been designated as second to men and in some instances, considered below male children as well. With the passage of time women gained respect and the right for equality. Although gender discrimination remains, a lot of progress has been achieved. Literature is a one of the facets of the human race that reflects the culture change of people. William Shakespeare’s King Lear portrays the patriarchal system of the Renaissance era, which leaves women completely dependent on the male head of household. In Henrik Ibsen’s Doll House, set in the modern era, there is still a patriarchal system but women have just a little more freedom. The article, The Doll House Backlash: Criticism, Feminism, and Ibsen by Joan Templeton, analyzes the gender subordination in A Doll House. Comparing and contrasting the themes of the two plays followed by consideration of the article’s research on the theme in A Doll House, assists in developing an understanding of the gradual progression of women’s freedom to be their “true selves” through equality with men. The “true self” is a person's character that is masked by a false portrayal designed to appeal to others.

    Read More

  • Jude and Ajax: Drawing a Picture of Masculinity in Sula

    645 Words  | 2 Pages

    A foil character in literature is a character that shows opposite characteristics, in order to emphasize qualities of the other character. In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, we see several examples of character foils. The main characters, Sula and Nel are foils of the other, two opposite halves that together make a whole. In another example, we have another set of foil characters; characters that are so different that together they tell what it is to be a man, and what it is to not be a man. Despite being secondary characters in the novel, when comparing and contrasting the characters of Jude and Ajax, a picture of the definition of masculinity is drawn in Toni Morrison’s book Sula.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Guadalupe The Sex Goddess

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    The erotic power is a source within us that lies deep lying a female emotional understanding. The power is based on their unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to propagate itself, every oppression must eliminate the sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, claiming their right to sexual pleasure and understanding their sexuality without fear and embracing it with their own terms and conditions will provide the necessary power to emerge from the cocoon of sexuality

    Read More

  • Feminist Social Theory

    1976 Words  | 4 Pages

    Male violence structure is influenced by Radical Feminist theory which asserts that there is a correlation between patriarchy and sexuality, such theory assumes that male supremacy is based on controlling women’s sexuality and bodies (Brownmiller, 1976, Walby, 134). Furthermore, male-dominated sexuality provokes women oppression and such subordination is extrapolated to other areas; (Walby; 1990, p. 3/118).As Crouch (2001), Mckinnon (1979) and Schultz (1998) theorise sexual hara...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Susanne Beacker's Monster Culture

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    Like the Good Other Woman, the Evil Other Woman often spends much of her life hidden away in the castle, secret room, or whatever, a fact suggesting that even a virtuous woman’s lot is the same she would have merited had she been the worst of criminals. The heroine’s discovery of such Other Women is in the one case an encounter with women’s oppression-their confinement as wives, mothers, and daughters-and in the other with a related repression: the confinement of a Hidden Woman inside those genteel writers and readers who, in the idealization of the heroine’s virtues, displace their own rebellious

    Read More

  • Women In Invisible Man

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout Invisible Man, women are portrayed as desirable objects for White men to own. Ultimately, their bodies are the focal points of all encounters, and their true identities are irrelevant and invisible to society. Before the royal battle, an unclothed blonde seductively dances around the ballroom. The White men of Invisible Man crave the bodies of alluring women. Many men, such as a “merchant who followed her hungrily” (20), feel as though they have the right to do whatever

    Read More

  • What Are the Origins of Lunacy?

    1174 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout literature female characters have struggled for power, be it power over logic, emotion, or knowledge. Time and again women in literature have failed miserably, creating a concept that women in repressive societies who struggle for the power over logic, emotion, knowledge, and therefore their own freedom invariably end up committing suicide or suffer some mental illness; these characters, just as Bronte`s Bertha Mason, are often lacking development, perhaps because it is too taxing for a writer of a dominate culture to truthfully represent the characters of a colony. Either way, the theme proves pervasive enough to cause reader's to question the source of a female character's lunacy, whether it be the social/historical environment, or a result of the vast differences between the dominate and colony cultures. In this essay I seek to prove that Antoinette's lunacy was not merely a product of her environment (i.e. inbreeding/heredity), but more importantly a result of the vast and irreconcilable cultural differences between Rochester and her. He is like the bokor, and likewise she is the zombie.

    Read More

  • Legalizing Prostitution

    2503 Words  | 6 Pages

    Milstein, Susan A. Taking Sides Clashing Views in Human Sexuality. Ed. William J. Taverner and Ryan W. McKee. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.

    Read More

  • gender development

    1425 Words  | 3 Pages

    Freud makes a claim for the formation of femininity through his explanation of psychical development during child sexuality. He explains that he does not wish to give an account for who a women is but only how she becomes feminine from her bisexual tendencies. Freud femininity theory raises speculation since develops it within the context of masculinity. He claims a girl’s turning point in her sexuality is when she realizes she has been castrated and develop a penis envy. This raises concerns since it automatically places the male, at least the male organs, at a hierarchal advantage. Nevertheless, Freud’s theory can be justify within a social-psychological perspective, considering a girl is face with disadvantage and inequality from a social perspective which build in her a psychical inferiority which leads her to the conclusion that lacking a penis makes her inferior.

    Read More

  • Identity and Its Impact on Female Sexuality in the 21st Century

    1357 Words  | 3 Pages

    Nowadays, more people tend to care about and work on social justice. Women’s rights, as one of the topics, draws people’s attention. The society and female-selves have rethought the meaning of being women in the 21st century. Therefore, nowadays twenty-something girls start to behave differently from early generation. One of the behaviors becomes ambiguous, which is female sexuality. In “Selections from Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom”, Leslie Bell argues that neither contradictory directing nor expectation from others is the main reason that causes female sexuality. She sets up this claim, because the identity a woman established by herself impacts more on a woman’s sexuality. Establishing an identity is more important because it’s more independently authentic, also it represents what the woman wants, who she truly wants to be. Another reason is that, sexuality is one of the changed-behaviors that women use to prove their established identity. Therefore, female sexuality is driven by identity rather than social expectation or confused directing from others because, first, the identity is established by a women herself independently; second, the identity is the way how a women defines who she is, which matters more than any other outside effects; third, women decide to have a certain kind of sexuality in order to prove their defined identities.

    Read More

  • Compulsory Heterosexuality

    426 Words  | 1 Pages

    Some of the forms by which male power manifests itself are more easily recognizable as enforcing heterosexuality on women

    Read More

  • Three Themes In James Dyer's Essay On Male Sexuality

    1106 Words  | 3 Pages

    Three themes that Dyer develops in his essay on male sexuality are patriarchal power, violence, and the female gaze. Firstly, Dyer mentions that “the penis is also the symbol of male potency, the magic and mystery of the phallus, the endowment that appears to legitimate male power” (Dyer 2013, 113). That is to say, the penis is considered the ultimate force of dominance for men, although it is said that the penis is “far more commonly the soft, vulnerable charm of male genitals” (Dyer 2013, 113). As a result, men tend to play the dominant roles in society, while women are portrayed as inferior and patriarchal power is created. In addition, situated with patriarchal power is violence. Dyer emphasizes violence as an element of male sexuality

    Read More

More about Essay On Femininity In Ligeia And Der Sandman

Open Document