The character of Mrs. Ramsay from To The Lighthouse, and Harriet of The Fifth Child failed in their many attempts of achieving womanly perfection. Both women strived and struggled to achieve a similar, yet false ideal of feminine perfection. Let's take a look at failures that exposed their unsuccessful attempts of perfection.
Within To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Ramsay is the most ideal symbol of female perfection and excellence. Mrs. Ramsay's composure and attitude seem almost faultless. She is viewed by many as influential and supreme. Many of the characters greatly admired and adored Mrs. Ramsay. For example, on page 41 of To The Lighthouse, Augustus Carmichael describes his admiration for Mrs. Ramsay. He believes that not only was she a beauty, but she was admired among everyone. He states, "the torch of her beauty; she carried it erect into any room that she entered." This statement implies that one would become aware of Mrs. Ramsay's magnificence whenever she would enter a room (Woolf 41.) It is also apparent on page 47, Lily describes Mr. Bankes's adoration for Mrs. Ramsay, "For him to gaze as Lily saw him gazing at Mrs. Ramsay was a rapture, equivalent, Lily felt to the loves of dozens of young men." This statement implies that Mr. Bankes greatly worshipped and admired Mrs. Ramsay (Woolf 47.) Also, within pages 50 to 51, Lily is depicted as imagining herself in James's position. Lily imagines that her head is leaning on Mrs. Ramsay's lap. She imagines that this intimate moment of connection would help her achieve knowledge of intimacy. For example, on page 51, Lily has a thought, "Could loving as people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay one? For it is not knowledge of unity that she desired
but intimacy itself, which is knowledge." It is apparent that Lily had yearned for an intimacy and understanding between her and Mrs. Ramsay. Lily viewed Mrs. Ramsay as a mother figure. Lily believed that her own personality and being contained many faults and disappointments. Lily believed Mrs. Ramsay possessed many of the aspects and characteristics that she lacked. Lily considered many of these characteristics as being very vital and essential in achieving the grace and stature of a woman (Woolf 51.) Although Lily greatly admired and loved Mrs.
Representation of Women in "Men Should Weep" by Ena Lamont Stewart and "Perfect Days" by Liz Lochead
She written by H Rider Haggard is a novel about two men, Holly and his adoptive son, Leo set out to search for a mysterious queen, Ayesha who killed her lover, Kallikrates. After finding the queen, both of them hopelessly fall in love with her and remain in her control not until she dies. Her beauty is legendary that no man can look up upon her and keep his own will. Arabian Nights is a collection of Arabic short story told by a woman, Shahrazad who willingly to marry her lustful King. The King marries a virgin woman every night and kills them the next day because he is once being cheated by his late wife but not until he is married to Shahrazad. Her generous nature to save other women in the kingdom that motivates her to the marriage. The dominant themes in the two novels are heroism, courage and ever-present sense of danger. Ayesha and Shahrazad are two different women in different situations. Both of these characters have shown the themes of female authority and feminine behaviour but in their own ways. Feminism can be explained in a very simple way that women are equals to men which means that they are as intelligent, as competent, as brave and as morally responsible (Decter 45). Ayesha is a terrifying and dominant figure uses her beauty to seduce and have power over men while Shahrazad uses her intelligence by telling tales to teach the King lessons. Most of female characters in the tales also represent femininity as they have power over male characters. They are both viewed as heroes in the stories. The similarity in them is they uses their femininity as a threat to the masculinity of male characters in the novel and become the causes of the male characters’ downfall.
The History of Feminine Fiction:Exploring Laura Runge’s Article, Gendered Strategies in the Criticism of Early Fiction
Whether we want to admit to it or not, in today’s society we all play a role. To start we are all initially divided by gender. Therefore; by our gender alone we are automatically stereotyped by those around us. Then we may be narrowed down even more by our social class, finances, intelligence, appearances, race, etc. This is our reality. If not physically, we have at least all mentally set people apart in our heads and stereotyped them. In Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” she uses literary elements such as word diction, perspective, character description, an unreliable narrator, tone, and motif to personify these stereotypes. She is attempting to attack the way we think about each other just through one short story. She touches on class
. The reader sees an extraordinary inwardness in Emily Bronte’s book Wuthering Heights. Emily has a gloomy and isolated childhood. . Says Charlotte Bronte, “ my sister’s disposition was not naturally gregarious; circumstances favored and fostered her tendency to seclusion; except to go to church, or to take a walk on the hills, she rarely crossed the threshold of home.”(Everit,24) That inwardness, that remarkable sense of the privacy of human experience, is clearly the essential vision of Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte saw the principal human conflict as one between the individual and the dark, questioning universe, a universe symbolized, in her novel, both by man’s threatening and hardly-to-be-controlled inner nature, and by nature in its more impersonal sense, the wild lonesome mystery of the moors. The love of Heathcliff and Catherine, in its purest form, expresses itself absolutely in its own terms. These terms may seem to a typical mind, violent, and even disgusting. But having been generated by that particular love, they are the proper expressions of it. The passionately private relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine makes no reference to any social convention or situation. Only when Cathy begins to be attracted to the well-mannered ways of Thrushcross Grange, she is led, through them, to abandon her true nature.
His assertion focuses on how their relationship is a displaced version of symbiotic relationship between mother and child. Emotionally, Heathcliff is the world to Catherine just as a mother is to a child and a child to a mother. (p. 366). This statement is supported by a passage in the novel in which Heathcliff has left and she seeks him calling for him at intervals and crying hard enough to beat out any child (p. 88-90). Upon Heathcliff’s return, Brontë uses language that Wion believes depicts the cessation of their relationship’s development in the Freud’s oral stage of libidinal development (p. 368). Brontë uses phrases such as “drank from hers” when discussing them gazing at each other and “They were too much absorbed in their mutual enjoyment…” (p. 99, 368). The use of this language is interesting and begs us to question if its use was intentional to display the basicness and necessity of their relationship as if to say that they could just as easily not be together as they could stop consuming sustenance. The novel demonstrates many times that the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff is fundamental to their existence. A major piece of evidence supporting this is Catherine’s breakdown when Heathcliff leaves as well as when Heathcliff and Edgar’s disagreement reaches a point where Edgar forces Catherine to decide between himself and
By definition, a heroine is a woman who would typically encompass the qualities of nobility, courage, independence and strength. Nineteenth century English women would have struggled to accomplish any of these particular acts of heroism within their social environment as ultimately, their roles within civilisation saw them becoming a good wives and mothers and before that, obliging and caring daughters. Within this ubiquitous discourse of separate spheres, Kathryn Gleadle suggests that women were encouraged to see themselves as relative creatures', whose path in life was to nurture the family and to provide unstinting support for the head of the household' In this respect, the nineteenth century British woman conforming to this path' would prove to be the heroine of that time as a free-spirited independent individual would have been cast aside as socially unacceptable. Essentially, although it would appear that many women wished to lead active, working lives and so make an important contribution, either to their families or to social welfare, the woman's position [was] to preside over a loving home whilst men were to brave the vicissitude and demands of public and business life' Novelists Thomas Hardy and Emily Brontë present us with two strong and independent females Tess Durbeyfield and Catherine Earnshaw. These women are far from the idealistic view of nineteenth century females; Tess, intelligent and strikingly attractive, strives to uphold the values expected of her but outside forces beyond her control determine her fate. Catherine on the other hand begins her life free-spirited, rebellious and of a wild nature. However, her inner desire craves social ambition which, in turn, shows her slowly representing culture and civilisation.
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Introduction by D.M. Hoare, Ph.D. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1960
“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.
The Portrayal of Women in American Literature Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different way than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may have represented his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays her as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s. In F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby, the main female character, Daisy Buchanan, is portrayed by, Nick, the narrator, only by her superficial qualities.
Virginia Woolf creates interesting contrast within the character of Clarissa Dalloway using stream of consciousness narration in her novel Mrs. Dalloway. Clarissa’s inner thoughts reveal a contrast between her lack of attraction to her husband due to her lesbian feelings and her fear of loosing him as a social stepping stone. These contrasts and many others can be seen throughout the novel using the literary device of stream of consciousness
...msay’s death, Lily is able to reject the ideals of marriage and family that Mrs. Ramsay represented and choosing to remain unmarried and pursue her art (Koppen 386).
Along with many novels, she wrote essays, critiques and many volumes of her personal journals have been published. She is one of the most extraordinary and influential female writers throughout history. Virginia Woolf is an influential author because of her unique style, incorporations of symbolism and use of similes and metaphors in her literature, specifically in Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves. Virginia Woolf’s eccentric style is what causes her writings to be distinct from other authors of her time. The unique characteristics of her works such as the structure, characterization, themes, etc.... ...
Mrs. Ramsay embodies the traditional, ideal woman. She is a wife and mother. She sees her role as being a supporter to her husband, her children, and to the people around her. Mrs. Ramsay is occupied with matronly duties, such as knitting socks and running errands. She is devoted to her children. She sympathizes with James, understanding his disappointment at not being able to go to the lighthouse. She looks through a catalog for pictures for him to cut out. She also reads fairy tales to James. Mrs. Ramsay is a kind and devoted mother.
Mr. Ramsey makes excuses for not becoming intellectually enlightened in the same vain that he makes excuses for not sailing to the Lighthouse. Mrs. Ramsey is the ideal wife and mother. She uses her love to create and build, not in the physical sense, but more in the sense of relationship, community, and hope building. She is perhaps the most successful of the characters, in that her goals are what she feels she has become her goal: one who helps people, brings them together, and infuses them with hope and love.... ... middle of paper ...