Daphne du Maurier, sometimes known as “Lady Browning,” was a British writer and playwright. She wrote many romantic suspense novels. Her best-known works are Rebecca and “The Birds,” which were both adapted into films by Alfred Hitchcock. Du Maurier was a talented writer and many events in her life influenced her writings, which led her to become a renowned and successful writer. Du Maurier was the second of three daughters and was born into a very artistic family. Her father, Gerald du Maurier, was an actor-manager and her mother, Muriel Beaumont, was an actress. She was the granddaughter of the famous caricaturist, George du Maurier and she was the niece of magazine editor, J.M. Barrie. “Because her childhood contained many literary and …show more content…
She came from a very talented and unique family. This became a base for her literary talent. From a young age, she was encouraged to make something of herself. Because she had famous parents, she had the opportunity to meet many celebrities who persuaded her to want to be in the limelight. Du Maurier was also inspired by the town of Cornwall, England:
Houses always stirred du Maurier’s imagination. The several she inhabited with her husband on his various military postings invariably provoked her to fantasize about the lives of their former residents. But it was Menabilly, in her beloved Cornwall, that provided one model for the fictional Manderley. For a decade, Menabilly had been her enduring passion, exciting fantasies about the family whose descendants had lived there since the sixteenth century. And so it would remain until the end of her life (Commire 825).
The houses in Cornwall inspired the settings for Du Maurier’s novels and stories, specifically the Menabilly house. The settings of the short story, “The Birds,” and of the novel, Rebecca, both were influenced by the houses in the town of Cornwall. Due to her nature, Du Maurier was inspired to write imaginatively and
…show more content…
After her death, it was revealed that Du Maurier had an extramarital affair with actress Gertrude Lawrence and professed an attraction to Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her American publisher. According to her biographer, Margaret Forster, Du Maurier viewed herself as two distinct individuals: first, a wife and mother, and second, a lover (comprised of male energy) which inspired her creative process (“The” 2)
Because she viewed herself as two different entities, her writings were much more inventive and diverse because she related to both the qualities of a woman and a man. As said by Nina Auerbach:
Despite the fame of the female-centered Rebecca, Hungry Hill, like Daphne du Maurier’s best, most characteristic novels, is dominated by powerful men: women are there to torment, to soothe, to prop up men and cover up for them, to die conveniently or inconveniently…Throughout Daphne du Maurier’s novels, the falls of men are more compelling than those of women because her men have everything to lose; while women are humble by definition, men embody power and privilege. In their magnitude, they are all like heroes of Greek tragedy, but their heroism is a posture: we know them so well that we share their embarrassed ineptitude in their role. (Auerbach 4 and
Edna Pontellier: she is the protagonist of the novel. With twenty eight years, she is housewife married with Léonce Pontellier and mother of two boys, Etienne and Raoul. At the beginning of the novel she is comfortable in her marriage, where she sees the end of passion and the beginning of a responsible life. Through a series of experiences, she evolves into an amazing independent woman, who lives apart from her husband and her children, the only ones of whom she was in charge and is just responsible for her own acts. In a way, the only responsibilities she has during this period are art and having fun with friends. As we have said, she is the main
...o different female roles. Adéle serves as the perfect "mother-woman" being both married and pregnant. To Edna, Adéle appears to be unable to perceive herself as an individual, she does not have an identity apart from her roles of mother and wife, therefore Adéle exists only in relation to her family. The role of mother-woman does not provide the independence that Edna desires. Mademoiselle Reisz, on the other hand, gives Edna an alternative to the role of "mother-woman". She offers an abundance autonomy and independence however her life lacks love. Although she has a secure sense of her own individuality and independence, her life lacks love, friendship and warmth. Edna chooses for her identity a combination of Adéle Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz. She is more honest in self-identity than Adéle and more dependent on human relationships than Mademoiselle Reisz.
The short stories, “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” by Fritz Lieber, “Bits and Pieces,” by Lisa Tuttle, “While She Was Out” by Edward Bryant, “Cold Turkey” by Carole Nelson Douglas, and “Lightning Rod” by Melanie Tem Historically, in literature, women are stereotypically placed in one of two roles, the doting wife and beloved mother, or the more outwardly psychotic, witch-like, temptress. As the feminist approach to the criticism of literature has blossomed over time, the need for empowered female characters has surfaced. To rectify the absence of this character, “wild women literature” has made many advances in the defiance of gender role stereotypes and gender norms. The women in the collection of wild women short stories are difficult to define because of society’s pre-conceived notions of how women should and do behave. The term “wild women” conveys a slightly negative and sometimes misinterpreted connotation of a woman’s behavior; however, in this collection of stories, the female characters are generally vindicated because of the motivation behind their actions. The motivation can be linked to the popular cultural phenomenon of women taking charge of their lives, making decisions for themselves, being independent, rising above their oppressors (most commonly the close men in their lives), and becoming empowered. Vigilante actions by the wild women in these stories are not entirely representative of madness, but also re...
It is known by many that, in regards to literature coming out of the South, female characters traditionally do not receive as much attention or detail as their male counterparts. Harry Crews does not, as one might say, “stray far from the path” of male dominated prose. However, this is not to say that there are only few women present in his writing, in fact quite the contrary. Women are not only present in Crews’s work, they are vividly entwined with the experiences and fiery outcomes of his male protagonist’s journeys; and A Feast of Snakes is no different. In “Having a Hard Time of it: Women in the Novels of Harry Crews,” an essay written by Elise S. Lake, Lake examines that even though some may interpret Crews as using women strictly in disrespectful or obscene ways for the advancement of his male characters, that “sheer variety disputes the notion that Crews stereotypes women narrowly” (84). We see a multitude of angles and personalities in A Feast of Snakes alone, including: Lottie Mae and Beeder acting as an empathy release valve; the abused wife, Elfie; the ultimate cheerleader/ catalyst, Berenice; and finally the vicious sexual icons Hard Candy and Susan Gender.
In London, on May 13, 1907, Daphne du Maurier was born to Gerald du Maurier and Muriel Beaumont. As a young girl, Daphne grew up around creative thinking. Her grandfather, George du Maurier, was a cartoonist and author. Daphne's own parents, sister and half sister were actors. Although she did not also become an actress, Daphne also contributed to the arts of the family. She was educated privately in England and France, and then began writing short poems at the age of 19. At 22, Daphne's first book was published, The Loving Spirit. Her two most famous novels happened to be Jamaica Inn and Rebecca. Taking after her grandfather, Daphne clearly enjoyed the occupation of authorship. However, she did take some time off of writing to become a war worker in World War II. Growing up in Kent, Daphne had an extreme change of setting when she married her husband, Major Frederick A.M. Browning. The couple moved to Alexandria, Egypt after their marriage, where Daphne wrote Rebecca. Soon after, Daphne began to be known as Lady Browning when her husband was knighted. With Mr. Browning, Daphne had three children, Tess, Flavia, and Christian. Although happily married, Daphne du Maurier had a few lady lovers throughout her life. With blonde hair...
From a young age, she was always interested in history. She and her family often visited Cornwall, a British seaside holiday destination, and she was fascinated by its bountiful history (Shallcross 54). It is said, “the richness and romance of local legends captured her vivid imagination and stimulated her creative powers”, and she was always eager to “listen to the elderly and their stories of forgotten days” (Shallcross 56). It is also Cornwall where Menabilly, a historic estate that du Maurier relished as an adolescent and later purchased, is located. In her book, Letters from Menabilly: Portrait of a Friendship, Oriel Malet, du Maurier’s French pen pal, describes Menabilly as “one of these houses, in which layers of time seemed to have worn thin in places, so that the past now and then showed through”. After her father passed away and her husband was away for months at a time, du Maurier spent much of her time at Menabilly discussing the past with her mother and sisters (Shallcross
Society continually places restrictive standards on the female gender not only fifty years ago, but in today’s society as well. While many women have overcome many unfair prejudices and oppressions in the last fifty or so years, late nineteenth and early twentieth century women were forced to deal with a less understanding culture. In its various formulations, patriarchy posits men's traits and/or intentions as the cause of women's oppression. This way of thinking diverts attention from theorizing the social relations that place women in a disadvantageous position in every sphere of life and channels it towards men as the cause of women's oppression (Gimenez). Different people had many ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities amound women, including expressing their voices and opinions through their literature. By writing stories such as Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic that took a major toll in American History. In this essay, I am going to compare Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” to James’ “Daisy Miller” as portraits of American women in peril and also the men that had a great influence.
...literature and media that challenge those expectations can shift society’s opinions. Carson McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Café uses two characters that exhibit the typical characteristics of the opposite gender and how they are perceived by their society as opposed to a character that meets all of his gender’s expectations. In doing so, McCullers presents her readers with a woman who, despite lacking femininity, leads a relatively successful life. This could influence readers and society as a whole to move towards a more progressive view of gender roles where women did not have to be like the housewives that were portrayed in many of the media during that time. Because people are constantly influenced by the media and how it says they should live, stories that feature women who do not follow the gender norm can be very influential to the audiences that read them.
Adèle Ratignolle uses art to beautify her home. Madame Ratignolle represents the ideal mother-woman (Bloom 119). Her chief concerns and interests are for her husband and children. She was society’s model of a woman’s role. Madame Ratignolle’s purpose for playing the pia...
Katherine Mansfield belongs to a group of female authors that have used their financial resources and social standing to critique the patriarchal status quo. Like Virginia Woolf, Mansfield was socioeconomically privileged enough to write influential texts that have been deemed as ‘proto-feminist’ before the initial feminist movements. The progressive era in which Mansfield writes proves to be especially problematic because, “[w]hile the Modernist tradition typically undermined middle-class values, women … did not have the recognized rights necessary to fully embrace the liberation from the[se] values” (Martin 69). Her short stories emphasized particular facets of female oppression, ranging from gendered social inequality to economic classism, and it is apparent that “[p]oor or rich, single or married, Mansfield’s women characters are all victims of their society” (Aihong 101). Mansfield’s short stories, “The Garden Party” and “Miss Brill”, represent the feminist struggle to identify traditional patriarchy as an inherent caste system in modernity. This notion is exemplified through the social bonds women create, the naïve innocence associated with the upper classes, and the purposeful dehumanization of women through oppressive patriarchal methods. By examining the female characters in “The Garden Party” and “Miss Brill”, it is evident that their relationships with other characters and themselves notify the reader of their encultured classist preconceptions, which is beneficial to analyze before discussing the sources of oppression.
How does one compare the life of women to men in late nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century America? In this time the rights of women were progressing in the United States and there were two important authors, Kate Chopin and John Steinbeck. These authors may have shown the readers a glimpse of the inner sentiments of women in that time. They both wrote a fictitious story about women’s restraints by a masculine driven society that may have some realism to what women’s inequities may have been. The trials of the protagonists in both narratives are distinctive in many ways, only similar when it totals the macho goaded culture of that time. Even so, In Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing we hold two unlike fictional characters in two very different short stories similar to Elisa Allen in the “Chrysanthemums” and Mrs. Louise Mallard in “The Story of an Hour”, that have unusual struggles that came from the same sort of antagonist.
Throughout time women have been written as the lesser sex, weaker, secondary characters. They are portrayed as dumb, stupid, and nothing more than their fading beauty. They are written as if they need to be saved or helped because they cannot help themselves. Women, such as Daisy Buchanan who believes all a woman can be is a “beautiful little fool”, Mrs Mallard who quite died when she lost her freedom from her husband, Eliza Perkins who rights the main character a woman who is a mental health patient who happens to be a woman being locked up by her husband, and then Carlos Andres Gomez who recognizes the sexism problem and wants to change it. Women in The Great Gatsby, “The Story of an Hour,” “The Yellow Wall Paper” and the poem “When” are oppressed because the fundamental concept of equality that America is based on undermines gender equality.
“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.
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 nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.
Throughout literature’s history, female authors have been hardly recognized for their groundbreaking and eye-opening accounts of what it means to be a woman of society. In most cases of early literature, women are portrayed as weak and unintelligent characters who rely solely on their male counterparts. Also during this time period, it would be shocking to have women character in some stories, especially since their purpose is only secondary to that of the male protagonist. But, in the late 17th to early 18th century, a crop of courageous women began publishing their works, beginning the literary feminist movement. Together, Aphra Behn, Charlotte Smith, Fanny Burney, and Mary Wollstonecraft challenge the status quo of what it means to be a