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Relationship of social class to education
Gender roles in the Renaissance era
Relationship of social class to education
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In the historical accounts, which often read like a novel, of The Burgermeister's Daughter, Steven Ozment reveals to us the trials and tribulations of the Buschler family, and most specifically the hardships that fell upon the youngest daughter of the family, Anna. The Burgermeister's Daughter tells an intricate story, as well as revealing to the reader the world that a woman in the 16th century must live in. One key theme in The Burgermeister's Daughter is the treatment of women, and the role of social status in the pre-modern age. While in the prior decades women's rights seemed to be getting better, in the 16th century, a lot of those rights had been stripped away. The sheer hypocrisy of the people in this German society at the time was astounding, and the double standards by which men and women lived were difficult to even fathom as a modern day reader.
Anna was born into an upper-class family with a high social standing, being that her father was regarded with high political favor, and was, in fact, the Burgermeister. Anna, because of her status, was welcomed into the l...
Anna’s older sister Margaret had a baby girl. Anna’s father owned a vineyard and was a wine merchant, while Anna mother was a stay at home mother.
The Burgermeister’s Daughter by Steven Ozment gives a thorough account of the story of a sixteenth century German woman who defied social norms. Contrary to the expected behavior of respectable women during the time, Anna Buschler had affairs with two different men at the same time. When her father, who also happens to be the Burgermeister, discovered Ann’s secret affairs and they became well known to the public, he banished and disinherited her. However, the deviant Anna was not going to accept defeat lying down. Instead she took up charges of abandonment and abuse against her father, leading to a legal battle over her inheritance that lasted decades long. Through his analysis of love letters and legal documents, Steven Ozment recreates Anna’s
Women had important roles in seventeenth century Eastern Europe; they were mothers, wives, and businesswomen. They cooked meals, cleaned houses, and educated children. In addition to the domestic roles women played in society, they also played roles in the trade and commerce. Gluckel of Hameln authored one of the earliest-known Jewish memoirs detailing the rise and fall of her own fortunes (Schachter.) She had great judgment for business transactions, and when she was widowed at age 54 she took over her husband’s business to ensure her children’s future. In her memoir, Gluckel describes her marriage as a business partnership, boasting that her husband would turn only to her for business advice. Jewish women of Eastern Europe were far more influential than the commonly believed. In addition to being housewives and having the daily responsibility of cleaning the house, they were also businesswomen and religious teachers. Gluckel of Hameln’s autobiography was a powerful story that showed the importance of hard work, religion, and family to the common Jew in a Christian dominated Germany.
Gluckel's memoir enables a reader to gain an understanding of what a widowed Jewish woman would face in Christian dominated Germany both from a personal and public perspective throughout seventeenth and eighteenth century. Throughout her memoirs Gluckel describes the worries that a mother would have over her children, her relations with both her first and second husband while addressing the responsibilities she faced as a businesswoman. Gluckel arranged her life narrative in seven books. The first four books and the opening section of the fifth book have been written consecutively in the months or year of mourning after Haim's (her first husbands) death in 1689. The rest of Book 5 was written during the decade of the 1690's but given final form after her second marriage. The sixth book was written in 1702 or shortly afterward, during the initial shock of Hirsch Levy's (Gluckel's second husbands) bankruptcy in Metz, and the seventh and final book was composed in 1715, during her second widowhood, with a final paragraph from 1719 before her death. Gluckel has conveniently broken down her narratives in seven books, which help the reader clearly identify with individual aspects occurring in her life. In her memoirs Gluckel thoroughly encompasses a social, cultural and economical perspective about her life as a Jewish woman while contrasting it to Christian ways which dominated Germany during both 17th and 18th century.
Drawn from her surviving love letters and court records, The Burgermeister's Daughter is an engaging examination of the politics of sexuality, gender and family in the 16th century, and a supreme testament to the grit and perseverance of a woman who challenged the inequalities of this distant age. The story, in Steven Ozment's meticulous and experienced hands, goes well beyond the litigious Anna to encompass much else about the 16th century, including the nature of sexual morality, the social individuality of men and women, the jockeying for power between the upwardly striving bourgeoisie and the downward sliding nobility, and the aftereffect of the reformation on private life. Steven Ozment's understanding of the Medieval German society and its effects on its citizens is amazing. Steven Ozment brings a medieval drama to life in this extensively researched and absorbing account of the 30-year lawsuit between Anna Buschler and her family. Anna's father was the Burgermeister (mayor) of the German town of Schwabisch Hall. He banished his daughter from the family home in 1525 after he read letters that proved her sexual connection with two men. Anna responded by suing her father. Anna Buschler looked predestined to a comfortable and serene life, not one of constant personal and legal conflict. Born into an eminent and respectable family, self-confident and high-spirited in her youth, and a woman of acknowledged beauty, she had a standing as the beauty of her hometown, and as something of a free soul. In an era when women were presumed to be disciplined and loyal, Anna proved to be neither. Defying 16th-century social mores, she was the constant subject of defamation because of her indecent dress and flirtatious behavior. When her we...
“German Women and the Revolution of 1848” is written by Stanley Zucker. The thesis of this article is: Women’s role in Germany, the Humania association with Kathinka Zitz as the leader was not publically an advocate to women being more than just housewives. But Zitz i...
What was the predominant image of women and women’s place in medieval society? Actual historical events, such as the scandal and subsequent litigation revolving around Anna Buschler which Steven Ozment detail’s in the Burgermeisters Daughter, suggests something off a compromise between these two literary extremes. It is easy to say that life in the sixteenth century was surely no utopia for women but at least they had some rights.
Arthur Schnitzler's 1895 play `Liebelei' provoked mass controversy within the Viennese upper class upon its premier in the `Burgtheater', as did many of his plays. This reaction could in part be explained by Schnitzler's "frank description of sexuality"¹ and his crudely realistic portrayal of Viennese society at that time through his application of very common personalities for his characters. In this essay, I intend to demonstrate the insight which Schnitzler gives the reader through the characters of `Liebelei', into Viennese society at the turn of the century.
With the spread of the Nazi’s “national community” or Volksgemeinschaft ideology in the 1930s, came strict definitions from the Nazi party of what it meant to be German. Opposing the independent “new women” promoted in the 1920s by the Weimar Republic, the Nazi’s idea of womanhood was centered around creating a strong nation by pushing women to be mothers and maintain the household. In this way, those mothers could raise strong soldiers that could serve and protect Nazi Germany. While in contrast, Elsa Herrmann description of a “new woman” in a 1929 book, describes a woman focused on the present and actions such as entering the workforce. Most importantly, and the main reason the Nazis rejected the image of the “new woman,” is that the “new
After a long struggle to have some rights, women were not given the right to vote until 1920. For many centuries women have been controlled by men by being told what they can and cannot do. The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is considered a feminist piece through the narrators husband’s words and actions, the environment she stayed in, and the narrator’s own words.
Throughout history, women have struggled with, and fought against oppression. They have been held back and weighed down by the sexist ideas of a male dominated society which has controlled cultural, economic and political ideas and structure. During the mid-1800’s to early 1900’s women became more vocal and rebuked sexism and the role that had been defined for them. Fighting with the powerful written word, women sought a voice, equality amongst men and an identity outside of their family. In many literary writings, especially by women, during the mid-1800’s to early 1900’s, we see symbols of oppression and the search for gender equality in society. Writing based on their own experiences, had it not been for the works of Susan Glaspell, Kate Chopin, and similar feminist authors of their time, we may not have seen a reform movement to improve gender roles in a culture in which women had been overshadowed by men.
The movement for female right is one of the important social issue and it is ongoing reaction against the traditional male definition of woman. In most civilizations there was very unequal treatment between women and men with the expectation being that women should simply stay in the house and let the men support them. A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, and Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, are two well-known plays that give rise to discussions over male-female relationships. In both stories, they illustrate the similar perspectives on how men repress women in their marriages; men consider that women should obey them and their respective on their wives is oppressed showing the problems in two marriages that described in two plays. Therefore, in this essay, I will compare two similar but contrast stories; A Doll's House and Trifles, focusing on how they describe the problems in marriage related to women as victims of suppressed right.
Perhaps one of the most haunting and compelling parts of Sanders-Brahms’ film Germany Pale Mother (1979) is the nearly twenty minute long telling of The Robber Bridegroom. The structual purpose of the sequence is a bridge between the marriage of Lene and Hans, who battles at the war’s front, and the decline of the marriage during the post-war period. Symbolically the fairy tale, called the “mad monstrosity in the middle of the film,” by Sanders Brahms (Kaes, 149), offers a diagetic forum for with which to deal with the crimes of Nazi Germany, as well a internally fictional parallel of Lene’s marriage.
In the past, literature for women strove to reinforce the culturally approved ideas of femininity. Tremendous volumes of literature were written to reinforce appropriate female behaviour. By the mid-eighteenth century, the ideological division of women into two classes, the virtuous and the fallen, was well developed (Armstrong, 18). Literature often portrayed both of these women, with the virtuous triumphing at the end and the fallen receiving her appropriate punishment. Chopin followe...
The role of women has changed significantly throughout history, driven by women who took risks in setting examples for others to follow. Henrik Isben, author of A Doll's House, said “ A woman cannot be herself in society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view” (Innes 147). This proves that Isben was aware of male dominance in society during that time period. In his drama, “A Doll's House,” it deals with gender favoritism and male dominance.