Women and Men in Aphra Behn's "The Rover" Act one of the rover opens with two scenes which indicate that men and women occupy very different spheres. Compare and contrast the men and women in Act 1 scene1 and Act 1 scene 2. Aphra Behn sets the first scene of her play within a chamber in order to introduce a domestic sphere, allowing the audience to gain direct information about the characters and their inner views and ideas as they are hidden from the outside world. Consequently Behn is able to communicate to the audience the difficulties of a patriarchal society, this is portrayed by Helena and Florinda’s behaviour towards their brother, Pedro, who although maintains status due to his gender and possesses power over his sisters, he is challenged and opposed by Helena, which becomes clear through her use of language in addition to her actions and behaviour in scene 2. We are instantly provided with the differences between men and women within society; where Pedro views the purpose of marriage to gain status and the importance of marrying a well known man, Florinda challenges his opinion as she is in love with Belvile and therefore desires to follow her heart and remain faithful to him, regardless of his background and place in society. Nevertheless, society empowers Pedro due to his gender therefore allowing him to maintain authority over his sisters, which is explicit by the force Florinda is exposed to, ensuring she is to marry Don Antonio, in which Pedro declares she ‘must do tomorrow’, evidently we recognise the control and authority a man embodies due to his place in society. The women in the play as demonstrated by Helena and Florinda are not only discontented with the decisions made for the... ... middle of paper ... ...idently she has trapped him as she states ‘if I understand my trade he’s mine’, thus although she is a prostitute she has power over him as he thirsts to make love to her. Similarly Angelica Bianca is said to be in town, she possesses a lot of power over all men due to her beauty, Frederick states ‘’tis pretty to see how much love men regard her’, however, whether or not this is to be referred to as power can be argued, as men exploit her to receive sexual satisfaction, nevertheless the fact that they pay for her can be interpreted that she does have power over them due to the idea that she is gaining money from them. Furthermore, throughout this scene we are enlightened that Helena has conducted a sexual act with Willmore, thereby emphasising that she possesses power as she has gone against her family and her society as she is to be transformed to a nun.
about marriage that our society assumes to be true today. These include ideas about single
The Things They Carried Women and their Role in The Things They Carried Within the book The Thing’s They Carried, the stories of the male soldiers and their dealings with the Vietnam War. However, he also delves into the stories of the women and how they affected the soldiers and their experiences in Vietnam. While the men dealt with the horrors of war, the women were right at their side, just not in as much of a public view as the male soldiers. O’Brien uses women such as Martha, Linda and Kathleen in The Things They Carried to punctuate how vital remembrance and recompense was to him and other soldiers in Vietnam.
tries to make her disinterested in him so that again, he may concentrate on the
"secret words", and it gives him the ability to change to a man. Without her knowledge of
passing away. He begins to get scared of her at his first night at the
Although he has some trouble the first day, which include being beaten when he refuses to give up his seat, he quickly finds comfort in young woman by the name of...
He flirts with several women eventually sparking an interest in a prostitute. The Prostitute who goes by the name of, “sunny” gets frustrated ...
about his home and "forces" him to have sex with her every night. She is also
he satisfies his lust at any cost. He drives his wife to madness by bringing
use as his personal sex toy. There sex life fired into action and the two were
which are a set of vulture-like talons, and snatches him to her. She is intent
a man, cause he has to choose a wife for his mother, but for Penelope, she
plan and tells him to leave it to her. She's cunning as she uses words
A book I read recently and enjoyed was ‘Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus’ by John Gray. He is a very famous American author. It was a nonfiction book that was very famous and helped many people as a guide to make their relationships strong and improve communication. ‘Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus’ is a manual for loving relationships in the 1990s. One day, long ago the Martians, was looking through their telescope and found the Venusians. They fell in love and forgot about the differences.
Individuals who do not know what gender role they are disliked and shamed by society because they are not what society calls “normal”. The definition of normal is conforming to a standard or conforming to the expected. Society should not have the power to make an individual conform to anything. Does a person have to be born female to be female? The answer is simply no. Jenna Talackova is a prime example of this because she was born a man but knew he was a female from the beginning. These people who were born with a specific genetic gender have no control over their chemical make-up, but they do control what gender role they decide to be and no one should tell them to pick one that fits the normal standards of society. Judith Butler writes about gender is her book and how it should not be a preconceived notion. People who have non-normative gender roles struggle daily with the fact that they cannot express who they are because the public would disgrace them and society would not accept them, which are problems that can be solved by a simple lesson of not judging a book by its cover.