Breaking Gender Stereotypes in A Tale of Two Cities
The men and the women of A Tale of Two Cites are violent, loving, cowardly, brave, and ruthless. Some people are weak and spoiled, while others are badly treated and vindictive. Many contrasts between men and women can be found within this story.
A Tale of Two Cities clearly portrays very distinct divisions in the behavior of men. The aristocrats, or upperclassmen, rule and control all of France. The members of the aristocracy never have to undergo hardships; they always have everything presented to them on a silver platter. They do whatever they want with total disregard for the peasants. On the other hand, the peasants always have to work hard for everything in life. Due to the aristocracy, the peasants are constantly starving, enough as to drink spilt wine from a filthy street (24-26). They loathe the wealthy people who have created these horrible living conditions. This drives the peasants to revolution, and the decapitation of the aristocrats via the guillotine. They have a mob mentality and kill everyone who they believe is the enemy. Neither the aristocrats nor the peasants show any compassion toward the other social class.
Some men in A Tale of Two Cities contrast greatly. Sydney Carton is a drunk who works for an unappreciative lawyer. He has no family; he is "a disappointed drudge who cares for no man on earth, and no man cares for him" (75). He is referred to as "the Jackal" who is necessary in society, but not welcomed or wanted (77). Sydney loves Lucie Manette, but he is not ...
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...l of men. The oppressed male peasants join together to form a group of Jacques, or soldiers, to overthrow the aristocracy. The Jacques use The Defarge's wine-shop as a meeting place. Throughout the story, Madame Defarge is either murdering someone or knitting. She is always "sitting in her usual place in the wine-shop, knitting away assiduously" (162). Her friends are a twisted as she. Her closest confidant is known as The Vengeance. Both Madame Defarge and the Jacques fight until the end.
In A Tale of Two Cities, all gender stereotypes are broken. Women can be ruthless murderers and men can be passive cowards. La Guillotine is the sole authority in Paris, it is fueled by a mob mentality that recognizes class distinctions, not gender.
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
“Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions, then feel the answer. Learn to trust your heart.” Heart. Feelings. Trust. All of these concepts said by Carl W. Buechner are philosophies that are spoken of freely in the twenty-first century, where love is limitless and marriage is bound by no restraints. A rich man can easily fall in love with his maid. A poor couple can just as effortlessly run off and get married. However, during the turn of the nineteenth century, this was regarded as foolish, even outrageous. Marriage was for stability, for financial reliability. Love or the “heart” was not at all a necessity, nor even a component to the formula. Happiness in marriage was simply a rare bonus. But Jane Austen proves this contrary in her novel Pride and Prejudice. Her protagonist, Elizabeth, defies the social norm of acquiring a husband for the mere sake of security and instead looks for love. But Elizabeth is no weak, romanticized girl. Her “modern” outlook leads her ultimately to success. Other characters like Charlotte or Lydia will have lukewarm or cold marriages because there were no true feelings of love or even affection; thus, though financial stability is present in Charlotte’s case, there is no intrinsic relationship stability. With this in mind, Austen’s characters’ wide-ranging attributes indicate a wide spectrum of possible relationship developments, but the “happiest” marriage is exemplified in Elizabeth’s because hers is illuminated by full knowledge and mutual love, equating to a secure relationship.
The upper class men had all the wealth in the world at the tips of their fingers while the lower classes didn’t have two pennies to rub together. “… The rich should share with the poor, especially those rich persons who had acquired their property from trade or had otherwise won it from the poor.” (#8) The favoritism is eye-catching, it says that the nobles had won the land from the peasants but stereotypically upper classes have had the land in their family for generations. The trade among the people was unfair to the farmhands. The farmhands fashioned the land and “they were supposed to be brothers with one another” (#8) they should have the right to property and not have to just work it for the lords. On the contrary the upper class “purchased this right for a considerable sum of money… [if the peasants want to be released from their duties to us, nobles, then] the peasants shall pay us a reasonable amount of money.” (#4) Until the sharecroppers started attacking the nobles they “looked on, unaware that misfortune was creeping up on [the peasants]” (#11) Instead of the peasants adopting and modifying their way of life they challenged the nobles to a war and lost. A total amount of the souls that were consumed by the sinful acts of the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants was 100,000.
Mr. Darcy changes from disagreeable to agreeable after he asks Elizabeth to marry him but she declines because of his bad nature and atrocious manners towards her. Mr. Darcy is the most changed character throughout the novel because at the start of the book he is considered proud and arrogant by the people of Meryton at the ball but by the end of the novel he is considered passionate, pleasant and very well mannered. Mr. Darcy may have made an immense change for people to like him but characters like Mr. Bingley remain static through the entire book. One of Jane Austen’s main points in Pride and Prejudice was to make clear that change wasn’t acceptable back then.
to share in his wealth, is undoubtedly in search of a wife. In Pride and
At the beginning of the novel, Elizabeth Bennett’s first meeting with Mr. Darcy was marred by Mr. Darcy’s pride to which, “Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings towards him.” At the end of the novel, after Elizabeth learns the truth and unravels her prejudice against Darcy, she begins to realize that she does have feelings for him. During their first meeting
She does not need even a pleasing manner from her husband, as is evident from her choice in Mr. Collins. She does not believe that love is necessary for marriage and thinks that a woman should take the first opportunity offered to her in marriage, and, possibly it could lead to love. This is evident from her comments to Lizzie in reference to Jane and Mr. Bingley.
During a review by Vox, of the gender biases in Hollywood that were reported by the data visualization website Polygraph, over 2,000 movies underwent scrutiny in determining why men have more dialogue in movies, even in those that are supposed to be focused on the lead female characters. In what was stated to be one of the largest analyses of script reviews of all time, it was determined that the male characters within the study overrule women in over 78% of the analyzed films. This was concluded through a cross-analysis of character information such as name, gender, and age, with the information reported by the popular movie database, IMDB. The results of their study are astonishing. In the 2,005 screenplays across all movie genres that were reviewed by Polygraph, only two movies were delivered 100% by the lead female character. Conversely, the male dominated list has not only the largest number of results;
Mr Darcy is introduced to the novel in this chapter. He is one of the
The most prominent cause indicated by the literature for women’s leadership gap is the gender stereotype. A stereotype is a prejudice as a simplified description about their qualities and characteristics applied to every person in some category (Gray, 2010). Hence, gender stereotypes are simplified descriptions regarding the attributes of men and women. These can be divided into two groups: descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotypes. Descriptive gender stereotypes portray what women and men are like, whereas prescriptive gender stereotypes portray what women and men should be like (Heilman, 2012).
...she is so fickle and shallow. Instead of feeling sorry, the reader almost feels glad that her constant stream of meaningless and some times embarrassing phrases is checked by her husband's witty remarks and one-liners" (Trevor 354). A similar situation is created with Mr. Collins, whom Mr. Bennet is unashamedly amused by during his first call to Longbourn despite the seriousness that the visit carries. Mr. Bennet is glad that "his cousin was as absurd as he hoped" (Austen 60), and "the audience delights with him through that whole scene as he cleverly sets up Collins to make a complete fool out of himself" (Watt 299). It is a cruel endeavor, and yet still the reader stay's on Mr. Bennet's side readily partaking in his little sin.
Now this story probably stirred up many people because it is reasonably sound and shocking. However looking beyond the surface, one notices subtle innuendoes about females, males, and violence. In this urban legend, females are portrayed as weak, frightful, and naïve. Jane in seeking help from a male, suggest that she is weak and needed a man to protect her. This deceptive portrayal of females is typic...
single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
In the opening of Pride and Prejudice, the narrator claims that “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife; thus, foretelling that the theme of marriage will be the most dominant throughout the novel .This sentence is true because it is only logical to say so if one believes that the ultimate goal of a man or even a woman is to marry. However, this truth is fixed in the minds of the few families in the novel and thus, it is not a universal truth.
Gender stereotypes are basically rigid, oversimplified, exaggerated beliefs about masculinity and femininity that misrepresent men and women alike. Our perceptions are shaped by the culture in which those stereotypes lie. Those expected behaviors often become the expected realities of people. How do said expectations change when encountering people that do not quite fit the dichotomous binary? How do they differ across cultures and through various social prisms? Seeing as how gender is quite complex as opposed to static, how are they incorporated into the intersections in which they relate to? While I completely agree that gender stereotypes are rigid, I do see that their meanings can be altered in response to the social contexts and patterns that they are existing in.