Validity of Names in Machiavelli’s Prince and Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex People often drop names to assure the achievement of whatever goal it is they are trying to achieve. This tactic works especially well in business, but it can also work in argument. Names of influential people have influential affects. “I know Don Corleone,” would certainly have gotten nearly anything done in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Both Simone de Beauvoir and Niccolò Machiavelli used the names of well-known people
literature of the time. Women, who did not have as many outlets as they do today, expressed their political opinions through literature itself. Although feminist texts existed before the end of the century, women writers in the final decade were seen as more threatening to the dominant patriarchal system. Following the overthrow of the government in France, women in Britain believed that "a revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions was possible in their own country" (5). Writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft
“Cut” Sylvia Plath Persona In terms of content the persona in “Cut” is Sylvia Plath herself. Plath was one of the first American women writers to refuse to conceal her true emotions. In articulating her aggression, hostility and despair in her art, she effectively challenged the traditional literary prioritization of female experience. Plath has experienced much melancholy and depression in her life. Scenario The scenario of the poem starts off in a seemingly domestic scene, perhaps preparing
song, "Talk to Me Now," expresses a feminist’s view on a woman’s determination to live her life in a world often dominated by males. The theme of the life cycle and its numerous manifestations is frequently found in feminist poetry. It seems that women writers are particularly intrigued by the subject of life and death perhaps because they are the sex which have the unique role of giving birth to the next generation. In the works of Sylvia Plath, Stevie Smith, and Ani DiFranco, the symbols of blood and
serious at the same time: as a reader, she worries about the state of the writer, and particularly the state of the female writer. She worries so much, in fact, that she fills a hundred some pages musing about how her appetite for "books in the bulk" might be satiated in the future by women writers. Her concerns may be those of a reader, but the solution she proffers comes straight from the ethos of an experienced writer. "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction
and The Color Purple, the two novels embody many similar concerns and methods. Hurston and Walker write of the experience of uneducated rural southern black women. They find a wisdom that can transform our communal relations and our spiritual lives. As Celie in The Color Purple says, referring to God: "If he ever listened to poor colored women the world would be a different place, I can tell you." Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God depicts the process of a woman's coming to consciousness, finding
Unfulfilled Edna of The Awakening As evidenced in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and other novels of the 1800’s, women writers of this period seem to feel very repressed. Leonce Pontellier seemed to be fond of his wife, and treated her as one would treat a loved pet. In the beginning of the story it describes him as looking at her as a “valuable piece of personal property”. He does not value her fully as a human being more as a piece of property. However, he expects her to be everything he thinks
Room of One's Own in 1929, the 80 plus year period brought tremendous change to literature and for women authors. In the early Victorian era when women writers were not accepted as legitimate, Emily Bronte found it necessary to pen her novel under the name "Mr. Ellis Bell" according to a newspaper review from 1848 (WH 301). According to The Longman Anthology of British Literature, "Women had few opportunities for higher education or satisfying employment" (1794) and the "ideal Victorian
storytelling and turning it upside down in order to dig through to its core - its very essence - and fill it in with her own art. The resultant caves are denser, more detailed and, consequently, often darker than the literary creations of other women writers of her time. To craft them, Woolf manipulates both the direction and span of time, includes literary allusions, and crafts her sentences so as to better develop her characters' relationships to her themes and each other. In A Sketch
When we think of women writers today we see successful, gifted and talented women. Although these women writers have been established for sometime their status of contributions to society has only been recognized way too late. During the late romantic/early realism period numerous women found success in writing despite the fact that they may have encountered numerous obstacles in their path. The characters these women wrote about almost have a kinship with themselves bringing out certain personality
takes place during the early nineteen hundreds when most women did not attend a university. There was great inequality of those who attended school because men had control over all the money. The men in society either received money from inheritances, or from industrial occupations, as Woolf mentions in her quote. Woolf’s essay focuses on the inequality of female writers’ recognition compared to men’s. She points out the fact that women writers were not very recognized by society because of their gender
Cultural Healing in Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko is a Native American from New Mexico and is part of the Laguna tribe. She received a MacArthur "genius" award and was considered one of the 135 most significant women writers ever. Her home state has named her a living cultural treasure. (Jaskoski, 1) Her well-known novel Ceremony follows a half-breed named Tayo through his realization and healing process that he desperately needs when he returns from the horrors of World War II. This
the most noted. However, recent studies have provided modern scholars with a wide variety of medieval women writers from all over Europe and a few in England. The most widely anthologized English female writer is Julian of Norwich. Julian was an anchoress, and as Marcelle Thiebaux notes, "The anchorite movement was widespread in England from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. Both men and women chose this extreme form of asceticism, which was favored and encouraged by the crown, the church, and
focuses on unnecessary details, and even contradicts herself from time to time. Why does Woolf, a competent writer, decide to write this way? Perhaps, her unorthodox style supports her perception on the difficulties that exists in women becoming serious writers. Her writing style constructs a relationship between her essay and women writers; it shows the reader that for women to become a writer without a "a room of one's own" is just as unconventional as her writing style. With both her words and her
relationship—and women’s attachments with one another and then moves to the local colorists of the post-Civil War who claimed male and female models but who wrote that motherhood was not a suitable partner for the true artist. According to these women writers, a woman had to choose to be either an artist or a wife and mother; one negatively affected the other. The literary history then delves...
Faulkner: A Life on Paper presents Faulkner as a struggling writer, father, and human being. He was moody, a periodic alcoholic, often in debt, affected in manner, and seemingly unable to make and retain significant relationships. Yet despite his apparent failings as a man (or perhaps because of them), Faulkner is perhaps the most successful and influential American literary artist of the 20th-century. Faulkner paved the way for many women writers to take up their pens and continue his literary quest into
and The Yellow Wallpaper Topics of great social impact have been dealt with in many different ways and in many different mediums. Beginning with the first women’s movement in the 1850’s, the role of women in society has been constantly written about, protested, and debated. Two women writers who have had the most impact in the on-going women’s movement are Kate Chopin and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper are two of feminist literature’s cornerstones and have
Indian women writers A world of words, lost and found: a brief overview of women's literature in India from the 6th century BC onwards The Vedas cry aloud, the Puranas shout; "No good may come to a woman." I was born with a woman's body How am I to attain truth? "They are foolish, seductive, deceptive - Any connection with a woman is disastrous." Bahina says, "If a woman's body is so harmful, How in the world will I reach truth?" Much of the world's literature has been dominated by
written by American minority authors is pedagogic, not toward the dominant culture, but for the minority cultures of which they are members. These authors realize that the dominant culture has misrepresented minority history, and it is the minority writers' burden to undertake the challenge of setting the record straight to strengthen and heal their own cultures. Unfortunately, many minorities are ambivalent because they vacillate between assimilation (thereby losing their separateness and cultural
A Feminist Perspective of Paulina in The Winter's Tale Feminist criticism explores gender themes in literature, assesses the worth of female characters, promotes unknown women writers, and interprets the canon from a politically-charged perspective. Shakespeare has proven more difficult to categorize than other white male masters of the written word, precisely because of the humanity of his female characters. Critic Kathleen McLuskie urges feminists to "assert the power of resistance, subverting