Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Women during the Renaissance era
Women during the Renaissance era
The Renaissance time period women
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Women during the Renaissance era
“Agayn my los, I will have esement”:
Reclaiming Agency After a Fungibility-sanctioned Sexual Assault in The Reeve’s Tale
The miller’s daughter Malyne falls victim to the patriarchy’s denial of her personage, both through her father’s relegation of her as property and Cambridge law student Aleyn’s sexual reduction of her as a commodity. The latter denies her a chance to consent during his assault of her, as though she is an inanimate object that he may use how he pleases. As a woman, she is her father’s property under medieval law rather than a person of her own accord, meaning that a man does not need to gain her permission to engage with her but rather that of her father. However, as Aleyn wishes to exact revenge upon her father, this fungibility further allows him to consider his violation of her not as an atrocity against another human being but a crime against her father’s property (Barnett 6). Knowing her father’s theft instigated her assault, Malyne is willing to further the clerks’
…show more content…
Though ignorant about who is really her sexual participant, Symkin’s wife can tell that this encounter is different: “Withinne a while this John the clerk up leep,/ And on this goode wyf he leith on soore./ So myrie a fit ne hadde she nat ful yoore” (4228-30). Therefore, the sanguine wife takes advantage of this exceptional opportunity to actually enjoy sex, possibly for the very first time. However, just because she seems to have gained pleasure from the incident does not erase the coerced nature of their affair, nor does it disprove that it was a sexual assault. It still constitutes as a rape act against the wife because she engages with the act under false pretenses regarding the instigator’s identity, having been coerced to cater to a stranger’s desire without her
In Anne Orthwood’s Bastard: Sex and Law in Early Virginia, John Pagan sets out to examine the complexities of the legal system on the Eastern Shore in the seventeenth- century. He brings to light the growing differences between the English and Virginia legal systems. Pagan, an early American legal historian at the University of Richmond School of Law, spins a tragic story on the legalities surrounding an instance of out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Indentured servant Anne Orthwood’s brief encounter with a man of higher social standing produced a series of four court cases. Pagan examines each case and persons involved, vividly connecting each case to larger themes of social class, gender, labor, and economic power.
In The Murder of Helen Jewett, Patricia Cohen uses one of the most trivial murders during the 1800’s to illustrate the sexiest society accommodations to the privileged, hypocritical tunneled views toward sexual behavior, and the exploitation of legal codes, use of tabloid journalism, and politics. Taking the fact that woman was made from taking a rib from man was more than biblical knowledge, but incorporated into the male belief that a woman’s place is determined by the man. Helen had the proper rearing a maid servant, but how did she fall so far from grace. Judge Weston properly takes credit for rearing her with the proper strictness and education. Was Helen seduced at an early age and introduced to sexual perversions that were more persuasive that the bible belt life that the Weston’s tried to live? Was Helen simply a woman who knew how to use what she had to get what she wanted? Through personal correspondence, legal documentation, census reports, paintings, and newspapers we are able to make our own determinations. Cohen provides more than enough background and history to allow any one to make their own opinion how the murder of a woman could be turned into a side show at a circus.
John Ruston Pagan’s book, Anne Orthwood’s Bastard, is split into sections describing the different components of sex and law in early Virginia. Pagan describes these components through the story of Anne Orthwood, John Kendall, and their bastard son, Jasper. Anne Orthwood was born an illegitimate child. There was much shame and disgrace for illegitimate children. Although illegitimacy made Anne’s life especially hard, she also faced the same pressures as other members of her generation. Her generation was dealing with shortages of land and labor; increasing prices, rent, and unemployment rates; and declining wages. These struggles caused many people to emigrate from Britain to the Americas.
Melton McLaurin’s book Celia, A Slave is the account of the trial, conviction, and execution of a female slave for the murder of her “master” Robert Newsom in 1855. The author uses evidence compiled through studying documents from Callaway County, Missouri and the surrounding area during the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Although much of what can be determine about this event is merely speculation, McLaurin proposes arguments for the different motives that contribute to the way in which many of the events unfold. Now throughout the book the “main characters”, being Celia, her lawyer Jameson, and the judge William Hall, are all faced with moral decisions that affect the lives of two different people.
Both syntax and diction were largely presented as Polly Baker threw rhetorical questions of why she was being punished legally if it was only supposed to be a religious punishment. Even including that God, himself, helped make her children, even though it was a crime to have children without being married, and her children nicknamed, “Bastard Children.” When all put together “The Speech of Miss Polly Baker” creates a passionate tone that is fighting against the injustice of the judicial system at that
Sandy Wilson, the author of Daddy’s Apprentice: incest, corruption, and betrayal: a survivor’s story, was the victim of not only sexual abuse but physical and emotional abuse as well, in addition to being a product of incest. Sandy Wilson’s story began when she was about six years old when her birth father returns home from incarceration, and spans into her late teens. Her father returning home from prison was her first time meeting him, as she was wondered what he looked like after hearing that he would be released (Wilson, 2000, p. 8). Not only was her relationship with her father non-existent, her relationship with her birth mother was as well since she was for most of her young life, cared for by her grandmother and grandfather. When she was told that her birth mother coming to visit she says, “…I wish my mother wouldn’t visit. I never know what to call her so I don’t all her anything. Not her name, Kristen. Not mother. Not anything (Wilson, 2000, p. 4).” This quote essentially demonstrated the relationship between Sandy and her mother as one that is nonexistent even though Sandy recognizes Kristen as her birth mother.
Anna’s story suggests a rather empowered woman, largely thanks to a Germanic legal tradition, which made women’s basic rights, and kept men from treating them like they were their own property. Anna had faced many difficulties, particularly the fact that as an unprofessional single woman, she needed a male to represent her in court (Burgermeisters Daughter, 111). Had she been a professional woman with marketable skills, Anna would have received “proper legal status”, evidence of some amount of equal rights between male and female.
She then moves on to be a gracious host to all of these men, again showing success in her womanly duties. Later that night one of the visitors, Sextus Tarquinis, comes into her room, and forces himself upon her, telling her that if she does not comply he will make it look like she had an affair with one of the servants (Livy, 101). She yields to him because she does not want it to seem as if she had an affair and is not able to explain what occurred.... ... middle of paper ...
Giese, Loreen L. "Malvolio's Yellow Stockings: Coding Illicit Sexuality in Early Modern London." Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England: An Annual Gathering of Research, Criticism and Reviews 19 (2006): 235-246. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 6 Nov. 2009.
Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing is, on the surface, a typical romantic comedy with a love-plot that ends in reconciliation and marriage. This surface level conformity to the conventions of the genre, however, conceals a deeper difference that sets Much Ado apart. Unlike Shakespeare’s other romantic comedies, Much Ado about Nothing does not mask class divisions by incorporating them into an idealized community. Instead of concealing or obscuring the problem of social status, the play brings it up explicitly through a minor but important character, Margaret, Hero’s “waiting gentlewoman.” Shakespeare suggests that Margaret is an embodiment of the realistic nature of social class. Despite her ambition, she is unable to move up in hierarchy due to her identity as a maid. Her status, foiling Hero’s rich, protected upbringing, reveals that characters in the play, as well as global citizens, are ultimately oppressed by social relations and social norms despite any ambition to get out.
By being called “slaves”, the twelve hanged, desperate and angered maids have their social rights, their political rights, and their economic rights stripped from them relieving them of their duties as human beings, leaving them to rot on Earth and in Hell. By using the words “cold blood”, the author illustrates the murderer as being emotionally detached and having the cruel intent to torture the maids and have them embarrassed and ridiculed. The fact that the attorney only has to mention that it was “within his rights” to kill women without a blink of an eye shows the reader the patriarchal world these desolate souls had to live on, get r...
In Ernest Hemingway’s work “Up in Michigan” the question of consent arises. The character Liz Coates has romantic feelings for a Jim Gilmore, the town blacksmith. Liz thinks her existence is unknown to Jim but, in the text it says, “He liked her face because it was so jolly but he never thought about her.” Liz goes as far as watching him wash up and thinking of him at night instead of sleeping. Liz’s feelings for him go unrequited for a time until Jim’s return from a hunting trip. The men are drinking and celebrating the hunt in the front room with four-gallons of whiskey. After supper Liz waits in the kitchen for Jim, in the text it says that she wants to take the way he looked up to bed with her. When Jim emerges from the front room he goes
The Wife’s Lament and Judith are examples of Old English texts which include women who face difficulties as a result of their femininity, whereas the Middle English text The Miller’s Tale includes a woman who, it seems, will inevitably commit adultery as a result of her femininity, something which the narrator makes a point of warning male readers about.
A just crime was committed out of hopelessness by a 19-year-old slave named Celia who had been a victim of her master’s constant sexual abuse since the age of fourteen, murdered her master Robert Newsom. Unfortunately it happen in the midst of turbulent political times because of the slavery struggles in the neighboring state, this was one of the many factors that influenced the outcome of Celia’s trial, which did not seem to be in her favor, for at the time slaves were seen as nothing more than property, so in order to rule in Celia’s favor they would have to recognize them as people, which would have raised significant questions about the right of slaves to fight back against their owners abuse. McLaurin provides a great insight into the hardships faced by slaves, especially females to whom being raped was a reality and why the ruling against Celia and her execution came as no surprise.
The play Trifles and the short story “A Jury of Her Peers” were written by Susan Glaspell. Glaspell was a feminist writer who used her writing talent to illustrate the widespread inequality between the men and women of the time. She wrote the play in 1916 and a year later adapted it into the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”. Glaspell’s inspiration for these pieces was an actual event in which a woman murdered her husband that she had covered when she was a reporter. The themes Susan Glaspell is most concerned with are female oppression, patriarchal dominance, and revenge. At that time in history, society was very much patriarchal. It was a time when women were expected to be quiet and obey and trust their husbands completely. The play and