scholarly journals Hothouse Victorians: Art and Agency in Freshwater

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-193
Author(s):  
Kristine Swenson
Keyword(s):  
Gender Norms ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Isle Of Wight ◽  
To The Lighthouse ◽  
Alice In Wonderland ◽  
Artistic Freedom ◽  
Charles Dodgson

Abstract The Victorian artistic community that grew up on the Isle of Wight around Tennyson and Julia Margaret Cameron has been reimagined in Virginia Woolf's play, Freshwater (1923, 1935), and more recently in Lynn Truss's novel, Tennyson's Gift (1996). Whereas Freshwater should be read as modernist or post- Victorian, Tennyson's Gift is neo-Victorian and postmodern in its form and attitude. Integral to both are the discontent of women and the disruption of gender norms. Therefore, this essay looks particularly at the question of female agency in a Victorian world envisioned in 1923-35 and one of 1996. In Freshwater, one sees a serious exploration of generational change and the desire for artistic freedom, especially through the character of Ellen Terry. Freshwater is a dress rehearsal for To the Lighthouse. Truss reimagines Freshwater by adding to Woolf's cast the unstable Charles Dodgson, whose Alice in Wonderland becomes the familiarizing scaffolding for readers in a Victorian world that seems as strange as Wonderland did to Alice. Here, female agency is elusive - too-knowing little girls hold sway and adult women use their power, rather pathetically, to win and hold the undeserving men they love.

scholarly journals PARA ALÉM DO DUALISMO NATUREZA/CULTURA: FICÇÕES DO CORPO FEMININO

Organon ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (52) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Terezinha Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Gender Norms ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Kate Chopin ◽  
To The Lighthouse ◽  
Madame Bovary ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Xix Century

this text probes into the legacy of a central dualism of western culture –nature vs. culture – to examine how the tropo of the “natural woman” constructed in themodern period bears upon the narrative logics of two representative European novels ofthe XIX century: Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Leon Tolstoi’s AnaKarenina. Then, it focuses on some scenes of Kate Chopin´s The awakening andVirgínia Woolf`s To the lighthouse to show to what extent the representation of thefemale characters’ experience of corporeality des-figure the dualisms upon whichtraditional cultural gender norms are predicated and, therefore, subvert the inscription ofthe body as the locus of the reproduction of femininity.

Imagining India through Annals and Antiquities of Rajast’han

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Máire ní Fhlathúin
Keyword(s):  
Gender Norms ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
British India ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Narrative Space ◽  
Indian History

This chapter focuses on representations of Indian agency derived from British scholarship on Indian history and mythology, with particular reference to James Tod’s Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. It argues that the narrative richness of Rajasthan and its colourful vision of India’s past contributed to its impact on British readers and writers, while the work also created a narrative space where Indian self-determination could be imagined with less concern for its impact on the contemporary colonial project. The chapter also discusses successive British versions of the story of the Rajput princess Kishen Kower, which becomes an exemplary vehicle for tracing the changing representation of female agency in the literature of British India, and exploring its interactions with British ideas of gender norms and femininity.

A Feminist Pirandello: Female Agency in As You Desire Me

2005 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Champagne
Keyword(s):  
Gender Norms ◽  
The Other ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Feminist Interpretation ◽  
The Right ◽  
Male Authority ◽  
Rules Of The Game

Given that Luigi Pirandello's 1930 Come tu mi vuoi (As You Desire Me) is about a woman's attempt to determine her identity, one would think that the play would be praised by feminists. In fact, some critics argue that it simply reinforces traditional gender norms. This essay offers a different feminist interpretation of the play, one that foregrounds the question of female agency, L'Ignota is the only character who may know the truth of her identity. That she withholds this truth from both the other characters and the audience is evidence of the play's feminism. The character retains the right to her self, placing both the other characters and the audience in the position of “lack” and not the plenitude associated with male authority and subjectivity. The unmasking of that plenitude as illusory is for some theorists at least a feminist gesture par excellence. By the conclusion of “As You Desire Me,” both characters and audience are confronted with a woman who refuses the usual rules of the game. The essay concludes by examining an earlier work of Pirandello's that also takes up the question of the identity of a woman. This suggests that perhaps a feminist re-evaluation of Pirandello's work is in order.

scholarly journals All about Having Fun: Women’s Experience of Zumba Fitness

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya Nieri ◽  
Elizabeth Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Inland Empire ◽  
Group Fitness ◽  
Women's Experience ◽  
Positive Experiences

This study explored women’s subjective experience of Zumba, a new, popular form of group fitness. We interviewed 41 racially/ethnically diverse adult women from the Los Angeles/Inland Empire (California) area who had taken Zumba in the previous year. The women reported taking Zumba for the purpose of exercise and did not challenge the notion that exercise is imperative. However, they reported positive experiences of Zumba, contrasting it with other fitness forms, which they characterized as boring, stressful, painful, lonely, and/or atomistic, and with other dancing, which they characterized as more restrictive. They perceived Zumba to prioritize fun over work and process over outcomes; value individual autonomy and personalization rather than strict conformity; and engage the participant as more than just a body to be shaped. They felt freer to engage in behavior that is considered to violate structural gender norms, but their experience did not translate to an explicit challenge to the gender structure.

‘Hoist the Colours!’ Framing Feminism through Charismatic White Leadership in the Fantasy Blockbuster

2018 ◽  
pp. 58-85
Author(s):  
Kendra Marston
Keyword(s):  
White Women ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Leadership Potential ◽  
Alice In Wonderland ◽  
White Femininity ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Looking Glass

This chapter explores the manifestation of melancholic white femininity in fantasy films featuring proto-feminist heroines. The protagonists of The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass experience feelings of burden in relation to the expectations placed upon aristocratic, white women. They dream of alternate magical lands that will allow them their freedom and are rewarded through a series of events that allow them to enter these magical spaces, subsequently transgressing idealised standards of white, upper-class femininity. The protagonists form bonds with victims of oppression in these fantastical spaces, and ultimately come to realise that their freedom from gender norms will occur upon realising their long-dormant leadership potential and liberating the inhabitants of the magical zone. Feminism here is recognised as a type of social charisma with white hegemonic power structures not deposed but rather reframed through the coming-of-age journey and benevolent intentions of a melancholic, white heroine.

scholarly journals The Neurology of Alice in Wonderland

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.J. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Lewis Carroll ◽  
Visual Symptoms ◽  
Young Girls ◽  
Alice In Wonderland ◽  
Charles Dodgson

SUMMARY:Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, author of the famous Alice stories, developed migraine and associated visual symptoms late in life. There has been considerable speculation that the bizarre phenomena and weird visual imaginery in Alice stories was directly related to the author’s migraine.This paper reviews several aspects of the character and health of Lewis Carroll including his shy, introspective personality, his stuttering and his attraction to young girls. It is concluded that there is no connection between the visual symptoms of migraine and the phenomena described in the Alice stories which were written over 25 years before the author developed migraine in his mid-fifties.

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