scholarly journals Judith and the Elders of 1 Clement

Open Theology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-68
Author(s):  
Janelle Peters
Keyword(s):  
Female Protagonists

Abstract While Judith was used with Esther and other books with female protagonists to promote the reign of Queen Shelamzion Alexandra and the activities of female Pharisees, as Tal Ilan has argued, the role of Judith in the historical examples of 1 Clement presents Judith as needing to seek the permission of the elders of her besieged city in order to go to the enemy camp and behead Holofernes. This article argues that such an interpretive move preserves the authority of Judith in Hasmonean and Pharisaic interpretations.

scholarly journals Muzy Józefa Ignacego Kraszewskiego i Henryka Sienkiewicza

2018 ◽  
pp. 143-148
Author(s):  
Bogumiła KOSMANOWA
Keyword(s):  
Life Experience ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Polish Literature ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
In The Beginning

The paper discusses two prominent figures in Polish literature, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (1812–1887) and Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916), and the role women played in their lives, influencing their works. In the beginning, the author devotes some attention to the role of ‘muses’ and their inspiration to artists from Antiquity to Romanticism. In the analytical part of her paper, she presents the differences between these two masters of the quill. Kraszewski let excessive emotions take the reins in his private life, as a consequence of which he frequently misplaced his affections, suffering considerable disappointments. Sienkiewicz, although highly susceptible to female charms, was more mature, as is well reflected in his works. His life experience influenced the artistic maturity of his female protagonists. Thus, towards the end of his life, he was able to conclude that love was the highest value. The ‘muses’ of this first Polish Nobel laureate in literature exerted a profound influence on the literary profile of the heroines of his greatest novels.

scholarly journals Ibsen’s The Pillars of Society: Female Protest against Patriarchy

NUTA Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 10-17
Author(s):  
Arjun Dev Bhatta
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Social Relationship ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Patriarchal Power ◽  
The Voice

This study explores social relationship between male and female in Henrik Ibsen’s play “The Pillars of Society”. The first part of the study analyzes a sexist society in which male characters subjugate females through their hegemonic power. The female characters appear meek, submissive and voiceless. The second part of this study examines the revolutionary role of the female characters who raise their voice against all-pervasive patriarchal power. They protest against male formulated institutions which have kept women voiceless and marginalized. Being dissatisfied with the defenders of patriarchal status quo, Ibsen’s female protagonists come to the fore to challenge prevailing social conviction about femininity and domesticity. They lead a crusade to establish their position and identity as human beings equal to men. In this play, the female characters Lona, Martha and Dina hold a revolutionary banner to protest against male domination of female. In their constant struggle, they win while the male characters become loser. This study analyses the voice of these leading female characters in the light of feminist theory proposed by scholars such as Kete Millett and Sylvia Walby.

scholarly journals From "Looking for Alibrandi" to "Does my Head Look Big in This?": The role of Australian teenage novels in reconceptualising racialised-gendered identities

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lana Zannettino
Keyword(s):  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Ethnic Identification ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Gendered Identities ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Biological Race

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of three Australian teenage novels – Melina Marchetta’s ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ (1992), Randa Abdel-Fattah’s ‘Does my Head Look Big in This?’ (2005), and Morris Gleitzman’s ‘Girl Underground’ (2004). Drawing from feminist post-structural and post-colonial theories, the paper examines how each author has constructed the racialised-gendered identities of their female protagonists, including the ways in which they struggle to develop an identity in-between minority and dominant cultures. Also considered is how each author inter-weaves race, gender and class to produce subjects that are positioned differently across minority and dominant cultures. The similarities in how the authors have inscribed race and ethnicity on the subjectivities of their female characters, despite the novels being written at different points in time and focusing on different racial and ethnic identities, suggest that what it means to be a raced subject in Australia has more to do with the significance of all-at-once ‘belonging’ and ‘not belonging’ to the dominant culture, of ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ and of ‘sameness’ and ‘otherness’, than it has with the unique characteristics of biological race and ethnic identification. The paper argues that this kind of fiction carries with it an implicit pedagogy about race relations in Australia, which has the potential to subvert oppressive binary dualisms of race and gender by demonstrating possibilities for the development of hybrid cultural identities and ‘collaborations of humanity’.

scholarly journals Franciscan Women Religious in Nineteenth-Century Belgium : Gender, Identity and Material Recovery

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-139
Author(s):  
Kristien Suenens
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Women Religious ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Religious Women ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Material Recovery ◽  
Secular Clergy

Abstract This article examines the revival of female Franciscan religious communities in the nineteenth-century as a platform for analyzing the mechanisms and networks behind the restoration and renewal of female convent life in Belgium. The analysis is conducted from a threefold perspective: the specific role of male and female protagonists, the struggle with old and new identities, and the material backgrounds of the revival. The diverse landscape of old and new, contemplative and apostolic, and urban and rural Franciscan convents and congregations offers an interesting platform for research. The interaction between secular clergy, lay and religious women and the male Friars Minor is examined within the context of changing political regimes, social changes, religious revival and diocesan centralization. Mechanisms of material recovery and the (re-)constructions of gendered, canonical and religious identities are used as a framework for evaluating the importance of old and new models and examining to what extent this nineteenth-century history was a genuine Franciscan revival.

scholarly journals Crossing spatial and temporal boundaries: Three women in search of a future

Literator ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-36
Author(s):  
M. Wenzel
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
White Women ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Nadine Gordimer ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Family Saga ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
History Of

The past has become a focal point in contemporary South African discourse, in public debate, newspaper articles and various forms of literature. South African literature written during the eighties and nineties, in particular English and Afrikaans novels, effectively portray this climate of confrontation and reconciliation by engaging in dialogue with the past and history. This article traces the evolution of political consciousness in the female protagonists of A Sport of Nature (1987) by Nadine Gordimer, Die reise van Isobelle (1996) by Elsa Joubert and Imaginings of Sand (1997) by André Brink. All three novelists subvert the traditional stereotypes of white women: Gordimer in an ironic quasi-picaresque form, Joubert by staging a family saga that assumes a testimonial quality and Brink in a fictionalised meta-history of women interwoven with strands of magic realism. The novels all engage with history, and in particular the role of women in history, in a constructive manner and attempt to anticipate a positive scenario for the future.

scholarly journals Terrors of Girlhood

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Casali
Keyword(s):  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Young Female ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Horror Genre ◽  
Adolescent Women ◽  
American Horror Film

<p>Since the birth of the genre, American horror filmmakers have posed female characters as prey and objects of sexual desire. Adolescent women in particular act as both the victim and as eye candy for viewers. From the damsel in distress to the rape victim seeking revenge, women in horror films exist to be antagonized, and so often, their exhibition of femininity and sexuality determines the severity of their suffering. Moreover, though the popular horror film narrative tends to explore the fringes of human nature, few horror films openly deal with the fears and concerns of women outside of threats to their physical being.</p> <p>In the past decade, the horror genre has produced a new crop of young female characters who challenge the tropes of traditional horror films by trading in their role of damsel in distress for the role of the antagonist and anti-hero. What’s more, these films deal with themes relevant to young women, such as body image issues, tumultuous relationships, and sexual repression. In this thesis, I analyze the popular American horror film <em>Jennifer’s Body </em>(2009), which features two violent female protagonists and explores the horrors of adolescent female friendships. In my analysis, I examine whether or not the re-imagined female characters in this film are a progressive reconstruction of gender, and identify ideological conventions of the horror genre that continue to denigrate femininity and female sexuality.</p>

Female protagonists and the role of smoking in Chinese and French cinema

Asian Cinema ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-83
Author(s):  
Peter C. Pugsley ◽  
Ben Mccann
Keyword(s):  
French Cinema ◽  
Female Protagonists

scholarly journals The Philosophy of Existentialism in the Magus - the Motifs of Freedom and Suicide

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Ljiljana Pticina
Keyword(s):  
Future Generations ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
John Fowles ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind

John Fowles’ literary opus is largely based on the philosophy of existentialism, with the motifs of freedom and suicide serving as its focal points, both closely related to freedom of choice and seen as crucial to the existentialist movement, as well as the author himself. This paper analyses Fowles’ novel The Magus through the prism of existentialism, which means that the basic existentialist concepts are identified and located within its text, as well as the influences of the key figures of this movement. The motifs of freedom and freedom of choice in context are interpreted and linked to the theories of Freud and Jung while special emphasis is placed on the role of the anima, that is, the female principle inside the male subconsciousness. This is precisely why a separate section of this paper is dedicated to female protagonists and their role in the novel. In his works, Fowles puts an emphasis on the freedom of the individual, which is portrayed through the freedom of the mind, ideas, choice and spirit. It is cruel, always demanding action as well as acceptance and adaptation. By remodelling our own character, we also remodel the future generations and our visions of the world. The protagonist in this novel is chosen to remodel his own character, to turn from a collector into a creator, to stop depriving people of the content and to bring about a positive creative act instead. Human border acts such as suicide also belong to this field of interest. There are three cases of suicide in The Magus and this paper analyses their role as a symbol of the protagonist’s metamorphosis upon threading onto the mythical ground.

Shamanic Reminiscences and Archaic Myths in the Story of the Goldsmith Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (Alf layla wa-layla)

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-157
Author(s):  
Rosanna Budelli
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Text ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
Arabian Nights ◽  
Female Protagonists

Abstract The story of the goldsmith Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in the Arabian Nights preserves numerous traces of more ancient stories and testimonies of cultures apparently distant geographically and historically. In particular, it is possible to identify various elements that refer to the symbols and customs of shamanism, although transformed and rewritten according to the Arab-Islamic culture. The same phenomenon is found with the fragments of Greek mythology scattered throughout the story and especially with the adventures of the Argonauts whose affinities with the story of Ḥasan are rather amazing. The study has been conducted by comparing three BNF manuscripts that present significant differences in some points, reflecting the evolution of the Arabic text and the different mentality of the copyists who have reworked some passages. The changes concern above all the role of female protagonists particularly numerous throughout the tale.

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