scholarly journals Evaluating J.D. Salinger’s Female Characters Through Beauvoir's French Feminist Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cameron Grier ◽  
Russell Aaronson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
World War ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Adolescent Perspective ◽  
Perspective Analysis

J.D. Salinger’s books have brought new and experimental ideas to post-World War II America; for example, the introduction of the adolescent perspective in The Catcher in the Rye. This innovation resulted in a majority of the critical analysis conducted to be based on the adolescent perspective. However, since this criticism is primarily focused on the main character, Holden Caulfield’s, perspective, analysis of Salinger’s female characters’ perspective has been discounted in the academic world. The lack of female perspective recognized in Salinger’s novels makes it difficult for female readers to identify with his characters. This study aims to bring forth Salinger’s most prominent female characters fromThe Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey and evaluate their alignment with Simone De Beauvoir’s French feminist theory. The French feminist theory focuses on how women are taught that they are the “other” sex in comparison with men from a young age, and what situations a woman must be in to transcend subordination. The researcher designed a rubric including the primary ideas of Beauvoir’s French feminist theory as described in the second volume of her book The Second Sex and tested the ideas’ alignment with selected characters. All of the characters chosen aligned with ideas of the theory to some extent, which shows that many of Salinger’s most prominent female characters occupy subordinate positions in comparison to their male counterpart. This research can serve as a basis for how Salinger’s female characters can continue to be studied in the future.

Fragments of the Holocaust

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Duindam
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Museum Studies ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
World War ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
Holocaust Memorial ◽  
Memorial Museum ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
A Site

Why do we attach so much value to sites of Holocaust memory, if all we ever encounter are fragments of a past that can never be fully comprehended? David Duindam examines how the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a former theater in Amsterdam used for the registration and deportation of nearly 50,000 Jews, fell into disrepair after World War II before it became the first Holocaust memorial museum of the Netherlands. Fragments of the Holocaust: The Amsterdam Hollandsche Schouwburg as a Site of Memory combines a detailed historical study of the postwar period of this site with a critical analysis of its contemporary presentation by placing it within international debates concerning memory, emotionally fraught heritage and museum studies. A case is made for the continued importance of the Hollandsche Schouwburg and other comparable sites, arguing that these will remain important in the future as indexical fragments where new generations can engage with the memory of the Holocaust on a personal and affective level.

Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano (1947): singular experiences

2018 ◽  
pp. 118-135
Author(s):  
Steven Earnshaw
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
World War ◽  
Malcolm Lowry ◽  
Day Of The Dead ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Under The Volcano

Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano places the committed drinker, in the form of ex-Consul Geoffrey Firmin, in the Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’ festival, so that the main character encounters ‘hell’ in physical and spiritual dimensions. The novel is technically innovative in its aim to register the subjective experience of the Existential drinker: Geoffrey Firmin’s world is constructed through a highly-individualised, expressionistic symbolism, a mid-century representation of the modern, alienated self, abandoned and suffering despair in a Godless world – the latter made evident by the novel’s attention to the rise of totalitarianism, which forms the backdrop to the events here on a day close to the onset of World War II. There is discussion of the novel’s difficulty and form, and a comparison of some aspects of the novel with Kafka’s The Trial, and how these relate to representation of the Existential drinker.

Representation of the Eastern and Southeastern Provinces in the Turkish Parliament during the National Struggle and Single-Party Era (1920–1946)

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 73-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmet Demirel
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
World War ◽  
Electoral Process ◽  
Biographical Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Background ◽  
Bureaucratic Representation

AbstractThis article examines the socio-economic background of the parliamentary deputies serving during the years of the national struggle (1920–1922) and the single-party era (1923–1946) and provides new statistical data collated from recently published, detailed biographical information. I will provide a critical analysis of the socio-economic background of the deputies elected to represent the eastern and southeastern regions of Turkey and offer localism—defined as being born in the and from the constituency one represents—as a key concept to allow a better understanding of the nature of the electoral process at that time. Although localism—which can be regarded as one of the important indicators of authentic representation—was extensive during the years of the national struggle, it was replaced by bureaucratic representation during the single-party era, especially starting with the 1927 elections held right after the Sheikh Sait Rebellion. The article relates the Kurdish rebellions to the problem of representation in parliament and shows that in the rebellions' aftermath the number of the local representatives rapidly decreased. It further documents that, with the introduction of multi-party politics and democratic, free, competitive elections after the World War II, a return to localism can be observed for the eastern and southeastern provinces of Turkey.

Indian Women in World War II: The Air Raid Precaution ‘Comfort’ Women

2021 ◽  
pp. 037698362110520
Author(s):  
Kashyap Deepak
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Double Standard ◽  
Comfort Women ◽  
World War ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Indian Women ◽  
Crimes Against Women

The main focus of this article is on the war-stricken ecology of World War II and the notable role played by Indian women as Air Raid Precaution Wardens. They gave their unmatched services in the air raid–prone areas and earned a name. However, until the close of the war, they were reduced to not more than ‘comfort women’ for British officers and soldiers. Simultaneously, the article explains how the women’s influential roles are sidelined by giving too much preference to the topic such as rape, abduction and war crimes against women. The critics and historians remain busy in criticising other armies on the atrocities inflicted upon women by them. The conclusion exposes the double standard of the academic world: first, they criticise Japan over the issue of ‘comfort women’, but they close their eyes towards Indian women. The article explains how the British too exploited Indian women, but they remain hidden from the eyes of critics due to their gentlemen status.

“All That Glitters …”: Problematizing Golden-Age Narratives in Vergil’s Aeneid and the Western Film Genre

2018 ◽  
pp. 157-174
Author(s):  
Kirsten Day
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
World War ◽  
Film Genre ◽  
Trojan War ◽  
Western Film

In the first of two chapters that treat promises of an imperial golden age in Aeneid Book 6 in relation to American expansionism as portrayed in the Western film genre, Kirsten Day compares the production contexts of Vergil’s epic, during the “golden age of Latin literature” in the wake of epochal civil wars, to the Westerns produced after World War II during the “golden age” of Hollywood. So too the dramatic settings of the Aeneid, after the Trojan War, and of Westerns, after the American Civil War, enshrine these trailblazing pioneers in the pantheon of founding heroes whose struggles (re)built the nation of the narrative’s audience. Through a wide-ranging survey of many of the genre’s most famous films, such as Red River and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Day examines several key themes, including nation-building as divinely driven labor; the laconic characterization of the Western male hero and his troubling resemblance to the villain; and the sacrificial role assigned to female characters. Day concludes that these ancient and modern texts also share an undercurrent of anxiety about the moral ambiguities of these projects, which belies their superficial optimism.

Emir Kusturica

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgio Bertellini
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
World Cinema ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Major Figure ◽  
The One ◽  
Emir Kusturica ◽  
The Way

Emir Kusturica is one of Eastern Europe's most celebrated and influential filmmakers. Over the course of a thirty-year career, Kusturica has navigated a series of geopolitical fault lines to produce subversive, playful, often satiric works. On the way he won acclaim and widespread popularity while showing a genius for adjusting his poetic pitch—shifting from romantic realist to controversial satirist to sentimental jester. This book divides Kusturica's career into three stages—dissention, disconnection, and dissonance—to reflect both the historic and cultural changes going on around him and the changes his cinema has undergone. The book uses Kusturica's Palme d'Or winning Underground (1995)—the famously inflammatory take on Yugoslav history after World War II—as the pivot between the tone of romantic, yet pungent critique of the director's early works and later journeys into Balkanist farce marked by slapstick and a self-conscious primitivism. Eschewing the one-sided polemics that Kusturica's work often provokes, the book employs balanced discussion and critical analysis to offer a fascinating and up-to-date consideration of a major figure in world cinema.

Letters of Bertrand Russell and Wincenty Lutosławski on Immortality, Matter and Plato

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 27-42
Author(s):  
Tomasz Mróz
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
World War ◽  
Academic World ◽  
History Of ◽  
General Recognition

Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954) was internationally recognized in the academic world as a prominent Plato scholar. His fragmentary correspondence with Bertrand Russell is presented in this paper. Before World War II he initiated an exchange of letters with Russell on issues such as reincarnation, but the replies he received were laconic and discouraging. This changed, however, after the war when Russell published his History of Western Philosophy. Despite their different philosophical positions, Lutosławski’s opinion on this work as a whole was favourable, in particular the chapters on Plato. Such an assessment was the exception rather than the rule for that book, and knowing Lutosławski’s general recognition in Platonic studies, Russell forwarded the letter to his publisher.

The Holocaust in Hungary: A Critical Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Randolph L Braham ◽  
Paul Hanebrink
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
World War ◽  
Historical Revisionism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Red Army ◽  
Christian Nation

Abstract Randolph L. Braham, the authority on the Holocaust in Hungary, spoke out forcefully against the historical revisionism of the Fidesz government in Hungary. Historians and publicists close to that leadership equate the occupation of Hungary by its World War II German ally with its occupation by the Red Army and subsequent decades of Soviet domination. Implying that the Hungarian people suffered at the hands of the Germans just as did the Jews, these writers set forth a nationalist narrative that casts Hungary as a victimized “Christian” nation. Braham submitted this synthetic article shortly before he died in 2018. An introduction by Paul Hanebrink sets Braham’s work in its biographical, political, and historical contexts.

scholarly journals Writers and politics: Gisèle Sapiro’s advances within the Bourdieusian sociology of the literary field

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Fowler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Sociology Of Literature ◽  
World War ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Potential Force ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Universal Structure

AbstractThis article undertakes a critical analysis of the work of Gisèle Sapiro, with reference to sociology of literature. From 1999 (Sapiro, 2014a), Sapiro has developed the Bourdieusian research tradition, amplifying especially Bourdieu’s theory of crisis. Focusing on the antagonisms between literary “prophets” and “priests”, she has drawn on a rich sample of 184 writers to elucidate the struggles inherent in World War II between writers from different field positions and literary habitus. Further, her historical analyses of the ethical commitments of nineteenth century writers via a fresh microsociology of literary trials (Sapiro, 2011) has reminded us of the importance of popular poets in articulating the suffering of the subordinate classes. Her most recent book (Sapiro, 2018) has expanded on her earlier themes, whilst identifying the recuperation of certain 1930s’ fascist worldviews within contemporary literature. This article notes that there is a telling divergence between Bourdieu and Sapiro on the issue of interests behind disinterestedness, exemplified in the case of Zola. On this issue, Sapiro’s reading (Sapiro, 2011) is found convincing. Finally, the dialectic of avant-garde consecration and routinisation is questioned as a universal structure. It is suggested that certain avant-garde – the Harlem Renaissance, for example – did not undergo swift consecration or routinisation, although this contention deserves greater research. The paper concludes by showing that Sapiro’s conception of writers’ responsibility owes its origins less to Sartre than to the Durkheimian/ Bourdieusian notion of the expertise of the “specific intellectual”. It welcomes Sapiro’s concern for literature as a potential force for social change.

scholarly journals Normative Women and Patriarchal Hegemony in Ariyoshi Sawako’s Hanaoka Seishu no Tsuma (1966)

IZUMI ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-155
Author(s):  
Nina Alia Ariefa ◽  
Andhika Pratiwi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Women Characters ◽  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
World War ◽  
Gender Performativity ◽  
Edo Period ◽  
Japanese Female ◽  
Female Figures

This research examines the depiction of normative women in the Edo period (1603-1868) in the novel entitled Hanaoka Seishu no Tsuma (1966) by Ariyoshi Sawako, a Japanese female writer in the post World War II Showa era. Reflecting on the novel’s normative female characters, it analyzes the silenced voices of women. It will contribute to the discussion on how the normative female figures criticizing the patriarchal hegemony that has not been revealed in the literary canon of the Edo period. This research shows how normative women characters are presented in the text as a feminine strategy to criticize this hegemony. The researchers use feminist criticism theory from Butler’s gender performativity (1990). The study concludes that although normative women characters are commonly represented as men dominating women, those can also be used to criticize the patriarchal hegemony.

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