scholarly journals Gender Issues and Intricacies in Shobha De’s Select Novels

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-104
Author(s):  
Ollala Srinivas
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
The Other ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
Sexually Active ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Female Figures

Shobha De, a feminist writer, depicts her female protagonists in a forceful way and uses the plot to emphasize her point that personal is not private but political. The protagonists in her works were outspoken critics of conventional society and its rules. They are not the typical women who accept abusive, unsatisfying, or uncomfortable relationships (in all aspects). It could be male dominance, objectification, sexual discontent, passion, or something else entirely. They don't keep it hidden because they believe it is taboo. On the other hand, the male characters are not shown as villains, but it is evident from the plot that they are products of patriarchal society. Gender issues in her works aren't about female oppression in terms of domestic violence; rather, they are about the sexual vacuum that all of the female characters experience. Male characters were traditionally assigned duties such as sexually active, powerful, and have self-identity, but these female figures defy such stereotypes. They represent women by demonstrating that they too have sexual wants, power, and a need for self-identity. As a result, this research focuses on Shobha De’s novels Socialite Evenings (1989), Sisters (1992), Starry Nights (1991), Second Thoughts (1996), which all deal with gender issues. The study not only examines issues but sheds light on the protagonists' struggles to find self-identity.

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.

“Trust no one”: Narrative Complexity and Character Opacity in Damages

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-146
Author(s):  
Michael Butter
Keyword(s):  
Female Characters ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Withholding Information

Abstract This article analyzes the first season of Damages (2007) as an early example of the representation of ‘difficult’ women on television. More specifically, I investigate the relationship between the show’s character conception and its complex narration. I argue that all the major male and female characters on the show are ‘difficult’ in the sense that the audience experiences close alignment but troubled allegiance to them. However, the two female protagonists – top-notch lawyer Patty Hewes and her young and initially idealistic associate Ellen Parsons – are also opaque characters about whose thoughts and plans the audience is largely left in the dark. This opacity is mirrored and enhanced by the narration, which constantly teases the audience by withholding information about the plot, suggests inferences that then turn out to be wrong, and generally provides far more insight into the male characters than into the female characters.

Xena: Warrior, Heroine, Tramp

2018 ◽  
pp. 141-155
Author(s):  
Anise K. Strong
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
First Century ◽  
Sexually Active ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter examines the oldest of the ancient heroes in this section of the book, the mythical warrior woman Xena in the eponymous Xena: Warrior Princess. The show first aired at the end of the twentieth century (1995) and continued through the early twenty- first century (2001). The depiction of Xena is significant not only because of her gender, but also because of the onscreen precedents she set for future characters. The chapter shows that Xena set the trend for women on screen who could be sexually active and polyamorous and not be coded as immoral or deviant. By following a model that more typically applied to male characters of the ancient world, Xena represented a more complicated image of heroism for female characters. Such a representation laid the foundations for a number of later characters, such as Saxa in STARZ Spartacus (2010–13) and Starbuck in Battlestar Gallactica (2005–9).

scholarly journals Gender in Literature: Crossing the Lines of Individuals in a Philippine Fiction

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-47
Author(s):  
Mildred M. Crisostomo ◽  
Mark Joseph B. Layug
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
The Other ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Gender Criticism

Under Gender Criticism, the researchers analysed Carlos Bulosan’s My Father Goes to Court to unveil the biases, stereotypes, issues, and tendencies as regard gender through the roles played by the characters in the story. Results show that on the surface, the male characters portrayed their roles based on what the society and culture accorded or dictated to them as authoritative, powerful, and dominant. Similarly, female characters were projected as powerless, weak, affective, and secondary to men. However, consciously or unconsciously, both characters crossed the borders and the lines of each other by performing roles not expected of them. On the one hand, male characters growled down to others, laughed their hearts out, and were protected. Then, on the other hand, female characters exercised power, showed leadership, manifested decision-making skills, and served as protectors. The researchers further revealed that gender is not a role to be played but an activity to be complete to avoid setting limits to any person’s tendencies. A study using the same literary text is recommended to continue its afterlife.

scholarly journals Otcovia, milenci a kamionisti: mužské postavy v prozaickom svete Ivany Dobrakovovej

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zuzana Bariaková
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Specific Role ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Intimate Partners ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Strong Focus

The paper analyses the depiction of male characters in the select texts of the Slovak writer Ivana Dobrakovová. Although male protagonists are not rare in her prose, little attention is paid to them. This literary approach to their depiction is determined by the writer’s strong focus on the main female protagonists – the female characters make the majority in Dobrakovová’s short stories. However, men regularly appear as fathers or intimate partners of her female characters, and these relationships – ranging from informal to institutional – play a specific role in her works.

Kreacje postaci kobiecych w twórczości Antoniny Domańskiej – perspektywa feministyczna

2019 ◽  
pp. 199-211
Author(s):  
Grażyna Lasoń-Kochańska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Feminist Perspective ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Individual Woman ◽  
Literary Output ◽  
Traditional Roles

Creation of Female Characters in Antonina Domańska’s Work – Feminist Perspective Antonina Domańska’s literary output is dominated by male characters. It concerns both – historical novels (Paziowie króla Zygmunta, Historia żółtej ciżemki, Królewska niedola, Trzaska i Zbroja) and fairy tales in the volume Przy kominku. Female protagonists appear in Krysia bezimienna, Hanusia Wierzynkówna and in the tale Złota przędza. However, women as supporting characters with varying degrees of importance can be found in all works. All the female characters have traditional social roles of mothers, daughters, wifes and maidens. Therefore, they are always presented in the context of relationships. It is almost impossible to find a strong, individual woman in Domańska’s novels. In the article I study Domańska’s female protagonists in two different contexts. The first one is to show them against the background of another authors’ protagonists (e.g. Deotyma, Zuzanna Morawska). The second context is the topic of femininity and feminism. The fact that female characters were given traditional roles does not mean this topic is missing. It turns out that the most important question is whether in Domańska’s work appear toposes and metaphors of female writing (e.g. madwoman in the attic/foreigner, metaphors of imprisonment and others) which help the contemporary researchers reread the early novels written by women.

scholarly journals The Female Characters in Oe Kenzaburo’s Early Literary Works - Focusing on our Age and Sexual Beings

MANUSYA ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 54-66
Author(s):  
Duantem Krisdathanont
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Patriarchal Society

Oe Kenzaburo, the 1994 Nobel Prize winner, is one of the most talented authors of the contemporary literary world. However, he has been criticized for lacking an interest in portraying female characters clearly especially in his early years of writing. Considering himself to be a member of the postwar generation, Oe wrote Our Age and Sexual Beings in 1959 and 1963 to illustrate two types of human beings in his generation, the political being (seiji teki ningen) and the sexual being (sei teiki ningen). While the political being is an active hero who opposes others, refusing to conform to any existence in opposition to him, the sexual being neither confronts nor competes with others and yields without any protest. Also in order to expose the despair and alienation of these post-Ampo Japanese youths, Oe creates male characters to portray this theme, while female characters play only supporting roles. In addition, though the female characters in these two novels are developed from those in earlier works, they are still flat characters and not sufficiently developed in the story compared with the male characters. They are still created as the 'other' in the society. In this essay, I will examine in detail how female characters in Oe's Our Age and Sexual Beings are created as human beings who are inferior in the patriarchal society.

scholarly journals Is there a Feminine Narcissism?

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-99
Author(s):  
Radu Clit
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Separation Anxiety ◽  
The Body ◽  
First Person ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Castration Anxiety

Abstract Freud did not describe a feminine narcissism, but pointed out the importance of this structure in women, as well as that of masculine identifications. This theme is sought after by a writer, Herta Müller, in six of her novels. She uses the first person and has both male and female protagonists, whom she should, in principle, identify with. All her characters are confronted with narcissistic anxiety (Green), in a totalitarian social context. Narcissistic anxiety is close to the neurotic anxiety, whose forms are, according to Green, the penetration anxiety in women, and castration anxiety in men. At the narcissistic level, Green proposes the intrusion anxiety, in the feminine register, and separation anxiety, in the masculine register. In Herta Müller’s prose, male characters are weak, but rarely overcome with emotions, whilst female characters harbour strong feelings in their bodies. The man would be in a better position to project his anxiety towards the outside of the body, while the woman would feel it more on the inside. The situation would allow the hypothesis of feminine narcissism.

scholarly journals Deux figures féminines hors normes de la fin du XIXe siècle – Raoule de Rachilde et Selma de Benedictson

Nordlit ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Cecilia Carlander
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Young Women ◽  
New Woman ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
The New Woman ◽  
Xixe Siecle ◽  
Xixe Siècle

A year after the French success scandal that Rachilde had with her decadent novel Monsieur Vénus, a novel by the Swedish writer Victoria Benedictsson, Money [Pengar], is published in Sweden in 1885. The two novels focus on young women having to find their identities within society's new possibilities, as well as the new gender roles; developed by the new society. In their relations with both conventional and non-conventional male characters, the two female characters transgress society's former established and given norms. In this article, the aim is to present how two female protagonists, the French Raoule and the Swedish Selma, are given different background conditions and qualities that finally can contribute to picture and explain their outstanding independence. Moreover, the new gender roles and their impact on the two female characters are discussed within themes and terms such as the "new woman", androgynity, sexuality and other explicite ingredients and symbols often discussed in a decadent context. Through the comparisons, this article shows how the two female portraits express the decadent transgressivity, in several aspects similarly, with individual voices, despite their two separate literary milieux.

scholarly journals Investigating Matriarchal Mimicry of Patriarchy in a Pakistani Novel

2021 ◽  
Vol VI (I) ◽  
pp. 96-104
Author(s):  
Zainab Akram ◽  
Saima Yousaf Khan
Keyword(s):  
The Elderly ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Elderly Female ◽  
Male Characters ◽  
Familial Influences

In an Eastern society, the institution of matrimony is influenced by social, cultural, psychological, emotional, religious and familial influences. Using concepts of "mimicry" and "the Other" under theoretical stances of mimicry by Bhaba (1994) and "the Other" by Simone De Beauvoir (1956), How it Happened (2013) is investigated in this study. These frameworks explicate the violation and suppression of women in terms of matrimonial affairs in the novel. The findings revealed that the elderly female characters mimic the patriarchal norms by extending them to the next level through matriarchy. It is found that the matriarchy by the elder female characters is authoritative, unchallenged and influential that even the male characters in the novel cannot interfere in the female jurisdiction in matrimonial decisions and verdicts. However, the analysis also revealed that there was sexism in terms of matrimonial choices in which male had the freedom to choose while the female had none.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document