Romantic Love, Gender Imbalance and Feminist Readings in Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea

Even though Iris Murdoch’s novels depict a profoundly patriarchal society, most scholars have generally failed to identify any feminist aspirations in her work. This article aims to reassess her legacy as a writer by analysing from a feminist perspective one of her most acclaimed novels, The Sea, The Sea (1978). The tension between the androcentric approach of a self-deluded male narrator and a female author whose worldview is strongly influenced by her gender results in a feminist critique which is not based on the recovery of a female voice, but on the exploration of patriarchy within the novel and the production of a feminist epistemology derived from a dialogue between Murdoch’s fiction and philosophy.

The Voice of Silent Toxic Mothers in Morrison’s A Mercy and Albeshr’s Hend and the Soldiers

This paper analytically compares Morrison’s A Mercy (2008) to Albeshr’s Hend and the Soldiers (2006) to explore the maternal position in Western and Middle Eastern literatures and give the silent mothers voice. These novels depict rudimentary social systems predicated on deep inequalities of class and gender; they highlight the commonality of mothers’ experiences regardless of their class, race, or nationality. In A Mercy, the black mother discards her daughter to protect her from a malevolent master, while in Hend and the Soldiers, the uneducated Arab mother arranges her daughter’s marriage to free her from the domination of the patriarchal society. The daughters consider their mothers as toxic parents and relate all evil in their lives to them. These novels are narrated mainly from a daughter point of view, and they share the themes of the disintegrated mother-daughter relationship and search for identity. This type of narration foregrounds the daughterly perspectives and subordinates the maternal voice (Hirsch, 1989, p. 163). Applying the elements presented in Marianne Hirsch’s Mother/Daughter Plot facilitates the deconstruction of the idea of silent toxic mothers and gives mothers the opportunity to speak for themselves. According to Hirsch, when daughters become mature enough to accept their problems and failures, they become not only real women but also part of their mothers’ stories by listening carefully. Thus, I argue that mothers’ voices are heard when their subjectivity is explored through their stories narrated in their daughters’ memories, in the mothers’ self-vindication, and by surrogate mothers.

THE WOMAN IN THE NOVELS OF SAAD MOHAMMED RAHEEM

Women suffered - and as soon as they were removed - from the sway ‎of the patriarchal society, the domination of men over them and their ‎denial of achieving their independence, and the failure to take their ‎opinion on fateful decisions such as marriage, education, and work, ‎and that the novels of (Saad Muhammad Rahim) shed light on these ‎problems and other inferiority of their role. In public life, in addition ‎to the appearance of women in the society of novels (the research ‎material) in a stereotypical manner, as these novels did not give a ‎good space for women - Arab and Western - thought, literature and ‎culture, while his body recorded the presence of femininity in the ‎presence of a valuable cultural sting, revealing the patriarchal view ‎Towards the woman‎.

An Analytical Study of Women Objectification in “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

The objectification of women is a communal problem in every developed and underdeveloped society of the world. Women make a major population of the world and serve society in multidimensional modes, but still, they are considered feeble to men. The subject of women objectification has remained the focus of various researchers globally. This research focused on three short stories drawn from “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders” of Daniyal Mueenuddin to bring forward disparities and inequalities prevailing in the patriarchal society of Pakistan. Additionally, it investigated the impact of these inequalities and injustices on the downtrodden women of Pakistan. The objectification of women is such discrimination that women are subjected to undergo in a patriarchal social setup. This study analyzes the objectification of women through the lenses of female characters selected from three short stories. This study uses the theoretical frameworks of Martha Nussbaum and Rae Langton’s to draw outcomes for this study. Study findings exhibit that female characters undergo objectification and are treated as things by males in the male-dominated strata of Pakistan. Keywords: Women objectification, gender, patriarchy, oppression, feminism

Gothic Noir Filmic Male Gaze: Gender Stereotyping in Margaret Atwood’s “The Freeze-Dried Groom”

Stereotyping has been crucial in artistic representations, especially cinema, in the construction of gender paradigms. Males and females have been portrayed by means of simplified unrealistic clichés with the purpose of controlling and constraining them into patriarchal roles and conventions, promoting societal normative ideologies. Noir women are projections of male anxieties about female sexuality and female independence. In “The Freeze-Dried Groom,” Atwood unveils gender stereotyping through a typically film noir male gaze in three of its stock characters: the femme attrapée, the “detective” and the femme fatale. Hence, Atwood depicts a femme fatale to reflect not just on this character in film noir, but also on female identity, gender dynamics and feminism. She exposes and questions the marriage-family institution, and the patriarchal society as a whole.

The Kreutzer Sonata

Women's inferiority persists, particularly in patriarchal societies. In Russia, women have always been treated as second-class citize (Placeholder1)ns to men. As a result, because it is a system that already exists in society, women's inferiority is the fundamental problem of inequality for women in Russia. The novel The Kreutzer Sonata explores the inferiority of female characters in nineteenth-century Russia, where the church's influence is still strong. The aims of the research were to examine about women inferiority and struggle in patriarchal society as portrayed in the novel The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy. The data was collected using the following methods: 1) attentively reading the novel to determine which sections featured inferiority and struggle, and 2) collecting notes and marking the facts of inferiority in the marriage and society. 3) categorizing; and 4) analyzing. Based on the research, it was discovered that there were two major forms of women's inferiority: 1) the feeling of powerlessness in decision of marriages. This powerlessness happens to both the mother and the daughters. 2) being subjected to discriminatory treatment, such as a lack of freedom and mobility based only on sexuality, as well as physical abuse and loss of inheritance.

Thematic Analysis in The Edible Women

The Edible Women is one of the most outstanding novels of Margret Atwood which has set a big milestone in her writing career. The novel leaves multiple of interpretations since its subject touches the most sensitive and deepest chord of the society. The novel is more a social novel that it deals with the major issue of gender roles and relationships in general. Atwood has used the novel to magnify even the minute errors and ills of the society which is not touched by other writers of her time. She has clearly portrayed the actual problems of Canadian women of 1960s who have been suppressed by the patriarchal society. She has tried to name their problems which have no names and moreover her approaches to those problems are strange and new.And hence, the novel is called as a proto-feminist novel. Beyond the feministic point of view, the story conveys various themes such as self-discovery, marriage, love, sex, modernity, cultural attitude, relationship and many. Besides, the novel is filled with various symbolic and metaphorical elements that support the author’s presupposition of her world view. Therefore, the paper has made an inquiry in to various thematic elements and symbols to explore the hidden meanings bound with in the story.

THE REPRESENTATION OF SISTERHOOD IN SUSAN GLASPELL'S TRIFLE: PROXEMIC AND KINESIC ANALYSES

Susan Glaspell’s plays have been recognized for its feminist ideologies. The present study traces the representations of the notion of sisterhood in Glaspell’s scrip entitled Trifles by employing Barthes’ semiotics and Fischer-Lichte’s concept of kinesics. Focusing on the gestural and the proxemic signs of the kinesics included in the script, the present study reveals that the notion of sisterhood grows among the female characters in the play through the increasing realization of their similar positions as women in patriarchal society. This development of solidarity among the female characters implies a strong feminist ideology about how women should stand together in facing oppression in male-dominated structures.

Representation of Padmavati and the Recurring Image of an ‘Ideal Woman’

The paper entitled, “Representation of Padmavati and the Recurring Image of an ‘Ideal Woman’” with the representation of Padmavati in the epic titled Padmavat by Jayasi and Padmaavat, a film adaptation of the epic directed by Bhansali. It also focuses on how people view her today. She is represented as an ideal woman, who sacrificed her own life to preserve her chastity and thereby the honour of her own community. She is attributed all ideal qualities that is expected in a woman. Her adherence to these qualities construed by the patriarchal society and her act of “Jauhar” made her rise to the level of a goddess. However, these qualities are not the mere construction of a community or era alone. It has been existing since time immemorial. There has been a tendency to stereotype women as meek, gentle, submissive etc. since the time of Manu which has found its way into popular myths and legends. The story of Padmavati also borrows this same image of an ideal woman and her glorification.