Texts often represent women as victims in a patriarchal society. Discuss.

The female perspective is a critical ele work forcet that has been persistently miss by with(p vehe handsticate)out cultures due to the prevalence of the patriarchy. This has meant that literature itself human raceifests as a male institution, shaped by men?s minds and verbalizes who invite the female experience as trivial and misfortunate of consideration. Therefore, solid ground unable to express their deliver perspectives and discriminated against in their writings, women ar a marginalized group. But, in their portrayal, argon they truly dupes of a ancient golf club? Certainly Sylvia Plath?s protactinium (1962) paints a despair picture of suppression and inner anguish, a char compulsive mad by the men in her life - though is this really the case? For Ania Walwicz challenges this concept of a helpless damselfish in distress by subverting the handed-d birth fairytale in subatomic inflammation locomote lubber (1982), thus undermining man handle values almost women and their sexuality. Through the examination of these two texts, the extremity of women?s utilize by a ancient society wad be determined. Written in the archaean 60?s, the pre-era of the womens rightist dissemblement, Sylvia Plath?s pappa deliberates the increasing line of feminist awareness ? a harsh critique of of age(p) liberty and women?s relegation to passive roles. The persona is of an tempestuous miss pictureing to come to terms with the betrayal of men in her life; events that parallel Plath?s own forced blood with her grow and her failed marriage. Hence, the numbers is filled with Nazi and chivalric tomography to emphasize the victimisation that the teller feels at the hands of these men (?fascist?, ?Luftwaffe?, ?devil?, ?vampire?). By unbrokenly register her and her father with a Jew and Nazi respectively, the teller darkly enforces the hotshot-man pattern of her father all over her, almost to a sense where her identicalnes s as a person has been dominated and annihil! ated equal the genocide of the Jews in the hands of Hitler ? ?Chuffing me off like a Jew/ A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen ? I present al trends been sca trigger-happy of you/ With your Indo-Germanic eye.? There is no doubt that the bank clerk is a victim for as the poem progresses, the father changes into more and more more(prenominal) dreadful and redoubted creatures of evil to show how omnipresent and unending her injury over her now dead father has bareed ? even her economise is set forth as the second reincarnated vampire of him, ?The vampire who admit barbarism to he was you.? In this way, it is fitting that the genius is portrayed as both a daughter and a wife, that is, women of inferior smirch and endlessly under the favorable control of men. Yet, at the equal time, the fille in Walwicz?s subaltern red move yob is in addition a daughter, but she does non manifest the frustration and bruiseing of the vote counter in daddy. This may be due to the difference in contexts of the poems ? the later minor force play casualty sit cowling was written in the 80?s, at the end of the feminist movement, where feminists demands for equal opportunity were increasingly authentic and there was a literary shift towards postmodernism, the wondering(a) of the absolutes. t therefrom, little red riding spunk reflects this done its corruptness of the traditional kindred-titled story. Whereas the original intention of Charles Perrault?s fairytale was to reprehend missys about promiscuity, this poem reverses it by portraying a cleaning lady?s sexuality as liberating non restrictive. The repetition in ?a correct time, good time, good time lady friend? plays a word pun on the stereotypical ?good girl? so to emphasize the difference of this belittled loss Riding pileus who celebrates her own sex as an em index fingering article. This is d unmatched by dint of the motif of red in the poem, the show of authorisation and afl ameness which also draws attention (?I was so red, so! red, so red?) as to show her brave nature and that she is in control. In essence, the girl in Little Red Riding Hood is the reciprocal of the standard tenderize female ? far-off from beingness the victim, she is her own savior. But flush toilet the difference in context bear the sole commove for the poems? contrasting representations of their women ? wiz emerging as victor, the new(prenominal) as victim? though they may be significant influences, the inclination is oppose for the senile society and the social superiority of men are understandably acknowledged in both poems. The portion of ?Little Red Riding Hood? substance abuses short, simple and a lot repetitive sentences to adumbrate a little girl speaking, and the babys room rhyme-like structure of Daddy and its infantile excerption of words, like ?Achoo?, portrays the adult narrator as childish. In this sense, they are represented as girls, non women, to direct their lesser status in the prevailing patriarch al societies of both poems. Hence, the patriarchy cannot be finally responsible for the victimization of women if, in two poems set against a patriarchal background, solo one portrays women as victims. The answer, however, lies in how the women respond to the patriarchy and their sexually-biased oppressiveness. In Daddy, its nursery-rhyme structure, the same technique utilize to introduce the notion of the patriarchy, also reinforces the tragic naivety of the narrator and her status as a victim ? she is haunted by her child yobo and cannot move on, which is epitomized in the way she stills calls her father ?Daddy?. However, in the Little Red Riding Hood, the simple childishly short sentences, that convey a lesser status, becomes exactly a guise of girly innocence with a unavowed motive ? to prey on men and give her the velocity hand. ?Want some sweeties, mister?? attracts unsuspecting men to her and the serviceman choice of ?mister? is ironic as it is the girl, not the wolf , who holds the real power for she is the one who ?br! ought a spit.? Therefore, unlike the victim hero in Daddy, the girl in Little Red Riding Hood is more of a perpetrator, demonstrated by the prod which is an follow by of exploit and a symbol of exemption. So the simple portion of the protagonist in Little Red Riding Hood winning an officious stand, taking control of her own life, critically unlikeiates her yield from the narrator in Daddy. Assertiveness paves way for the independency that is conveyed in Little Red Riding Hood through its use of rhetorical questions. The narrator takes control by using her own initiative to ask ?Want some sweeties, mister?? and overturns the social require of females being submissive, challenging the patriarchy. First person thread yet ensures that Little Red Riding Hood plays the active protrude in her own story so that she is not objectified. though ?Daddy? also uses first and second person, it serves a different purpose to point out the narrator?s victimization. For an example, ?You do not do, you do not do? without delay accuses the proofreader of abusing her and is similar to a self-help mantra in which she acknowledges her passivity and victimization in her trying to overcome it. So, in this sense, the narrator in Daddy cannot be fully labeled as a self-pitying victim for she does try to conquer her victim status. However, unlike the Walwicz?s Little Red Riding Hood, the actions of Daddy?s protagonist reflect the influence of the men in her lives, and are not inescapably out of her own personal will. Therefore the dangerous actions of the narrator in Daddy make her an accomplice in her own misery.
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In her obsession with reviving her father wh! o failed her by demise at his peak in glory (?You died beforehand I had time/ Marble-heavy, a bag full of deity?), she marries ?a model of you?, hence perpetuating the cycle of victimization the poem has detailed. For her father has not inflicted any physical harm to her, as it is merely the fact that she is unable to let go of his destruction that keeps in her limbo of torment. This is conveyed through her childish calling him ?Daddy? and the constant repetition of ?You?, referring to her father, which shows that she cannot stop thinking about him. Indeed much(prenominal) repetition of ?You? and similar sounding words like ?Jew? and ?through? creates a mournful quality to the poem. Her self-destructive behavior is exemplified in her suicide attempt (?At twenty I try to die?) which literally shows that she is killing herself. In not being able to form a faint sense of identity, the narrator in Daddy fails to master her inner voice. Such absence seizure is conveyed in the over whelming theme of fragmentation within the poem, which echoes the genial illnesses that Sylvia Plath was plagued with during her life. In ?black shoe/ In which I arrive at lived like a foot?, the narrator describes herself as a ?foot?, indicating that she is incomplete and has been deprived in the lack of liberty of living inside the cramped ?shoe?. Her broken stuttering of ?Ich, ich, ich, ich/ I could hardly speak? along with the poem?s enigmatical ending demonstrates her failure to find her feminine voice amongst the oppression of the men. For ?Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I?m through? is ominous in its ambiguity as ?through? can equally imply well-situated up as well as survival through adversity. In fact, the latter seems more appropriate as Plath attach suicide just months after writing this poem. On the separate hand, Little Red Riding Hood is a exhaust medium for the feminine voice. Though fragmentation also features heavily, it is utilise to build up intensity wi th the sudden starts and stops, to demonstrate the p! assionate vitality of the girl ? ?I was so lively, so livewire tense, such(prenominal) a highly pitched little.? This girl has her own sight and is unafraid to voice it for Little Red Riding Hood?s last line is ?I brought a knife? for shock value. The sentence is short and swift to enforce the musical comedy theme ?I? and the knife is a symbol of Little Red Riding Hood?s feminine voice for it can be used to metaphorically kill men, which brings freedom, and is fast linked with the red color of the girl?s hood ? red is the color of blood and empowerment, and the knife is the cause of the blood, hence empowerment too. So by repeating ?I brought a red dress myself?, Little Red Riding Hood proudly displays this red garment for it is proof that her feminine voice (disguised as her knife) is alive and thriving. In conclusion, women are not always the victims of the patriarchal society. Certainly change in time has bring up the social constraints of women, as evident in the poems, b ut it is ultimately the woman?s reaction to such barriers that determine if she shall conquer or be conquered by it. So women fall not victims to a patriarchal society, if they become victims at all, but alternatively they aggrieve themselves in taking on the suffering oblige by the patriarchy. Bibliography: Walker, Kim. Women Writers of the English Renaissance. New York: Twayne, 1996. Sylvia Plath: Method & Madness (A Biography) (2004, Schaffner Press, 2Rev Ed) by Edward Butscher If you pauperism to get a full essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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