Examples Of Gender Expectations

Gender roles. Behavioral expectations. Identifying oneself. These aspects all lead to the significance of following separate spheres which correlates on the role someone has in life. An example of this is in the novel, Great Expectations, written by Charles Dickens. Gender roles are vigorously expressed in this novel. Page by page, inside and out, there are examples of separate spheres throughout the book. Today the world is the same way, there is a split difference between the men and women. People are influenced by gender roles throughout their lives. Some might say that Dickens is only showing moderation throughout the novel, but that is not the case. Dickens argues that gender roles are instituted in order to elevate social status as shown
First and foremost, the idea of gender roles applies to Mrs. Joe because she is a stay home woman, she is percieved as a lesser character than men. For example, Dickens’s novel, Great Expectations, practices the idea of separate spheres through Mrs. Joe when she declares to Mr. Joe “If [she] were not [...] a slave with her apron never off, [she] should have been able to hear the carols” (Dickens 20). Therefore, this evidence exhibits, Mrs. Joe is just a normal woman that stays home all the time. As the idea of separate spheres suggests, Mrs. Joe correlates perfectly with it. She knows that she is socially lower than men, and chooses to not go out on her own will. It would defy the concept of separate spheres. Because she knows this, she proves Dickens’s argument. In correlation to the first example, in Great Expectations, Mrs. Joe asks Pip and
Initially, Pip says that “it is a miserable thing to be ashamed from home” and that “[he] can testify” (Dickens 163). Additionally the evidence shows, Dickens is proving here that men are to go out and make a living. Pip is dissatisfied with his life, therefore, wanting to go out and be successful. To illustrate again, Pip explains that “[he] became aware that [his sister] - lying without sense or movement [...] had been knocked down by a tremendous blow” (Dickens 121). In response to the evidence shown, Pip is speaking about his sister Mrs. Joe, who has just been injured. Mrs. Joe is seen as inferior to her attacker. Hence, this shows in Dickens’s thoughts, men and women are truly unequal. To accentuate the point, Pip takes the time to realize “[his] coarse hands” and “[his] common boots” are characteristics he wants to change (Dickens 60). Thus, with this evidence in mind, the characteristics in Pip’s life that he realizes are dragging him down in life, statistically speaking and mentally. He now realizes that he cannot become useful in life with such attributes and this mindset fuels the fire inside him to become a true gentleman and effectively take part in a man’s role in life, to go out and make a living. Subsequently, Pip is yet another character that Dickens expresses gender roles through in his novel, Great