In The Woman in Fairy Tales, Marie-Louise von Franz studies the feminine representations in fairy tales. She bases her study on collective symbols assumed to be present in these stories to shed light on the various facets of the anima. This book points at the fact that even if fairy tales are generally seen as a form of distraction, these stories have also a psychological function which expresses the psychic processes of the collective unconscious. This is of a capital interest to analyze the instrumentalization of the princesses in the advertising campaigns.…
Although there are not very many female characters in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or any of the other literature discussed this semester, the small roles the females play…
One can say that the active role women play in Beowulf is rather minimal and that they are mostly confined to the task of playing hostess to the adventure seeking men. This, however, is not the case—especially when one looks beyond the surface. Women throughout Beowulf play the important role of peacemakers and are often seen giving gifts and honor, both of which are very important in this culture. Without women the world Beowulf knew would have been a maelstrom of chaos and war.…
Media plays an important role in the depiction and construction of gender. Several studies exist which have focused on gender role portrayals and gender stereotyping appearing in the media. Considering this phenomenon, gender stereotyping is not only displayed in commercials or other television programs, but these can also be found in media products directed towards children. One of the issues , which is of great interest to many researchers is that even fairy tales, like cartoons and animation films, present male and female characters portrayed stereotypically (Robinson et al. 2006:203). Fairy tales have been the first kind of literature with which children…
Women in the book seem to only serve mead, provide entertainment, and serve the men. In the time Beowulf was written women had still not gained that rights they have today. They were of the seen as property rather than a person. And they were treated like so. The role of women back then was not a big one, Hrothgar’s wife was a queen! And all she did was serve mead at Heorot. I can only imagine what women who were not married to powerful men had to endure.…
Woman are represented poorly in The Odyssey and there are many instances where they are treated as prizes, tricksters, and plot devices. The Odyssey is often referred to as the journey of men but it disregards the fact that women play a role as well as men.…
Throughout history, women have usually been seen as weak and without power. However, women such as Helena, Hermia, Titania, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Helen, Circe, and Penelope in The Odyssey are not weak. Instead, they are very powerful but in different ways. The women of The Odyssey and A Midsummer Night’s Dream threaten male power but in different ways.…
The fall of Rome began in the early middle Ages. Pope Gregory established the western Church of Rome. Women played great roles in the Middle Ages. Women were in control of the convent of nuns. The king was the top leader in the land of the Feudal System that contributed to the hard working farmers who were labeled as peasant. The head merchant was the owner of everything in the villages including the crops, the town, and the peasants. The Cathedral Churches of England were the most impressive of the Middle Ages. The family was the fundamental part of social order and women played a significant role at every level of feudal…
According to the feminist writer Fay Weldon, “Men are irrelevant.” “Women are happy or unhappy, fulfilled or unfulfilled, and it has nothing to do with men.” Why then do traditional fairy tales portray women who judge their self worth upon whether or not a handsome Prince wants to marry them? Why are the Prince's in these tales only concerned with women's beauty and not their wit or intellect? Traditional nineteenth century gothic fiction stereotyped women as naïve ''damsels in distress'', constantly reliant on male protection. Women who rebelled against this stereotype, or got men into trouble were punished.…
Although men are the Epic characters of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey, women also play a very important role in both stories. In general, these two stories portray women as being overly sexual, deceptive, and having a power over men. Women use their sexuality to hold control over men, to confuse and deceive them.…
In both the poem and movie the role of women are quite similar, both gave women somewhat of a subservient role, as they were referred to as the keepers of the mead in the poem and in the movie the women always serve the soldiers and even Wealhtheow acted as servant to the Hrothgar and Beowulf. The men were also shown as strong warriors, while the women were depicted as frail and weak, which reflects the mistaken ideas of both the Anglo-Saxon and modern societies where the men are favored. Although the role of the women were pretty similar, in the movie the women were given bigger parts in the movie. For example, in the movie we noticed a theme where the women were more seductive to get the men to do things, like when Grendel’s mother seduced both Hrothgar and Beowulf in order to secure her safety. You can notice a lot of comparison between the movie version and the modern way we act, which the directors were trying to appeal…
The literature of this sort of masculine society, of which the Iliad and Odyssey are examples, aptly illustrates these social conventions. The themes of these works are subjects which are of interest to men; warfare, hunting, the problems of the warrior and ruler, and so forth. That which would concern women, such as domestic affairs, is not involved in this literature, or is dealt with only casually. Keeping in mind this important attribute of epic poetry, which is the direct result of its social and intellectual environment, one cannot help noting the great difference between the Odyssey and all other epic poems. No other literary work of this period, or of a similar cultural background, gives such a prominent position to women. No reader of the Odyssey can help having vivid memories of the poem’s outstanding female characters. There are many women in the Odyssey and all of them contribute in mean-ingful ways to the development of the action. Furthermore, they are treated seriously and with respect by the poet, as if there were no difference between his attitude toward them and his feelings toward the chieftains for whom his epic was composed. Among the memorable women in the poem are Nausicaa, the innocent young maiden; Arete, the wise and benevolent queen and mother; Circe and Calypso, the sultry and mysterious temptresses; Penelope, the ideal of marital devotion and fidelity; Helen, the respectable middle-class matron…
During the sixth century BCE, women were given very small roles in the Greek community. The female duties were glorified in literary such as Antigone and The Odyssey. The typical housewife was made to have children and take care of the home while the men worked and fought. Women were given very few rights and didn't have an input in political issues. Women could exercise very little power in Ancient Greece due to literary, social, and political ideals.…
Throughout the texts we have read in class, including in the ones examined closely in this paper (namely Lanval, The Wife’s Lament, and Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale) women consistently appear as powerful beings. This introduces a certain amount of threat simply because the woman’s position in medieval society was largely guided by the principles in the Bible – and thus, women were treated as “lesser” according to writings that stated that they weren’t allowed to teach, were to submit to the men in their life, and were to avoid “playing the whore” (Leviticus 21:9). The texts, then, will often attempt to rid those women of their powerful status or explain why they do not deserve it. At the very least,…
For the past several years, I have been a babysitter for a little girl by the name of Magnolia. She and I have developed a clockwork schedule of our time spent together. Four o'clock we play princesses, five o'clock we eat, six o'clock we play princesses again, and by eight o'clock I am reading a story to her while she drifts away dreaming of faraway kingdoms. My favorite part is always story time; when her little hands eagerly shove her now tattered copy of Cinderella into my own. I always suggest another story, perhaps the Velveteen Rabbit, or Rainbow Fish, but to her her bedtime story is not complete without a princess, a brave knight, and a happy ending. These once upon a time’s are all that dominate…