Multiple perspectives toward women in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: a feministic overview
Autor/in:
Fakhimi Anbaran, Farough
Quelle: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, (2016) 66, S 129-134
Inhalt: Undoubtedly, in spite of all those efforts done during the years, the mentality towards the superiority of male over female is still being reflected in the works of art written by men. Joseph Conrad, the Polish author, who wrote great masterpieces in English, is not an exception. His great work of art, Heart of Darkness, reflects multiple perspectives towards women. By applying a Feminist approach towards this novel, this article tends to present an analytical overview of the mentality of men towards women in the written work of art, Heart of Darkness.
Das hässliche Entlein wird zum Schwan: Liebe, Schönheit und Selbstnarration in Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey und Jane Eyre
Titelübersetzung:From ugly duckling to (Bella) swan: love, beauty and self-narration in Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey and Jane Eyre
Autor/in:
Coffey, Judith
Quelle: GENDER - Zeitschrift für Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft, 8 (2016) 2, S 83-98
Inhalt: "Der Beitrag fokussiert auf die Protagonistinnen und zugleich Erzählerinnen von Stephenie Meyers Twilight-Saga und E. L. James' Fifty-Shades-Trilogie und vergleicht sie mit ihrem Prototyp, Jane Eyre aus dem gleichnamigen Roman von Charlotte Brontë. Im Zentrum steht eine Analyse der Selbstbeschreibung von Bella, Ana und Jane als gewöhnlich, unscheinbar und wenig attraktiv. Indem diese Selbstbeschreibung in den Kontext des Gesamttextes - und damit der Liebesgeschichte und ihrer seit dem 19. Jahrhundert etablierten Begehrensökonomie - gestellt wird, kann herausgearbeitet werden, wie die Sichtweise der Erzählerinnen im Text gewichtet und punktuell infrage gestellt wird und wie sich die Protagonistinnen im Laufe der Erzählung in feminine und begehrenswerte Frauen verwandeln. Dadurch kann in den Blick genommen werden, welche spezifische Form weißer bürgerlicher heterosexueller Weiblichkeit in heteronormativen Liebesgeschichten entworfen und bekräftigt wird." (Autorenreferat)
Inhalt: This article focuses on the heroines and firstperson narrators in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga and E. L. James's erotic retelling Fifty Shades of Grey. I undertake a comparison with what can be identified as the prototype for these heroines, namely Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre in the eponymous novel. I use the fact that Bella, Ana and Jane describe themselves as ordinary, unremarkable and plain as my point of departure. By locating their selfnarration within the context of the love story, its long-established plot structure and its politics of desire, I aim to show how their view is weighted and questioned, and how the heroines’ transformation into feminine and desirable women is effected in the text. This reading enables me to analyse and criticise the specific form of white heterosexual bourgeois femininity that is produced and reinforced by heteronormative love stories." (author's abstract)
Cultural identity in Eugenia Kim's The Calligrapher's Daughter
Autor/in:
Ng, Wen Lee; Wan Yahya, Wan Roselezam; Mani, Manimangai
Quelle: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, (2015) 62, S 131-139
Inhalt: Eugenia Kim’s The Calligrapher's Daughter (2009) is a well-received East Asian novel about a Korean Christian, Najin's encounter with western culture. As an aristocratic woman, she is expected to uphold Korean tradition. However, as Najin realises that she is culturally marginalised by her father and the Korean traditional society mainly due to her gender, she picks up a foreign culture introduced to her, western culture. This move is extremely significant because after Najin driven by cultural marginalisation to embrace western culture, her cultural practices are no longer the same with traditional Korean women. This important turn of the novel has not been explored by scholars extensively. Thus, this study aims to depart from the cultural marginalisation faced by Najin. Furthermore, due to the fact that cultural identity formation is highly influenced by culture, there is a need to look into the changes of Najin’s cultural identity as she incorporates western culture into her Korean traditional culture. By investigating the changes of Najin’s cultural identity throughout the novel, this study finds that Najin has transformed from a nameless girl without an identity into an independent woman with the help of western education.
Schlagwörter:Christentum; Literatur; Tradition; Ostasien; Roman; Emanzipation; Marginalität; Western world; culture; woman; kulturelle Identität; emancipation; westliche Welt; cultural identity; literature; Kultur; Christianity; tradition; marginality; Far East; novel; Korea
SSOAR Kategorie:Kultursoziologie, Kunstsoziologie, Literatursoziologie, Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung
The role of culture and society in the development of plot in Tanushree Podder's Escape from Harem and Gita Mehta's A River Sutra: a feminist reading
Autor/in:
Khandhar, Diren Ashok; Mani, Manimangai
Quelle: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, (2015) 56, S 44-49
Inhalt: Culture and Society are often the main gist of most novels. These two factors often influence and control the characters, thus helping in the development of the plot. A plot, as defined by Egan (1978), is used to indicate an outline of events and serves as a skeleton in a literary piece. In other words, it is a tool in making sure the main incidents or scenarios are presented in a particular order to establish a clear understanding of what is being written. Culture and society plays the essence in a novel as it constructs these main ideas in engaging the interest of a reader and also extends the intended message of the particular writer. This paper looks into how culture and society helps in developing the plots of the selected novels using the feminist approach. Tanushree Podder's, Escape from Harem (2013) and Gita Mehta's A River Sutra (1993) amazingly are both set in India. Podder and Mehta have inserted the perception society had over women and how male supremacy was glorified in many aspects. The essence of feminist approach was very much present in these two novels. According to Tyson (2006), feminism concerns the ways in which literature undermines the economic, political, social and psychological oppression on women. Though the setting of both novels fall in different eras but the theme of female oppression remains the same. The patriarchal society uses culture and religion as a tool to control women and oppress them. Both authors have shown how the women in the 17th century and in the 20th century face the same kind of judgment from the society and men in general.
Quelle: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, (2015) 50, S 86-90
Inhalt: Canadian novels have witnessed a movement from description to more different analytical and interpretative directions. Margaret Atwood's oeuvres are belonged to the postmodern literary field of feminist writing. Her fictions show a severe alertness of the relationship between chains and slavery, i.e. between women's requirement for relationships with others and her requirements for freedom and autonomy. In this paper, The Handmaid's Tale, Bodily Harm, Surfacing, and The Edible Woman will be surveyed in a direct relationship between politics, violence and victimization of female protagonists. An examination on Margaret Atwood's novels demonstrates that she is pioneer in the dimension of time by being a revolter against the patriarchal society.
Quelle: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, (2015) 51, S 158-167
Inhalt: Masculine crisis has always been with men and presented in masculine studies, but it becomes popular in the post modern era after crucial events such as feminism, the world wars, economical problems, etc. The issue of masculinity and masculine crisis exists in works of Ian McEwan and this study applies masculine crisis on his Enduring Love (1994). Most of McEwan’s characters are men who seek to find their places in post modern era. Thus this paper focuses on masculine crisis which emerges in Joe Rose, the male protagonist of this novel, when the shattering moments in the beginning of the novel threaten his power and authority which is very important in masculinity of men. There is another factor (homophobia) in the novel that leads him toward masculine crisis as well. All through the novel the male character tries to regain his lost authority and power. At the end of the novel, he somehow overcomes masculine crisis. This paper uses Butler's theory of gender and other critics of masculine studies.
Das Profil der Täterin: neue Monsterheldinnen im Horrorgenre
Titelübersetzung:The female culprit's profile: new female monster-heroes in the horrorgenre
Autor/in:
Miess, Julia
Quelle: GENDER - Zeitschrift für Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft, 3 (2011) 2, S 25-43
Inhalt: "Die Vorstellung der passiv-friedfertigen Frau und des aktiv-aggressiven Mannes findet nicht nur in den traditionellen Bildern des männlichen Schurken und der Opferheldin Ausdruck, sondern wird implizit selbst in den wegweisenden kulturkritischen Werken Klaus Theweleits und Elisabeth Bronfens sichtbar, die ihr Erkenntnisinteresse zuerst auf männliche Subjektpositionen - Männerfantasien -richten. Sie führt in Gattungstheorien zu Ausblendungen und drückt sich in Klischees von Mütterlichkeit und weiblicher Zurückhaltung im Arbeitsleben mit realer Wirkung aus. Ausgehend von Figuren wie der Täterin Nike im Roman Die Hirnkönigin der deutschsprachigen Autorin Thea Dorn zeichne ich die kulturelle Wandlung von der Opferheldin zur Monsterheldin nach - zu einer Figuration, die auf neue Möglichkeiten der Identifikation und auf die Notwendigkeit verweist, die Zusammenhänge von Gender, Genre und Gewaltdarstellung neu zu diskutieren." (Autorenreferat)
Inhalt: "The idea of passive-placid femininity and active-aggressive masculinity does not only become evident in traditional representations of male Gothic villains and female victim-heroes; it is also implicitly evident in works of cultural criticism that have become classics. Klaus Theweleit and Elisabeth Bronfen first of all focus on male subject positions, 'male fantasies'. Until today, the idea of women being less aggressive has led to their exclusion from genre theories and affects everyday life, from cliches of devoted motherhood to inequalities in employment. By analyzing characters such as the female serial killer Nike in Thea Dorn's novel Die Hirnkönigin ['the brain queen'], I would like to Show a cultural shift from female victim-hero to female monsterhero. In representations of the female monster-hero, new possibilities of identification become exemplary, as well as the need to rediscuss the relation between gender, genre and Images of violence." (author's abstract)