Abstract This three-page undergraduate paper discusses how the urban setting of "A Chaste Maid in Cheapside" and "The Country Wife" affect the presentation of the world and its manners and problems, and examines the way in which the fact of the city as a local background determines issues, behavior, attitudes, solutions.
Abstract In the "Odyssey", Penelope is portrayed as an ideal of aristocratic Greek womanhood. She exemplifies the feminine virtues of hospitality, faithfulness, prudence, and above all weaving, the symbol of chaste, virtuous conduct in women in Greece as much as it was in Rome. The paper examines the way Penelope's character is portrayed by the Roman writer Ovid as opposed to the original Greek written by Homer. The paper claims that Ovid's depiction of Penelope was the exact opposite of the character described by Homer. The paper then examines the reasons for this Roman point of view.
From the Paper "Ovid's approach to Penelope in the Heroides is satirical of the traditional portrait given of her by Homer. Many factors conditioned this choice. Simple repetition of Homer's version of Penelope would not have been sufficiently interesting since that approach was well known. The use of Homer as a schoolbook in Roman education would have encouraged a juvenile and satirical attitude toward the Epics (not that this was the only possible Roman attitude toward Homer!) in the same way that famous events from American history are today commonly used as a basis for satire in various forms of popular culture such as cartoons. The very seriousness of the epic genre, perhaps even more exaggerated in the Roman world than in the Greek, would have invited humor as a kind of relief. Ovid's early works, in any case, tended to be satirical and subversive of genre. The satirical technique Ovid employed in the first poem of the Heroides, a letter supposedly sent by Penelope to Odysseus on the eve of his return to Ithaca, is quite straightforward. He describes Penelope's character, actions, and concerns, as simply being the opposite of what one would expect from reading the Odyssey. The disconnection between this presentation and the reader's expectation provokes a reflection that gives rise to humor. Homer's Penelope is steadfast and resourceful; Ovid's is fearful and whining. Homer's Penelope is faithful and deeply in love with her absent husband; Ovid's is a jealous shrew fearful of his deceiving her with other women. Throughout the poem, every expectation about Penelope that the reader might have is subverted."
Tags: homer ovid greek roman mythology culture oddesy hospitality, faithfulness prudence weaving symbol chaste virtuous heroines epic satirical erotic
Abstract This paper analyzes the legends of King Arthur and Lancelot, Morgan and Guinevere. It claims that Arthur was an all-encompassing British figure. It examines the earlier versions of these stories, looking especially at the role played by the female characters in the tale as they appear not in the (now) better-known Malory version but in their original, pre-Christian modes.
From the paper:
"The female characters in La mort de roi Artu can trace their lineage at least in part to the story of Tristan and Isolde, which tells how the young Tristan traveled to Ireland to ask the hand of the princess Isolde for his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, but ? due to having mistakenly drunk a love potion ? falls in love himself with Isolde, who also falls in love with him even as the two remain loyal to King Mark. Mark attempts to ensnare them, but they remain chaste and true, and Isolde in the end marries Mark."
Abstract This paper examines Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" and William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" and shows the tendency of so many authors to categorize women as either angels or devils. It explains that women are depicted as either virgins or whores, redemptive, chaste maternal figures or lethal harpies who destroy innocent men through their sexuality and the authors of these novels present us with fairly unambiguous examples of these two archetypes ? or stereotypes ? of women.
From the Paper "The essential nature of femininity ? for both Eyre and Thackeray present us with characters meant to demonstrate the true and fundamental nature of both men and women ? is spelled out in these novels in terms of romantic love. For we cannot, in the worlds presented to us in these novels, truly understand the nature of the female characters without seeing them reflected in the eyes of male characters. This is especially true in the case of Jane Eyre. To understand the ways in which women can serve evil ends or good, the reader is asked to examine the pairings and sunderings of various characters and to determine, in the end, if the final couplings are in fact happy ones. Lying behind this question ? which may be rather simplistically summarized as will the hero and the heroine indeed live happily ever after with each other ? are ideas about the nature of love, the position of the individual in society, and the importance."
Abstract This paper discusses the self-discovering journey of Edna Pontelier in the story "The Awakening" and shows how her life is a depiction of many women in the late 1800's. It discusses the concept of illusions; It shows how she is presented with the illusion that the standard marriage of 1899, with wife subservient to the husband, and completely dedicated to her family, with no real thought for what she might need, is a hollow way to live. Then she explores the illusions that love can bring. She realizes that although her husband loves her and treats her well, the idea that he knows her well is an illusion. She leaves her family and the illusion of society's standards to live a more honest and exploratory life. She falls in love with a young man, but it is only an illusion of love, as he will not shed society's standards and live with her in sin, even though he loves her. Then she engages in a purely physical affair, the opposite of the chaste romance she has had with her new love, which is also an illusion, an incomplete relationship.
From the Paper "Edna can take this journey of self-discovery because she marries into the south's Creole culture, a culture where women of the time were assumed to be chaste and trustworthy and were not forced to limit themselves to domestic duties. This results in several seductions. First, Edna is seduced by the idea of freedom from domestic shackles. Eventually she goes much further and separates herself from her former social life completely. In the process she is seduced by the idea that she can also be sexually free, and in spite of being married love anyone she chooses to love, or have a sexual liaison if she chooses to."
Tags: illusion, love, marriage, suicide, sin, society
Abstract This paper discusses how Shakespeare focuses on the fact that honor can means different things to different people, and it can also be regarded as less than virtuous in some minds. It shows how Shakespeare clarifies the definition of honor in "King Henry", but he leaves the issue muddy in "Measure for Measure". He leaves us with personalities that may not seem be honorable ultimately being the most honorable of all. It is such characters that have made Shakespeare unmatched in his skill.
From the Paper "Isabella becomes the focus of honor and "doing the right thing" in Shakespeare's ?Measure for Measure.? During the course of the play, she is propositioned by three different men to break her vows and go against her conscious. Her honor is important to her, and she does not accept Angelo's proposal. In fact, she is forthright in her initial reaction to Angelo's request. In other words, she knows what he is all about. Even as Angelo begs Isabella to "Believe me, on mine honor,/My words express my purpose" (II.iv.46-7). She responds, ?Ha! Little honor to be much believed,/And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!? (II.iv.49-50). This scene helps us appreciate Isabella because she knows the right thing to do, despite what it means for her brother. She declares she will, "live chaste, and, brother, die:/More than our brother is our chastity" (II.iv.185-6). She is disgusted by the attitudes that surround her and to remove herself from it, she decides to enter a convent."
Abstract This paper presents a number of central themes that help to outline how the current sexual assault laws are falling short of meeting community expectations because of the environment in which they operate and the way in which they are implemented. The paper discusses the law itself and explores the myths that pervade society illustrating how these affect the implementation of the law both outside and within the courtroom. The paper examines evidentiary procedures in sexual assault trials, the notion of consent, the belief of the accused, the chaste woman and sentencing.
From the Paper "It is impossible to accurately measure whether the majority of society is more, or less, supportive of rape prone behavior. In any case, it is not that simple to draw the distinction. What I can say with a degree of optimism though, is that just as you didn"t have the same level of acceptance for alternative sexual preferences forty years ago, you also didn"t have the openness and sheer volume of discussion about sexual assault and the experiences of women who enter the legal system. It is my opinion that community attitudes, while they may always be diverse and divided, are generally becoming more sympathetic to the needs of women and less likely to tolerate a society that allows female subordination. It is a time of transition for the Western world and that is the positive stance I will be taking when I refer to "society"s? attitudes. While the laws in their current form are an improvement and a beginning, it is the attitudes of those members of society who fall out of my definition, that need to change before they can be implemented in a way that is truly valuable to women."
Abstract The character of Desdemona in William Shakespeare's tragedy "Othello" reflects an ideal woman in the eyes of men. Desdemona acts in a gentle manner at all times, even though with men she uses her sexual prowess and strong will to achieve her ambitions. The paper shows that Desdemona remains both virtuous and dutiful to her husband, Othello, while slanderous comments about her chaste result in her final death. Therefore, Desdemona's sincerity and faithfulness to Othello become ill spent. Although Desdemona acquires Othello as a husband by her own devices by enabling her femininity to get what she wants, Othello ironically ends up murdering her. The paper shows that Desdemona depicts the male concept of the ideal feminine role of a woman.
From the Paper "In the tragedy of Othello, Desdemona uses her sexual appeal to men in order to achieve her ambitions. At the beginning of the play, Desdemona manages to seduce Othello through her gentle and passive use of words which men find attractive. When Othello relates the story of their elopement, he comments on how Desdemona professed her love for him. "She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd / That heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me, / And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her, / I should but teach him how to tell my story, / And that would woo her. / Upon this hint I spake." (I,iii,162-166). Obviously, this quote shows that Desdemona's main motive includes the acquisition of Othello as her husband which she achieves through her use of gentle words, passiveness, and apparent fascination in Othello's life which the male character of Othello finds as an attractive trait in the female character Desdemona."
This paper discusses the role of Cleopatra in William Shakespeare's play, "Anthony and Cleopatra" written in 1606, only three years after the end of Elizabeth's reign.
Abstract This paper relates that one of the cultural ideologies, which were prominent in Shakespeare's day, was that in order for a woman to be considered a "good" woman, they must embody three certain characteristics: Silence, chastity and obedience. The author points out that Shakespeare's characterization of Cleopatra certainly has similarities to Elizabeth 1, but it goes even further and makes Cleopatra into an exaggerated version of Elizabeth except Cleopatra uses her sexuality to increase her power, while Elizabeth had to remain chaste in order to maintain her power. The paper relates that another manner in which Cleopatra's character diverges from the cultural attitude toward women is that she is not silent although in some points in the play Cleopatra seems submissive and even quiet or passive
From the Paper "In order to understand the attitudes of society in the early seventeenth century, one must first understand the politics that shaped societies attitude. Shakespeare was born into Elizabethan England in 1564. Elizabeth 1 was the first Queen of England to never marry and this significant in understanding how Cleopatra is conveyed so powerfully. Since the Middle Ages, marriages had always been arranged and this meant that it was almost impossible for a woman to avoid marriage, unless of course the woman was the queen. Although the law gave women virtually the same rights as a man while unmarried, as soon as a woman was married she became the property of her husband. Elizabeth 1 remained unmarried in order to maintain her right to be equal to man and to maintain her power."
Tags: comparison, similarities, exageration, sexuality, power
Abstract This paper discusses the protagonists from the novels, "Moll Flanders" by Daniel Defoe and "Pamela" by Samuel Richardson. The paper examines whether both Moll and Pamela were virtuous women. The paper contends that Moll is a good person, therefore she is a virtuous woman in the eyes of the reader, while Pamela is a chaste woman, therefore in the author's eyes she is a virtuous woman. The paper explores the narrative structures of the two novels, claiming that they contribute to this different definition of virtue in both the texts.
From the Paper "Both Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders and Samuel Richardson's Pamela tell the tales of what the (male) authors perceive as extraordinary lives of two virtuous but lower class women. However, for Richardson, Pamela's virtue is defined solely in terms of her ability to resist the sexual advances of her employer, Mr. B. The novel evolves through a series of eloquent letters whereby poor Pamela is pursued, spied upon and conspired against in the B. family home and country estate, all the while the girl attempts to retain her virginity, even going so far as to hide in the bed of another female servant's to do so. Daniel Defoe's Moll is subject to more economic and worldly hardships, and her virtue is defined not in terms of her resistance and denial of her body and sexual circumstances but in terms of her openness to others, her kindness, and her ability to shift with her circumstances. Moll is a good person, therefore she is a virtuous woman in the eyes of the reader (and however grudgingly, in the eyes of her creator), while Pamela is a chaste woman, therefore in the author's eyes she is a virtuous woman."
Abstract This paper discusses the evolution and success of the western genre of filmmaking. It discusses Andre Bazin's "The Western: Or the American Film Par Excellence" in which he analyzes this genre. It describes Bazin's arguments, as well as his comparison of the western to the courtly romances of the medieval era in their focus on the chaste woman and his comparison of them to the Russian revolutionary genre.
From the Paper "To Bazin, the only other modern epic cinema was the Russian revolutionary genre, which had some parallels to the western: both showed a new society undergoing its tumultuous birth pangs, imposing a new order and morality upon a vast canvas of human activity during a fleeting historical moment. Bazin concludes that, like the mythologized history of the Russian revolution, the story of the American west would have been relegated to much lesser international prominence were it not for the power of the moving image to universalize human experience."
