... traits in fairytales indicate rewards while the negative characteristics bring dismay and misfortune. The heroine in fairytales is seen as a mentor to show what is right and wrong. A passive, beautiful heroine gains reward through her suffering and beauty, while her counterpart who is assertive in any aspect of her character is dismissed and discarded. In all three tales the major theme of the female character ... is passivity. Rapunzel relies completely on a prince, for her to escape her imprisonment; Cinderella has to use the mythic ... and the Beast. This tale gives children and soc...

• Word Count: 3110
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

... gender roles are forcing women into unwanted predicament and the discontent that it causes. Another great example of sadness that gender roles create in a character is Mrs. Linde. In this example gender roles aren't causing unhappiness in the same way, but they are still creating it. In this case, ... live for"(17). This means taking care of someone, providing for them, doing everything that they want, which is what society has been telling her that she should do because she is a female. And this is works out for a while, but when her husband dies and her mother and brothers are ok she fe...

• Word Count: 663
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

Written and set in the late 19th century, Bram Stoker's epistolary novel, Dracula, is a pivotal book in the horror/gothic literature. There are strong themes of morality and questioning what exactly is good or evil, there are ties to Christian iconography but what I found to be the most important were the strong themes of female sexuality and oppression. Victorian culture basically revolved around suppressing ... women and this is quite obvious in many scenes parts of the book. In a typical Victorian ... perfectly under the lashes. The fair girl went on her knees, and bent over me, fairly gl...

• Word Count: 1338
• Approx Pages: 5

... hired hand, burps aloud, she finds it very funny while her mother hates it. Now from a feminist point of view you would think that a girl would find this repulsive. The narrator's brother is named Laird, is a synonym for lord, which plays an important role in a story where a young girl has society's unwritten rules forced upon her. The name that the author chose for ... help in the house, commenting "She does all sorts of types of typical womanly work, such as washing dishes, canning food, and wearing an apron." (Line 455) This was not what she wanted and it proved to her that her mothe...

• Word Count: 1491
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... essence (256-57). Many feminist theorists and critics of the latter part of the twentieth century reject unchangeable human essence and accept what is known as social constructivism. Social constructivists reject essentialism's belief in unalterable human essence but assert that gender is socially constructed term and concept. Words such as homosexual, heterosexual, male and female are likewise constructed (Bressler 257). Moreover, Derrida ... socially constructed concepts that do not define who we really are. Queer theory challenges the assumption that human nature is unchangeable and...

• Word Count: 6441
• Approx Pages: 26
• Grade Level: High School