... 's (1999) notion of gender performativity, since these public performances and spectacles, whether to a live audience or via billboards and advertisements, provide a platform for the production and reproduction of gendered expectations of leadership and the reiteration of gendered sources of leadership authority. Mayawati and Uma Bharti Kanshi Ram believed that political power was the key to usher in social change without ... Communist cadres have led to physical brawls and assaults. She is a political maverick and a firebrand orator. Her mass appeal is buttressed by her humble lifestyle....

• Word Count: 8108
• Approx Pages: 32
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the ideal woman within her nineteenth-century English context. Commonly regarded as a realist writer in her accurate portrayal of everyday, Regency era life, Austen was moreover "one of the great formative and founding influences on how we think about 'England' and 'Englishness,' as well as class, ideology and gender issues."2 Her novels raise central matters within her ... novel by his superior class position.26 However, as is immediately revealed in his remark regarding Elizabeth's appearance, "he ruins the good impression by boorishness."27 Furthermore, his expectations of h...

• Word Count: 5516
• Approx Pages: 22
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... desired independence above all else, their wish for equality was a common theme in literature of that era. One such example is Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's story, "A New England Nun." In this account, Freeman uses a variety of symbolism, along with the character of Louisa Ellis, to give women of ... Dagget, who was undeniably husband material and considered a "catch" for any single woman, reinforces the point that she was rebelling against the norms and expectations of society. In the late 19th century, the concept of an aging and unmarried spinster was frowned upon - for every woman "need...

• Word Count: 2223
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... for over centuries, like the 'Apartheid', the massacre of the Jews and the exlusion of the Protestants in the 16th century. In the Beowolf story this is an apparent theme. Various people or groups are in some way marginalized or excluded. Some of these groups (of people) that will be ... marginalized and thus made outcasts and in what ways are they similar and different? First of all, women are the major victims of marginalisation in the story. A reason for the unimportance and the subservient role of women in Beowulf is that heroic epics such as beowulf tend to valorize men's dee...

• Word Count: 992
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... that during this time, Behn gathered the inspiration and resources necessary to write Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave, which is supposedly the true story of an African prince who is enslaved and brought to Surinam. Aphra returned to England after Surinam was surrendered to Holland and shortly thereafter ... the Royal Slave continues to be Behn's most widely read and highly regarded work, upholding both historical and societal significance. Behn's tragic love story chronicles the life of an African prince who is captured and transported to a sugarcane plantation as a slave on the British colo...

• Word Count: 2238
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... subtext. She subtly bemoans these tendencies and offers hopes to "[transcend] outworn or oppressive forms, or [dare] to break with normal pleasurable expectations in order to conceive a new language of desire."4 This implies that an awareness of the way pleasure and beauty elicits a scopophilic gaze ... into a new apartment with her boyfriend, Valerie notices a giant billboard of herself on the building across, which she and her husband both take great voyeuristic pleasure in. Almost like a mirror, the billboard represents a more perfect and easily fetishized version of herself, and as ...

• Word Count: 4301
• Approx Pages: 17
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... more complex and refined plays being produced [Goo03]. It is precisely around this period that Caryl Churchill sets her epic play Top Girls. The story contrasts the lives and ideologies of two sisters, Marlene and Joyce, and the resultant conflicts between them. Marlene is portrayed as a woman who ... that the fathers of Isabella and Lady Nijo are architects of their repression, as well as their husbands (particularly the Emperor in Lady Nijo's story and Griselda's Marquis Walter, whom she had to obey in all things, even to the point of giving up her two children at his ... voices" [Goo0...

• Word Count: 3095
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... her life who represent the even more powerful force of society. Although she is heavily restricted by the men in her life, Hedda is clear about her rejection of society's expectations for women. It is obvious that "bourgeois domesticity holds no charm for her...nor does motherhood seem to offer Hedda any hope of fulfillment: she shrinks with disgust whenever ... the only character from Ibsen's work who illustrates the difficulty of overcoming patriarchal standards for women. Nora Helmer of A Doll's House has faced extreme criticism as a feminist icon. Although this story demonstrates the ...

• Word Count: 1867
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... a caste based on the quality of one's karma and can only advance up to a higher position through good dharma (Simmonds, 1984). This story developed the notion that because of one's dharma and karma in past life, it is acceptable to be treated differently or have different sets of ... castes because of the poor dharma they exhibited in prior lives. In addition to this, it can be inferred that the author has a great value for the concept as dharma as it is instrumental to how one's future advances. An effect of this is that Institutions in modern ... were featured in texts presenting th...

• Word Count: 1545
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate