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Shakespeare: Macbeth, sonnets Keywords: Humanism, The Great Chain of Being, Wheel of Fortune Europeans moved away from the restrictive ideas of the Middle Ages (where focus was on the absolute power of God) to questioning humankind’s relationship to God. Focus on humanity created a newfound freedom for artists, writers and philosophers to be inquisitive about the world around them. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sd9hTzblb2ACB6nFFZe1s_bDtcaxUdBkrj59kuMxz5Q/edit
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Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (UK)
Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart (Dark Romanticism) (US) Keywords: Imagination, feelings (as opposed to scientific reasoning) Artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe. The period was one of major social change in England, because of the depopulation of the countryside and the rapid development of overcrowded industrial cities (the Industrial Revolution), that took place in the period roughly between 1750 and 1850. -
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Dorian Gray,The Yellow Wallpaper
- Values: sexual proprietary, hard work, honesty, prudence. sense of duty and responsibility towards the poor
- Liberalism, imperalism, traditional gender roles
Britain height of wealth and power - large sections of the population lived & worked in appalling conditions
Colonisation, new territories abroad - age-old rural communities disappear
Scientific &technological advances - Religious beliefs crumble
Rise of national pride - Deepening pessimism -
https://www.enotes.com/topics/tell-tale-heart Romanticism - European movement
Dark Romanticism - american version, which was more pessimistic - humans as inherently sinners -
https://www.enotes.com/topics/jane-eyre/in-depth The novel, both in its own time and in ours, has seemed to express woman's rebellion against the limitations of her lot. In the passage below, Jane voices her feelings of restlessness and rebellion when she takes a few moments out from her duties of tending the child. She feels a need to express herself beyond domestic life and duties.
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Eliza was the first female salaried journalist in Britain, and the author of over 20 novels. Despite her path breaking role as an independent woman, many of her essays took a strong anti-feminist bias.
Her vehement attack on feminism - on the attitudes and behaviour of modern women described in The Girl of the Period, spurred controversy and imitation. She strongly believed in separate spheres for men and women and decorum. -
Mills believed that one of the major hindrances to human development and progress is the subordination of one person to another; thus he argues for female equality in a Victorian society that denied women many social and political rights.
Compares the subjection of women to slavery
He was convinced that the moral and intellectual advancement of humankind would result in greater happiness for everybody
Mill often used his position as a member of Parliament to demand the vote for women -
https://www.enotes.com/topics/picture-dorian-gray The novel was published in 1890; the film made in 2009.
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Gillman's response to the male-run medical establishment and the patriarchal structure of the Victorian society. It's a warning about the consequences of fixed gender roles assigned by male-dominated societies: the man’s role= the husband and rational thinker, and the woman’s role = dutiful wife who does not question her husband’s authority. Depicts a marriage in which both the narrator and her husband are trapped in their assigned roles and are doomed because of this.
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Mrs Dalloway: Middle-aged. Wishes she could be like men, and tend to her own needs, instead of others. Regretful and wishes she could have lived another life
Feels she has no value in her own right – she is only Mrs Richard Dalloway
The sense of fear – fear of death and lack of meaning – permeates the excerpt
Post WW2 sorrow; people endure and keep up a façade https://www.enotes.com/topics/mrs-dalloway Identity
Gender roles
Time
purpose vs pointlessness
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Postmodernism: Fight Club, The Red Line, American Psycho, The Man Who Loved Flowers
- The Loss of Grand Narratives (no ultimate truth or authority)
-Death of the author (there is no inherent meaning in the text)
-Intertextuality
- Pastiche (copy of style)
- Dehumanization (objectification)
- Consumerism
-The Postmodern shrug: Anything goes (no rules, no limits)
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https://www.enotes.com/topics/american-psycho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruw9fsh3PNY (hip to be square murder scene) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGeAMVK75T4 (prelude, it shows Patrick Bateman's perfectionism and superficiality)
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetarmitage/kidrev1.shtml Intertextuality
Dehumanisation
Fragmentation
Anything goes (no stable center) -
Themes and message:
the constraints of societal roles
Existential crisis related to gender roles (hard to live up to
A society will always - to different degrees - impose restrictions on individuals, organising principles. It is the individual’s perception of these restrictions that can either further confine of set the person free. Character therefore seems to some extent to be destiny, since it requires an extreme effort to change the socialised inner expectations (gender roles) -
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wagn8Wrmzuc Intertextuality
Pastiche
Fragmentation
The postmodern Shrug:Anything goes -
Some main claims: men need to be just as involved in the path to gender equality as women are. Addresses the meaning of feminism and the social stigma attached to it (= to fight for equal rights for both men and women, not just for women). Wants to change people’s perception of the word. Talks about how women aren’t the only ones affected by gender stereotypes, men struggle too. Iif not her, then who”: If everyone has the mindset that someone else will take care of it, nothing will get done
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The meaning of the term masculinity needs to be changed
Masculinity = socially constructed term - depends upon time and context
Masculinity characteristics are internalised from childhood. Men feel pressured to follow these norms. Gender privilege are often not acknowledged, problematic
To challenge the dominant constructs of masculinity and gender inequality men need to be included in the discussion about gender roles and inequality Zero sum is not the only outcome; a power balance is possible -
A totalitarian theocracy that has forced fertile women to produce babies for elite barren couples = "handmaids" = state property. In Gilead, women are wives, handmaids, Marthas, or Aunts. Via Offred, a handmaid who mingles memories of her life before the revolution with her rebellious activities under the new regime, we experience a terrifying future by amplifying the current problems in societ = serves as a warning. Shows women how easily we could lose all that has been gained.
