Unlike the earlier romantic 19th century novels of Jane Austen whose characters such as Elizabeth Bennett lived happily ever after, Victorian novelist George Eliot, broke the tradition of the standard romantic novel by representing women in unhappy relationships and the reality and problems of the woman's role in life and their place in society, this is particularly evident in her realist novel Middlemarch. Another example of the way women were represented in the mid-Victorian period is in poetry such as Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" who is bound by the web she weaved within th...

• Word Count: 1599
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

"The Plantation Mistress" By Catherine Clinton The Plantation Mistress focuses on the elite women living on plantations with twenty or more slaves in the seven seaboard states of the plantation South during the period between 1780 and 1835. Through the study of nearly 500 manuscript collections...

• Word Count: 582
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Eva Luna was my introduction into the world of Isabel Allende's novels and I have to admit that in the beginning I had to struggle with the stereotype of "romantic pulp novels- to get myself through the first twenty-five - thirty pages (Wilson). ...

• Word Count: 2213
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

One can constantly spot his eyes wandering to a woman's breasts or rear, he spends a whole scene staring at scantily clad women by a pool and talking about their bodies, and he even perverts the baptism of his attractive maid into a romantic sexual fantasy. ...

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

The role of women in society is very different today compared to the role of women in Victorian society, in the 19th Century. Discuss this statement with reference to Maggie Tulliver in "Mill On The Floss" Since the book "Mill on The Floss" was written nearly two hundred years ago, it is no sur...

• Word Count: 1369
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The role of women in society is very different today compared to the role of women in Victorian society, in the 19th Century. Discuss this statement with reference to Maggie Tulliver in "Mill On The Floss" Since the book "Mill on The Floss" was written nearly two hundred years ago, it is no sur...

• Word Count: 1370
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Apart from comparing Gonne's threatening beauty to a weapon, Yeats also interpreted Gonne as a feminist who always had the dominant role in the romantic relationship, overruling while emasculating the man in order to manipulate him to resort to violence. ...

• Word Count: 1252
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Displaying this side of the man expresses the difference between him and the woman's romantic and emotional personality, which is still applicable to young adults today dealing with the burden of unplanned pregnancy. ...

• Word Count: 1134
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Because Alcott is teaching her young readers what it means to grow up, she must face the question of Jo's fate in the novel: will she remain independent and romantic, or will she conform to custom and marry? ...

• Word Count: 1473
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Many female characters in 19th Century texts are caught between a need for independence through working, and a need for security, through marriage and the taking on of domestic duties as a housewife. They must choose between the uncertain prospect of setting out on their own and the extensive limita...

• Word Count: 1558
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Shakespeare in Love, directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard, is a romantic-comedy drama that depicts a lustrous affair between the privileged Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the upcoming commoner playwright William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) which transpires during the fictional development of the play Romeo & Juliet. ...

• Word Count: 1880
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Stereotypes have long identified what is "male" and what is "female". These stereotypes, designated by society, determine what type of role each gender fulfills in society. But male and female roles change over time, and as traditional stereotypes begin to fade, so do gender roles. Today, women experience freedom and opportunities that were thought unattainable by their female ancestors. Stereotypes and gender roles had a strong hold on society in the late 1800's, and because many women silently desired independence above all else, their wish for equality was a common theme in literature...

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

"The exemplary female prototype in advertising, regardless of product or service, displays youth (no lines or wrinkles), good looks, sexual seductiveness, and perfection (no scars, blemishes, or even pores (Cortese 2008, 59)." It's a difficult point to argue; in looking around, what's gleaned is how...

• Word Count: 2240
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Aphra Behn is a complicated figure within English theatrical history. As the first woman in England to classify herself as a professional writer and playwright, she wrote to support herself and to prove a point during a time when women were deemed subordinate to men. She was a commoner among royals...

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