In 1984, Sandra Cisneros published a collection of forty four vignettes titled The House on Mango Street. This Bildungsroman narrates the experiences of growing up in a Hispanic-American neighborhood in Chicago through the eyes of Esperanza Cordero, a fictionalized adolescent girl who is transitioning between childhood and adulthood. Due to parallels between the lives of Cisneros and Esperanza, Esperanza functions as a surrogate for Cisneros. Cisneros suppresses the milieu she witnesses as a child; therefore, when searching for her literary identity, she uses phantasies to channel those experi...

• Word Count: 2834
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The Ideal of Womanhood in Kate Chopin's The Awakening Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer rights than men. The Women's Rights Movement began in cities of the northeast in the early to mid-1800's and soon emerged in cities of the Midwest and western states. It was not until the 1890's that women in the southern states joined the bandwagon. The Awakening by Kate Chopin, set in the coastal region of Louisiana, was written and published during this time. Industrialization, urbanization and changing social norms in the United States were great i...

• Word Count: 3206
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

In One of Ours the main character, Claude, is confronted with life changing decisions in his social and personal lives. He does not conform to many of the ideals, which his family lives by and therefore has become an outcast at home. However, Claude's personal struggles do not reside strictly within the confines of his household. His troubles carry on through the story and become especially apparent in his sexual life. At times, Cather portrays Claude as man who is crippled in his sexuality and is this act is demonstrated with the way he handles himself with women. ...

• Word Count: 5298
• Approx Pages: 21
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

As she was standing there watching, she was "armed with a gun, her dead son's rifle, to make sure that none of them could escape."" ... This was the same rifle that she would use to ensure that not one of the soldiers would escape from the house. ...

• Word Count: 2584
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

The fact that it is Hester who helps Dimmesdale up the steps to the place where he confesses and then dies, escaping the direct ridicule of the community, just reinforces my belief that she deserves the title of hero. ...

• Word Count: 3565
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Pretty Woman is an appropriation of the play by Bernard Shaw called Pygmalion, because it's characters, plot and central theme can all be closely linked. Both Vivian Ward's and Eliza Doolittle's transformation into society's "ideal women" undertakes the same central journey, with pivotal moments in ...

• Word Count: 3802
• Approx Pages: 15

Historical Insights on Dating Dating is a relatively new concept. It has been ingrained into our society that we think it is something that has existed forever. However, dating is an invention of the 20th century. In the past the term courtship was used. The word courtship is almost unknown in today's society. ...

• Word Count: 2701
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, is a complex work of literature. It combines involved characters with deep symbolism to tell the story of a troubled woman and what drives her to suicide. Because of its complexity, it is difficult to classify The Awakening into a literary category. On the surface, ...

• Word Count: 4173
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

Women in The Winter's Tale The winter's tale was one of Shakespeare's last plays. As a typical tragicomic, the whole play is shaped into a two-part structure. The first part is the story about Leonte's jealousy which brings the destruction to his royal family. It is completely tragic and sad. With a narration from the Time, the latter part, which tells the things 16 years later, turns from dim scenes to be bright and comic. ...

• Word Count: 2824
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Theorist William Rathbone Greg best summaries the feelings of the Victorian age towards fallen women: "If the passions of woman were ready, strong, and spontaneous, in a degree even remotely approaching the form they assume in the coarser sex, there can belittle doubt that sexual irregularities woul...

• Word Count: 3387
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Indeed, this extract, though to be analysed from a Structuralist point of view, is very much impregnated with the idea of feminism where the woman acts as if she has managed to escape the mindless need to entertain men. ...

• Word Count: 2783
• Approx Pages: 11

Analyse the function of misogyny in Heartbreak House and Mrs Dalloway The use of misogyny in the following texts can be related to the treatment of women throughout the novels. In Mrs Dalloway There is a complex alignment between Septimus and Clarissa. This is useful as it gives a comparison between...

• Word Count: 2609
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

Summary of Rebecca Rebecca's narrative takes the form of a flashback. The heroine who remains nameless, lives in Europe with her husband, Maxim de Winter traveling from hotel to hotel, harboring memories of a beautiful home called Manderley, which, we learn, has been destroyed by fire. The story be...

• Word Count: 3026
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

In the Tale of Genji, we meet a Japanese prince by the name of Genji who over time, developed several relationships with the women of his village. These relationships were developed through his use of charm, his royal status and his good looks to pry into their hearts. These three characteristics he...

• Word Count: 2745
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Webster's College Dictionary defines feminism as "a doctrine advocating social, political, and economic rights for women equal to those of men; a movement for the attainment of suck rights- (Random House, 2000: 484). The act of doing whatever is necessary to attain equal treatment and the ability t...

• Word Count: 2628
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Representation is a way of re-presenting certain events or stories to the audience. However real the representation seems, it can never really offer its audience a true presentation of ideas. In this way, the media uses representation to simplify a text allowing their audience to consume it in a clear and manageable way, allowing them to enjoy it more. Representation is a very important idea when looking at films that portray women in different societies, because they therefore have different ideologies to live up to. Stereotypes are also used in film; they are not real people, but widely ...

• Word Count: 5174
• Approx Pages: 21
• Grade Level: High School