In Virginia Woolf's modernist novel To the Lighthouse, she explores various themes, and the theme of female gender role is just one of them. Through her deployment of the stream of consciousness style, Woolf dives into the inner world of her characters and expresses these themes through their though...
The role of the "passive female" is one played by Marian, from Atwood's The Edible Woman, and by Lily, from Choy's The Jade Peony. ... Marian and Lily are two characters that fulfill the stereotypical role of the passive female and in doing so, they both give something up. ... Lily is admirable because she is a strong survivor. ... Marian and Lily may have played passive, relatively non-active roles in the novels but they were also strong characters and overcame great triumphs. ... We see this through the characters of Marian, Lily, Poh-Poh, and Meiying. ...
Art critic, and writer John Ruskin wrote the article Sesame and Lilies, it is a primary source published in 1865 to use as a lecture, which was given in Manchester on December 6, 1864. Deborah Epstein-Nord described in her edition of Sesame and Lilies that it is a "classic nineteenth-century statement on the natures and duties of men and women", (Epstein-Nord, 2002). ... Addressed to the women of the audience, Ruskin gives a contradictory and enigmatic description of the role of a woman; in the first paragraph of Sesame and Lilies he states that both sexes are equal but not alike, and that ...
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...
