In "The Queen's Looking Glass" written by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar they address the issue of literary potential for women in a world formed by men as well as the male images given to women. According to Gilbert and Gubar men have created "external types" in literature to classify women as. In the essay the women are concerned with how women are portrayed with symbols of monsters, angels, or sometimes both. .
In the nineteenth century as well as today women depicted as the "angel" are said to be quite and passive. They were unable to speak their minds and to be active. Women were encouraged to please society and to be self-less. Women that were self-less were women without voices or said to be dead. This is where the concept of demonization comes in. Demonization is a process that relates to the idea of splitting, which is when a person splits himself or herself into a good and bad subject. When the bad self is split off it is projected on the other or the good self. If women are seen as self-less the mirror image of that or the opposite is created.
The mirror image of the angel is the "monster". Women represented as the "monster" are selfish, active, outspoken, and naturally evil. Monsters are said to be responsible for the negative image on female creativity. When women are given these two roles they are silenced and limited with very little room to object. Women are given their self-image, which contains them and kills them into art. According to Gilbert and Gubar by women trying to change their physical appearance to make it more appealing shows their willingness to kill the monster within.
Before women can break through these mythical stereotypes they have to understand the character and source of these extremes. In the Gilbert and Gubar essay they refer to Virginia Woolf and the "Woolfian Act". The belief of theWoolfian Act is to kill the principle of which women have been killed into art.