Helene's Sexuality

The book goes through Jeannette’s life exposing the mistakes she, her siblings, and her parents made to become the family they were. As her life grows older, Jeannette finds herself in more responsible positions in the world, with editing school newspapers, to writing columns in a small New York newspaper outlet. Her troubles have raised the issue of stereotyping, a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. Due to her status in her childhood, it was not hard for her to fit in with the other members of the poor community. “Dinitia explained that I was with her and that I was good people. The women looked at one another and shrugged.” (Walls 191) The quote talks about how members of the black community in Welch accepted Jeannette to go swimming with them in the morning hours before the white people went in the afternoon. The people who knew Dinita, Jeannette’s friend, knew that Dinita was trustworthy, and let Jeannette pass. This relates to the thesis because it shows how she was accepted amongst the people who were

In Deborah E. McDowell’s essay Black Female Sexuality in Passing she writes about the sexual repression of women seen in Nella Larsen‘s writings during the Harlem Renaissance, where black women had difficulty expressing their sexuality. In her essay, she writes about topics affecting the sexuality of women such as, religion, marriage, and male dominated societies. In Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif” there are examples of women who struggle to express their sexuality. The people in society judge women based off their appearance, and society holds back women from expressing themselves due to society wanting them to dress/act a certain way.

For example, Helene's grandmother, Cecile, remove Helene from her mother, Rochelle, because of the lifestyle she lives. Cecile does not want her granddaughter to have the same chances as her daughter. In addition, was struggling to understand what happened to her daughter. So, Cecile "raised her under the dolesome eyes of a multicolored Virgin Mary"(Morrison 1920). She takes safety measures to be "on guard for any sign of [Rochelle's] wild blood"(pg. 17). Suffering with the need to control, Cecile takes away the light of Helene's life and replaces it with strict background founded of the grounds of the

Society is often seen to have different biases or perspectives on topics such as the role and perception of women. The short story, “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, consists primarily of a catalog of commands and instructions, the purpose of which is to make sure that the mother’s daughter is constantly in check and not getting into any trouble. Jamaica Kincaid utilizes a wide range of techniques such as symbolism and diction in order to showcase the theme of how the depiction of women rely mainly on how they present themselves in the public and how they are so easily described as impure or filthy.

Esther Newton’s Mother Camp: Female Impersonators of America provides a unique perspective of American culture from a marginalized, often silenced part of society: drag queens. Newton’s 1960s ethnographic study offers commentary on some of the most basic understandings of America by analyzing the culture of the (mostly homosexual) drag subculture. One of the concepts Newton explores is that all gender is an act. Some conventional wisdom that many accept is the idea of a gender binary, as well as associations of masculinity and femininity with sex. As the typical drag queen involves a man adopting the attire and mannerisms of a feminine woman, he is challenging what society expects of him. Newton argues that the drag queen/female impersonator

In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl,” the narration of a mother lecturing her daughter with sharp, commanding diction and unusual syntax, both affect the evolution of a scornful tone, that her daughter’s behavior will eventually lead her to a life of promiscuity that will affect the way people perceive her and respect her within her social circle. As well as the fact that it emphasizes expectations for young women to conform to a certain feminine ideal of domesticity as a social norm during this time and the danger of female sexuality.

“A sex symbol's currency lies in her youth, her curves, in the suggestion that a sexual encounter lurks around the next corner.” (Sharon Krum, The Guardian) The media is one of the easiest ways to exemplify the power struggles between genders. In today’s society, celebrities, especially women, are judged largely on their appearance and sex appeal because it is critical for them to stay in the spotlight. This is a clear example of the inequality between the male and female, and what their roles are intended to be in society. Three Girls by Joyce Carol Oates is a story about a lesbian couple, and their observation of the behavior of a disguised Marilyn Monroe who, surprisingly to the narrator and her companion, wants to be seen as nothing more than a common person. During the progression of the story, the author provides perspective on the gender roles women faced in 1956 New York, and gives the reader insight into the thoughts and reservations of a lesbian couple in this time period. Through both implicit and explicit expression, Oates implements feminist and marxist ideas of power struggle into Three Girls in order to establish themes of imbalance and subordination by women in society.

(IV) Creole women in the late 1800s did not obey societal laws governing expression. Edna Pontellier is shocked by this; in her transformation throughout the book, she becomes more like a Creole woman and less like a young lady from blue grass Kentucky. Sexism "'You are burnt beyond recognition,' he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable

Sexuality has an inherent connection to human nature. Yet, even in regards to something so natural, societies throughout times have imposed expectations and gender roles upon it. Ultimately, these come to oppress women, and confine them within the limits that the world has set for them. However, society is constantly evolving, and within the past 200 years, the role of women has changed. These changes in society can be seen within the intricacies of literature in each era. Specifically, through analyzing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, one can observe the dynamics of society in regards to the role of women through the lens of the theme of sexuality. In both novels, the confinement and oppression of women can be visibly seen as a result of these gender roles. Yet, from the time The Scarlet Letter was published to the time The Bell Jar was written, the place of women in society ultimately changed as well. Hence when evaluating the gender roles that are derived from sexuality, the difference between the portrayals of women’s oppression in each novel becomes apparent, and shows how the subjugation of women has evolved. The guiding question of this investigation is to what extent does the theme of sexuality reflect the expectations for women in society at the time each novel was written. The essay will explore how the literary elements that form each novel demonstrate each author’s independent vision which questions the

2013530423 Huang, Daisy American Literature Christina Davis Feb. 12, 2016 The Consciousness of African American Female in Quicksand Citing a few lines by Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen starts to pursue and construct racial and gender identity of African American Female in her prestigious novel Quicksand, concerns much about the mixed-raced female’s perturbation of double consciousness and identity quest. Due to the similar trajectories between the author and the heroine Helga Crane, Quicksand has long been presumed semi-autobiographical, featuring a restless female mulatto struggling to find a comfortable place where she belongs. Helga Crane, a typical character of mixed-raced girl, faces the journey of seeking ethic identity filled with confusion

The female sadist in Marsh’s The Beetle goes by various names while she remorselessly commits her sadistic actions: the Beetle, the “Woman of Songs” (Marsh 241), Lessingham’s “Oriental friend” (178), and the Arab. Each form allows her to enact her sadistic fantasies and control in different ways. As a beetle and a man, both represented as ‘the Beetle’, she commits something parallel to male-on-male sexual assault against Robert Holt. In the form of a beetle, she mounts him, embraces him, and touches his lips and bare skin, while he describes her as “some monstrous member” (51-52). As the man, she prods him like a “beast ready for the butcher’s stall”, thrusts her fingers into his mouth, and presses her “blubber lips” to his (57).

In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women, Esther and Del try to take control of their sexuality and their sexual lives. These two female protagonists attempt to gain sexual confidence by quietly rejecting the societal images of women. They are able to seduce men and pilot their own sexual lives. These women are also able to ignore the popular beliefs about marriage and motherhood, thus freeing them from the traditional, restrictive female sexual roles. By rejecting the popular notions of womanhood, sexuality, and marriage, Esther and Del become the mistresses of their sexuality and sexual

These words such as “dirty, soiled, stained, damaged” are crucial to understanding the complexity of Oppenheim’s image making as the materials that lie at the very forefront of the viewer’s attention are not white—they are the scuffed, dusty brown platforms that dominate the top view of the shoes. Vastly different from the innocent-looking white leather, the platforms reveal the shame that society can smear on a woman who no longer is a virgin. Although Meret Oppenheim was against Freudian psychology, it is hard to escape the insinuations of the Madonna-whore complex in Ma Gouvernante. According to his theory, Freud claims that men organize women in two categorizes based on the state of their sexual experience. Famously declared in On Sexuality he writes, “Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love” Because of this division of love and desire, barriers are placed on women by designating them as either respectably pure, or lustfully tainted. Taking this problem into consideration, Oppenheim fully represents how a woman cannot escape the labels: although a whore can appear saintly, and a Madonna can seem carnal, she will always be classified as being physically one or the other. Correspondingly so, in Ma Gouvernante, the scratches and scarring on the platforms degrade the high heels by defining them as being worn-out, and in becoming used, the spotless white of the shoe’s outer covering appears sarcastically ingenuine. Clearly, it seems that Oppenheim in her dichotomous representations of the Madonna and whore only underscores the limitations of the lingual framework that ties a woman’s reality to her bodily

Queering Vivien’s poem entails finding the elements of imitation, anonymity, and/or appropriation. Two of these elements, anonymity and imitation are clear in Vivien’s reflection of the ancient women on Lesbos in herself. Imitation provides Vivien with a means of growing in sexuality, a gaining of knowledge of the women of Lesbos’s ways. The ancient Lesbians work as a template, but suddenly become the same as the lesbians of Vivien’s time referred to as “our” (18). The result of imitation is growing nearer toward the likeness of the ancient Lesbians. Vivien’s body metaphorically becomes “a reflecting mirror,” taking up all aspects of the ancient Lesbians. Vivien and her lesbians go beyond queer imitation to a new form, the same form as the ancient Lesbians. Vivien’s group cannot be distinguished from the ancient Lesbians, since they all mirror one another. Imitation renders Vivien’s bodies queer and identical.

In the novel, when Ellen attempts to protect her son Henry while wrestling with wild negros, Sutpen tells her “I don’t expect you to understand it . . . Because you are a woman” (24). Her sister Miss Rosa is described as a “female old flesh long embattled in virginity” (5) and her small body is contrasted to Ellen’s “full bodied . . . rounded and complete” (53). In Rabelais and His World (1984), Bakhtin explains that images of women are “ambivalent” because they embody the two poles of death and life “the temptation of flesh” as well as "the womb” (240). Accordingly, this ambivalence towards the female is noticeable in the novel whereby the white women are just “ladies” (5) as Quentin’s grandfather puts it, while the black women are sex objects. Never the less, in both cases, women are used for sole procreation and the whole narrative plot is build upon that desire for procreating and begetting a white male heir not a