Essays on Feminist Literary Criticism

It is paramount to first define femininity, before we can identify whether works of literature present it as a performance, and not a natural mode of being. The definition of femininity changes with the decades. In the 1920s a feminine appearance was considered to be...

In the contemporary era literary criticism, terms related to ‘feminism’, ‘feminist reading’ ‘feminist’ writing’ and ‘feminist criticism’ or ‘gynocriticism’ as Elaine Showalter associate it, nowadays have become passwords. What is feminism? According to Oxford Dictionary, the term feminist persist in the modern period of the...

Daisy’s Ghost: A Feminist Reading of Daisy Miller The novel Daisy Miller is set in the late 18th century, within high class European society. In that time period, feminism was misunderstood and even unrecognized by both genders and varying classes. Often, a female feminist, such...

Introduction Children’s literature is fundamental when it comes to developing the child’s comprehension capacity, to acquire new knowledge and when interacting with other children or adults. In a few words, it can be said that children’s literature is important since it contributes to the child’s...

The way that literature is approached can be critical to the ways in which it is interpreted by the reader. The literary lens, a genre of literary criticism, is a method used to understand a text from varying points of view. By looking at certain...

In the late 1800s, well known female author Sarah Orne Jewett wrote her short story, “A White Heron”. The short story showcases the life of a young girl named Sylvia, that moves with her grandmother in the country side of her town, where she will...

In the 1962 novel, “A Wrinkle in Time,” Madeleine L’Engle challenges the definition of masculinity and femininity through her characters, her genre, and the roles she gave to the individuals throughout the plot. Initially, I noticed that L’Engle implements a rather generous amount of females...

The theme of femininity and also gender stereotypes had formed an integral part of the different literary works which had been composed over the years. In this regard, Louisa May Alcott’s “Eight Cousins” and Lucy Maud Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables” are important ones since...

Children’s literature novels of the 20th century portrayed a general theme of women in traditional women domestic roles. The cliché of a 1950 perfect housewife is recognisable in almost every novel; the batch-baking women in their frilly gowns and puffed sleeves. It was a time...

Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John focuses on gender relations and it’s the pattern throughout the novel. Gender relations also affect the mother-daughter relationship. Outside of the actual plot and the main characters, Annie John displays these gender relations specifically and clearly. With gender relations being an...

Through the perspective of the film, The Birds directed by Alfred Hitchcock brought up the point of femininity. In the opening scene one of the protagonist Melanie Daniels comes across Mitch Brenner. It is inferred that he is a wealthy man that lies across the...

Published in 1975, The Woman Warrior turned autobiographer Maxine Hong Kingston into one of the most prominent female voices of her generation. As gender/feminist studies programs developed at major Universities across the United States, professors added Kingston’s story to their curricula as an example of...

“La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, or in translation, “the beautiful lady without pity” is a phrase appropriated by John Keats as the title of his 1820 poem depicting the story of a seductive and deceitful woman who tempts men away from the world of masculinity...

The core battle in the modern Feminist movement has been the battle against set gender roles. Women no longer feel that it is mandatory for them to be a mother and a housewife simply because they were born female, or that it is a man’s...

In her novel The Round House, Louise Erdrich makes the interesting choice of taking on serious issues of violence against women through the perspective of a 13-year-old boy—Joe. Because the center of the drama is in actuality focused on Joe’s mother (Geraldine) and the author...

In several respects, American writers have use literature as a means to promote equal rights for women; however, these writers are often white females – or even white males. While these writers are certainly able to uncover a variety of aspects that American society needs...

Although the nature vs. nurture debate seems as though it is a rather contemporary argument, it was actually a common thematic element of Elizabethan literature. Christopher Marlowe, in particular, focused on human behavior and the influences of natural instinct versus learned habit. In his “minor...

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Shakespeare goes against traditional feminist theories by giving his female characters many characteristics that are both masculine and feminine. In traditional ideas, females are seen as “inferior” to men and only have the purpose of listening to their husbands and taking care...

Critical responses to Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” an installment in the Sherlock Holmes series, have been dramatically varied. While some hail it as a work of feminist fiction ahead of its time, others condemn it as one of many examples...

Introduction “Despite the strict patriarchal structure of Gilead, it is ultimately the female voice that wins out in the end.” One of the main features of Margret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and its sequel “The Testaments” is the strong feminist message Atwood communicates through them....

Once upon a time, the first fairytales were written down from their folkloric origins, thus giving rise to one of the most popular genres of literature. Ever since then, these fairy tales have been enchanting us and there have been thousands of retellings presenting the...

I will examine how gender based violence negatively affects the mental health/overall well being of Latinx women, and how there is hope for healing due to strength within Latinx women. I will support this by using the impact of domestic abuse on Cleófilas in “Woman...

In Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe constructs an image of a woman who is resourceful, self-sufficient, shrewd and independent. His Moll came from nothing, born to a mother imprisoned in Newgate, born to this underworld of contained vice and criminality, within but very much on the...

The 1930’s worlds of Clifford Odets and Tennessee Williams portray assertive and domineering women as the center of families in the age of the depression. Women in the plays are always fighting poverty in any way they can. The mothers often dominate the lives of...

Dorothy Allison’s autobiographical narrative Two or Three Things I Know for Sure examines how a lower-class upbringing has affected the identities of the women in her family. Beauty, inadvertently, becomes one of the most valued things among her family members, a perceived lack of which...

Introduction ‘It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men” (Mary Wollstonecraft). Feminism regards the role of women in a patriarchal society in which women are often subjugated and even objectified. In the gothic fiction novel Frankenstein...

Alexander McQueen has grown to be one of the most popular designers this world has seen and his collections are still fascinating to the world today. His bizarre designs can easily intrigue or disgust any person but are the people who are seeing his work...