Gender Roles and Female Portrayal in Tis Pity She's a Whore by John Ford and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Tis Pity She's a Whore, the revenge tragedy by John Ford, offers a view into the nefarious universe of Parma, where the (male) dominating characters' lives spin around ethically corrupt, cunning and capricious connections. Although there is the seeming judgement and judgement of Annabella as a "whore" Ford offers a contemporarily-idyllic feedback of the conventional double standard for females through the repetition of hypocrisy and debauchery all throughout the play.

“Lolita” follows a retelling of a story from prison, about a comical, peculiar narrator named Humbert. Humbert, who falls for and ensnares his young step daughter. As narrator, we recall the novel from Humbert’s perspective but, when you dive in deeper, it is very clear to see that the power that Humber holds as a narrator is somewhat manipulative and quite chilling. Lolita admires popular culture with her friends; she enjoys mingling freely with other people, and, like most prepubescent girls, has a tendency toward being dramatic and outrageous. However, when she shouts and rebels against Humbert, she exhibits more than the frustration of an ordinary adolescent: she clearly feels trapped by her arrangement with Humbert, but, being a young female, she is powerless to extricate herself.

Literature’s most common misconception is that dominance and masculinity go hand in hand. Ford refutes this through Annabella’s grasp on power throughout the latter acts of the play, before her unavoidable death. As a way of consolidating her power, Annabella reiterates how her marriage with Soranzo stands as a platform for her reputation. We witness her ascent for power in the fourth act when she reaffirms that it “’twas not for love” that she chose to marry Soranzo. In the midst of their argument, she states, “I chose you… for honour”. The use of pronouns is prominent in the act: using ‘I’ before ‘you’ highlights how she prioritises herself over her husband. This would be the complete opposite of what would be expected from the patriarchal Caroline England. In a predominantly male society, men would be superior and would always be the figure with authority. In this situation, however, Annabella is the person in command, and this is further proven by the verb “chose”. Annabella “chose” Soranzo, demonstrating how she rules over herself without letting a male sway her. According to Alison Findlay, Annabella “attempts to reconcile her situation through identification of the Virgin Mary”, meaning she is almost trying to arbitrate the confrontation through mirroring herself and her circumstances to that of the Virgin Mary. Mary is a crucial figurehead in the Bible – although the Catholic church was renowned in its corruption and debauchery, Christianity was the prime religion of Caroline England and was the intrinsic faith that everyone had followed. Annabella associating herself with the Blessed Mother suggests how she places herself on a pedestal, as if she shares the same amount of power and might as Mary. This illustrates the power that Annabella radiates as she equates herself to someone of high importance, though women of the time would never be classified in this way.

Gender can often determine whether characters in literature will have power or not; this is evidently shown in Tis Pity She's a Whore - Hippolita is seen as one of, if not the only, character with competence and ability to stand her own ground as a female in Caroline England. This being said, her power is challenged through, mainly, two of the male characters - Soranzo and Vasquez, as he beguiles her to death. Soranzo's position towards infidelity works as the most clear case of hypocrisy and irony in 'Tis Pity by accentuating the hypocrisy in his gallivanting. At the point when Hippolita first goes up against Soranzo, he denounces Hippolita for "her monstrous life, " advising her to "learn to repent, and die; for, by my honor, / I hate thee and they lust, " in spite of the way that Soranzo was the person who sought and charmed Hippolita despite the fact that she was a hitched lady. This scene parallels his confrontation of Annabella's pregnancy, wherein he affronts Annabella, calling her "strumpet, famous whore!" and depicting her as "adulterous". Soranzo's overdramatic and inordinate reaction to Annabella's pregnancy underlines his unexpected use of "two-faced, " for in fact, Annabella had not submitted infidelity before her marriage, while Soranzo had charmed a hitched lady. Through the unexpected juxtaposition of Soranzo's connections inside the play, Ford stresses the deception of men while unobtrusively scrutinising the double standard held for females.

Sex as a tool for power is only transitory. As an unreliable narrator, Humbert’s conceitedness and cries for sympathy make his narration of the story dubious. The novel is his account from prison; he retells the story, claiming that Dolores held control over the relationship as she was the one who seduced him. In 1950s America, we know that Humbert evidently has the upper hand, as the adult male. After Charlotte’s death, he was Dolores’ legal guardian, responsible for her in all aspects – he frequently repeats that she would have nowhere to go if she was to leave him. the paramount power of the storyteller, Humbert, is his need to substantiate himself ace of everything: other individuals, his own wants, destiny, and the story's narration itself.

Over and over throughout Lolita, we see Humbert's most extraordinary activities and feelings not because of his physical wants yet rather his mental need to win, to have, and to control. The roles of each gender are very basic and traditional for him: ladies are to be controlled, and men ought to seek the ownership of ladies. Now and again, Humbert contends to demonstrate his predominance in different routes, for example deceiving psychologists into supposing he is homosexual. What's more, he even alludes to his own 'exotic' sexuality as proof of to a great degree refined taste, a sense of taste better than the normal man's. Before the finish of the book we see that Humbert's want control overwhelms the impossible to miss particularities of his wants and is the genuine reason for his burdens. We see a similar, toxic relationship where the adult exploits the child in Alissa Nutting’s Tampa. In the most straightforward terms, 'Lolita' can be portrayed as the two-section story of Humbert's association with the young girl. In Part I he takes her and makes him his own, and in Part II he loses her. Notice this has nothing to do with Humbert's wrongdoings, his physical needs, his own history, or his appearance upon his life. Those are for the most part simply important segments to the narrative of how he happens to want and get a nymphet and in this way how she gets away from his grip. Part I closes with a chilling article of Lolita's circumstance: "In the middle of the night she came sobbing into my room, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go". This is the peak of Humbert's ownership of Lolita: she has no other choice other than him, and has not started to understand the power that she holds over him, as he does over her. Obviously she rapidly develops to detest Humbert even while he delights in his ownership of the nymphet. Ford also accommodates the use of "whore" when portraying Annabella through the judgement of the Cardinal, who funnily plays the role as the most amoral, corrupt character in the play, in spite of his religious expert. In the last few scenes of the play, the Cardinal seems to complete his religious duty by advising Giovanni to "strive yet to cry to heaven". However, only moments after he says this, he arranges that Putana should "be ta’en / Out of the city, for example’s sake, / There to be burned to ashes" without incitement or legitimate explanation behind killing her. Soon after, he retrieves every one of the assets from the bodies in the area, fundamentally profaning the valuables of the individuals who had only recently passed on. By having such a degenerate, indecent figure express the last line of the play, "Who could not say, 'Tis pity she's a whore?, " Ford raises doubt about Annabella's judgment.

At last, the portrayal of Annabella as a prostitute appears to be inconsequential contrasted with the wild debasement of male figures inside 'Tis Pity and offers an investigate on the judgement of ladies in contemporary society. Ford uses this as a method of highlighting how religion had always offered men power, but not necessarily women. In addition to this, those who used religion as a means of power would most likely be those who use power in a corrupt, ill form. Putana is not a character with whom the audience automatically empathises. She encourages the incestuous relationship between Giovanni and Annabella, showing her misguided moral compass and abusing the position of influence and trust between herself and Annabella, her pupil and charge. For both a contemporary audience and a more modern audience, this encouragement is undeniably inappropriate. Also, when the relationship ends due to Annabella’s pregnancy, Putana is tearful and distraught, showing that she is incorrigible and entirely unaware of the consequences that her irresponsible actions can have. Despite this, her treatment at the hands of Vasques is no less disgusting or atrocious. Vasquez takes it upon himself to punish Putana for her encouragement of Giovanni and Annabella’s affections for each other, so orders the banditti to gouge out her eyes in a twisted but symbolic punishment. The fact that Vasquez feels he is able to do this to someone, because they are a woman, is shocking, and there is no doubt that he would not treat a man in the same way. Vasquez does not treat Hippolita any better, and takes it upon himself to poison her for her misdemeanours: “your own mischievous treachery hath killed you”. His murderous act is met with support for all parties present at the event, with the chorus exclaiming at this “wonderful justice!” Soranzo’s crimes are no less apparent that Hippolita’s: the both of them plotted to kill Richardetto and then marry, and yet he is seen as the victim of Hippolita’s affections. If he were a woman, he would be a murderer, but in the corrupt society in which the play is set, justice is superseded by vengeance. Dolores changes completely through the novel, regardless of maturing just around six years. Initially, around the beginning of the novel, she is a honest, yet explicitly experienced young girl of twelve. Humbert compels her progress into an all the more completely sexual being, however she never appears to recognize that her sexual exercises with Humbert are altogether different from her dawdling with Charlie in the hedges at summer camp.

Before the end of the story, she has turned into a well-used out, pregnant spouse of a worker. For the duration of her life, Lolita maintains a relatively total absence of mindfulness. As a grown-up, she recalls her opportunity with Humbert impartially and doesn't appear to hold resentment against it is possible that him or Quilty for demolishing her youth. Her state of mind recommends that as a youngster she didn't have anything for them to take, nothing essential enough to esteem. Her refusal to glimpse too profoundly inside herself, and her propensity to look forward instead of in reverse, may speak to regularly American characteristics, however Humbert likewise merits some portion of the fault. Humbert ultimately objectifies Dolores, and he denies her of any feeling of self-worth. Dolores exists just as the question of his fixation, never as a person. The absence of mindfulness in a young child is common and quite enchanting. In the grown-up Lolita, the lack of mindfulness appears to be awful.