Victorian Literature: Anglo-American Feminism, French Feminism

s gradement statute championship equality and Assess at least(prenominal) dickens of the following approaches in womens rightist theory, with case from two of the straight-laced texts you adopt analyse Anglo-Ameri passel feminism French womens liberation movement collectivised or Marxist feminism libber approaches influenced by Foucault. I throw that this is my aver exit and that I wealthy person followed the code of academic good spatealize and be possessed of sought, where necessary, advice and guidance in the prim presentation of my work. Signature Date Comp ar and Assess at least two of the following approaches in feminist theory, with illustration from two of the squared-toe texts you bring in studied Anglo-Ameri flowerpot feminist movement French Feminism Socialist or Marxist Feminism feminist Approaches influenced by Foucault. Feminist theory identical psychoanalytic theory is relatively late in its basis. The immergence of feminist literary theo ries buns be linked to the bulge out crack up of female person political uprising in the early nineteenth century.The French transition marked the beginning of a stir for the obtaining of womens rights to power and equality in society. Elaine Showalter comments that the ideological sumyly acceptable scenery of straight-laced women as a whole posterior be seen as prescribed a charwo spell who would be a perfective Lady, an Angel in the Ho riding habit, contently submissive to men, however strong in inner sinlessness and religiosity, queen in her own estate of the Home. ( tight-laced Womens Poets, rascal 13)Feminist theory is single out into separate pot points of feminism as a whole French Feminism analyses literature from a perspective of a psychoanalytic view, drawing upon the work of La stern to cozy up view points. It helps to analyse the ways in which women are positioned in society in the text and how they can be perceived to be repressed. Marxist Feminism takes its intensity from how the women can be perceived to be oppressed in literature. American feminism analyses literature from a textual expressive view point.All feminist out looks have their issues which nominate flaws into their argument. To be sure, to the highest degree feminist thinkers today assume that nurture, at the very least, qualifies nature. Recently, however, a number of poststructuralist theorists deploying two male and female signatures have claimed that in that respect is no familiarityed reality, that the concepts of man and woman are, as some would put it, always already fictive since human identity is itself a tenuous, textu ally produced epiphenomenon. (No Mans Land. varletxv).Wuthering senior high school by Emily Bronti?? provided feminist critics with a canvas of a examples of marginally autobiographical prim gynocentrism. The harvest-tideion of text from a woman, looking at the emphasis determined on the female place in the history of the tex t, the structural placing of women and the thematic view of women in the text. Sandra gigabit and Susan Gubar argue that women writers much(prenominal) as Emily Bronti?? had been cakeholeped into the roles that society has manipulated, as they were trapped against the patriarchal view of the ideal of the house. but even thought thither is a desire for this view to be usurped, Bronte still curtails herself to societys mentalitys by debilitating and lastly killing off of the strong disobedient charcter of Catherine, emphasising her own fear of what the female cast of characters in which she was writing. Gilbert and Gubars reading of Wuthering highschool classes it as a A rule book of Hell. (Gilbert, S & Gubar, S. Mad woman in the attic) The classification of Wuthering heights as a living hell is created in type by the Byronic hero of Heathcliff.Although Gilbert and Gubar look into the curtailment of women cosmos hold to the house, trapped into submission by domesticity, Wuthering highschool provides Catherine with her own sense of control where she can break affable confinements. further Catherine chooses to be confined by domesticity and social patriarchate by marrying Edgar Linton. Bronte does however portray the awe Catherine feels in making her choice amid what she desires and what is socially expected You love Mr Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich and loves you. The last, however, goes for nonhing You would love him without that, probably, and with it, you wouldnt, unless he possessed the four former attractions. (Wuthering Heights, summon 119)Through the use of the second generation Cathy, Bronte allows the correction from cultural to natural choice to be made via the winnerful relationship among Cathy and Hareton.Kristeva comments on the text presses the linguistic sign to its limits, the semiotic is fluid, plural, a kind of pleasant creative excess over detailed meaning and it takes sadistic delight in destroying or negating such signs. (Literary Theory an introduction). The ternary nature of narration in the new(a) serves thematic purposes, in that twain(prenominal) provide commentary on the role of women in society. The feminist nature of the novel can be seen by dint of Lockwoods comments on the success of Nellys narrative story telling.Bronte manipulates the square-toed view that women have innate frailty and makes a parody out if the view by portraying Catherines illness as a strength in which she is manipulating those around her by Nellys perception I wasted no condolences on miss, nor any expostulations on my mistress, non did I pay attention to the sighs of my master, who yearned to visualise his ladys name, since he might not let on her voice. (Wuthering Heights, Page 158) Catherines subsequent illness shows itself in the form of a disillusioned foolery.Brontes use of this madness is to offer clarity to the social structure that the very cultural expectat ions of Catherine are the things that cause the feared wacky nature to extend This feather was picked up from the heathland, the bird was stroke we saw its nest in the winter, all-inclusive of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap over it, and the old ones dare not come. I made him promise hed neer shoot a lapwing, after that, and he didnt. Yes, here are more Did he shoot my lapwings, Nelly? Are they red, any of them? let me look. (Wuthering Heights, Page 160) Gilbert and Gubar view Catherines manacles in Thrushcross Grange as the reason for her beingness trapped into a effeminate madness Imprisonment leads to madness, solipsism, paralysis Starvation both in the modern sense of malnutrition and the antediluvial Miltonic sense of freezing (to starve in ice) leads to weakness, immobility and death. (Rylance, Page 253) Catherines embracing of Victorian societal views that kept her from being with Heathcliff. include in these views are the expectations of women.It is impo rtant to descent because the awareness of social standing and gender in this example prevent square love prevailing. Bronte also argues that Catherines inability to defy social ambition is reflective of the tyrannic power of the social structure of the Victorian society. Bronte feminises Lockwood by giving him the typically female characteristic of frailty, according to Beth Newman Lockwoods supine passiveness (he is bed ridden during most of her narrative) suggests that he is in the feminine position with respect to Nellys haughty attentiveness. (Gender, story and view in Wuthering Heights, Page 1034). Emily Bronte portrays Hareton as a model man who does not fear women moreover does not repress them either, this is marked through his not hiding away from Cathys advancesHelene Cixous has written that the medusan who has terrorized the male subject, looked at straight on, is very beautiful and Laughing Bronte has uncannily pass judgment Cixouss analysis of the masculin e fear of the womans gaze in suggesting that Hareton, alone among the male characters in the novel, is able to laugh back. (Gender, Narration and Gaze in Wuthering Heights, Page 1037). The splitting and atomisation of Catherines feminine desire through the need of a stable identity, she is Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Heathcliff and Catherine Linton at the kindred time. The theme of heaven and hell is general most through Heath cliffs mental representation as a satanic wild figure that should be feared. Bronte links Heathcliff to the fierceness of nature through his name he develops one with the heath surrounding the heights.Catherine expresses her own desire to be associated with Heathcliff through If I were in Heaven, Nelly, I should be exceedingly moving. Because you are not fit to go there, I answered. All sinners would be miserable in heaven. I was only passing game to say that heaven did not expect to be my home and it broke my heart with weeping to come back to plebeianwealth and the angels were so angry that they flung me out, into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights, where I woke dickhead for joy. (Wuthering Heights, Page 121) Bronte uses the binary opposition to emphasize Catherines ideal of Heaven being Heathcliff. and due to the confinement of social expectation Catherine turns her back on Heaven and places herself in the Hell that is Thrushcross Grange causing a fragmentize version of herself to become her existence. Kristeva comments on Wuthering Heights lack of ability to have a simplistic narrative form, there is a use of multiple genres to create the confused binary oppositions. The use of the re-emergence of the choice betwixt patriarchy and desire through Cathy has the mark of articulating the mother-child relation as a localize for both affirm the disused persuasiveness of the pre-oedipal, which although repressed is thus also preserved. some(prenominal) affirm the fluid, polymorphous perverse attitude of libidinal drives and both evoke a series of sites of bodily pleasure unfastened of resisting the demands of the symbolic order. (Jacques Lacan A feminist Introduction, Page 149) Thus, although Wuthering Heights ends in cosy domesticity, the gaps in its enunciation express a feminist resistance to the patriarchal order in which its story partially acquiesces for the narrative undercuts the jibe of its own telling even term implicating them in specular economy that fetishizes and appropriates women. (Gender, Narration and Gaze in Wuthering Heights, Page 1039)Christina Rossettis gremlin grocery expresses the frustrations from enforced female passivity, articulating impertinence or so being the second sex, and the limitations on female potential this is evident through out the song, culminating as two women become what Victorian patriarchy predetermines, wives and mothers. pixy mart shows women in social relations, in merchandise economies in literary history and women in sexual economics. Elizabeth Helsinger explains that gremlin market place is A feminist utopia based on sistership against male domination and the male food market place or a legitimating of separate battlefields? Victorian studies, 1991). Goblin Market allows Rossetti the opportunity to escape the archaic patriarchy and create a fantasy realm.Rossetti allows Lizzie and Laura an insight into the male commodities of male utopia that is the market place, and how to successfully regain equal control. This is a morally nonsense poem, which puts religious figment and sexual temptation into a market economy which is endlessly unstable. (Victorian Womens Poets, Page 138). Rossettis creation of sisterly solidarity gives a feminine prospect Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices Squeezed from elf fruits for you,Goblin pulp and Goblin Dew. erase me, drink me, love me For your sake I have braved the glen And had to do with pixie merchandiser men. (A Choice of Christina Rossett is verse, Page 16). The sexual suggestiveness of Goblin Market has undoubtedly made it a obligate work for feminist readers concerned with what constitutes a distinctly female imagination. (A euphony of Thine own. Victorian Womens Poets, Page 50). Goblin Market, the title poem of Christina Rossettis first volume, is the questioning feminine handling it masks. (A Music of Thine own Womens Poetry. Victorian Womens Poets, Page 49)Rossettis representation of sexuality is not in the names or images she finds but in the structure of the whole poem with its repeated tasting. (A Music of Thine own Womens Poetry. Victorian Womens Poets, Page 49) In many reckon Goblin Market is directly foreign to many nineteenth century views about the role of the woman poet. Mary Ann Stoddart, 1842, defines the sphere of the poetess as All that is beautiful in form, delicate in sentiment, graceful in action will form the preposterous province of the gentle powers of women. Goblin Market can be sai d to have none of these qualities.This metrical indulgence, gives Goblin Market a sensual art for arts sake, which is usually reserved for male poets, making this whirl to the public by a poetess discrepant with Victorian notions of female poetic beauty Laura performs a familiar role in literary history that of the fallen Eve. She relinquishes herself to the sexual temptation offered by the evil goblin men. Her sin is compounded by harlotry in selling a fix of her hair in return for the fruits. This can be viewed as an act of blow the goblins cut her hair for payment, when, at the time, a womans hair was a somewhat consecrate thing.The fallen woman is a common figure in literature, however, because she comes from the creative approximation of a female poet the representation comes to have a few problems in its interpretation. Yet still, Laura receives her salvation, from her sin of eating the fruit, through the self-abnegating actions of her sister. Lizzie plays the male role of redemption. While Rossetti can be viewed in opposition to the Victorian ideals of female creativity, there is an inherent conservatism in her work that creates problems with the idea of her being a truly radical or feminist writer.Unlike the other Pre-Raphaelite poets, Rossetti does not embrace atheism, but rather adheres to a strict Anglo-Catholic faith Goblin Market is Christina Rossettis most remarkable abundant poem. She was also a writer of consummate(a) lyrics. What can be called the feminine discourse which respondes to the aesthetics of expression and repression overflow and barrier, in Goblin Market, is also at work in her short poems. (A symphony of thine ownWomens Poetry, Victorian Womens Poets, Page 54).Through both of the texts analyzed it is important to notice that as Showalter states that it is in fact, female imagination cannot be hard-boiled by literary historians as a romantic or Freudian abstraction. It is the product of a delicate net income of influences run in a time, and it must be analyzed as it expresses itself, in terminology and in a fixed placement of words on a page, a form that itself is subject to a network of influences and conventions, including the operations of the marketplace. (Victorian Womens Poets, Page 12) Both Emily Bronte and Christina Rossetti were classed as typically romantic Victorian womens writers.However this view is highly tangled as both women try to break the curtailments of Victorian archaic patriarchy in their work, eer testing and pushing the boundaries of female musical composition Romance fiction deals above all with the doubts and delights of heterosexuality, an institution which feminism has seen as problematic from the start. In thinking about this problem I myself have found the psychoanalytic good example most useful since it suggests that the acquisition of gendered subjectivity is a process, a movement towards the social self , fraught with conflicts and never fully achi eved.Moreover, psychoanalysis takes the question of pleasure seriously, both in its relation to gender and in its rationality of fictions as fantasies, as the explorations and productions of desires which may be excess of the socially possible or acceptable. It gives us ways into the discussion of popular culture which can avoid the traps of moralism or dictatorship. (Romance Fiction, Female sexuality and class. Page 142)