Thesis Chapters by A.YOGANA SANTHIYA
The Feminist has much in common with conflict perspective. Feminist critics assert that the socia... more The Feminist has much in common with conflict perspective. Feminist critics assert that the social construct of woman is defined in a way that it relegates women to men and consequently, prevents women from realizing their potential. They argue that the definition of woman in patriarchal societies is restricting. In male perspective, the ideal view of a woman was chaste, silent and obedient. Therefore, the very act of publishing works by women was a threat to patriarchal standards. Hence, feminine creation was associated with madness and freakishness, and inherently monstrous. In a brilliant article entitled " Is Female to Male as Culture to Nature " , She notes that women are associated with either evil or angelic images. Ortner studies the image of women in Western culture and contends that " the psychic mode associated with women seems to stand at both the bottom and the top of the scale of human modes of relating " (Gilbert and Gubar 598). She maintains that both subversive feminine symbols (witches, evil eyes, menstrual pollution, [and] castrating mothers) and the feminine symbols of transcendence (mother goddess, merciful dispenser of salvation, [and]female symbol of justice). .. can appear from certain points of view to stand both under and over (but really simply outside of) the sphere of culture's hegemony. (Ibid 601) Thus, woman becomes the embodiment of the extremes of Otherness which culture defines to worship, fear, love, or hate. In fact, the image of the angel in the house enshrines a woman within the home, turning her to a " living memento of the otherness of the divine " (Ibid 601). Hence, this image of woman makes her an inhabitant of the world of the dead and a messenger of the otherness of death. Whether depicted as angel or monster, women are condemned to Otherness by patriarchal male writers. The sole difference between the image of angel and monster, Gilbert and Gubar believe, is in the kind of otherness. While the monster is condemned to the damning otherness of the flesh, the angel is doomed to the inspiring otherness of the spirit. Gilbert and Gubar assert that in order to have literary autonomy, female writers should transcendent the extreme images of angel and monster. In Mary Elizabeth Coleridge's words, " for the female artist the essential process of self-definition is complicated by all those patriarchal definitions that intervene between herself and herself " (Gilbert and Gubar 596). Gilbert and Gubar suggest that female writers should murder both angel and monster in order to be able to define themselves as creative artists. The gender biased view of male authors toward women affects the female readers. The recurrence of such pattern in literature leads to women's exclusion and affects women's self image. In article entitled " On the Politics of Literature " , Judith Fetterley examines the effects of American fiction on women. She asserts that American fiction is essentially male dominated
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Thesis Chapters by A.YOGANA SANTHIYA