Englsih final Flashcards
Intro (1)(2)
In this Individual Oral I will explore the global issue of how traditional societal norms and stereotypes confine women’s identities, limiting their personal and intellectual growth. For this analysis, I have chosen “Little Red Cap” from Carol Ann Duffy’s collection The World’s Wife and a cartoon by Liza Donnelly depicting Two Girls playing with dolls on their Bedroom Floor.
Intro F (2)(3)
Meanwhile, Donnelly’s cartoon satirizes societal expectations imposed on girls, presenting a reductive binary that confines their potential. This global issue relates to the field of inquiry: community, culture and identity.
Transition Lieterary zoom in
In “Little Red Cap,” I will explore how the wolf’s predatory nature mirrors patriarchal control, suppressing women’s individuality and growth.
Kept like mistresses
Duffy uses the simile “kept, like mistresses” to convey how women are confined to domestic spaces and denied the agency to explore their identities outside of it.
Sweet sixteen
Through alliteration and diction in “sweet sixteen never been, babe, waif,” the speaker of the free verse poem employs a lexicon that connotes innocence, emphasizing how societal stereotypes idealize women as pure and submissive. The labels restrict women from pursuing self-discovery by limiting their identities to narrow, idealized roles.
What littel gril
The speaker incorporates direct address in the rhetorical question, “What little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf?” to exemplify how societal norms dictate women’s desires and constrain their personal growth by forcing them to conform to pre-established patriarchal narratives.
What big ears
The repetition in “What big ears he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!” underscores the wolf’s predatory nature, symbolizing how patriarchal structures use fear to portray growth as dangerous, subtly pressuring women into “safe” yet limiting roles that stifle their creative and intellectual development.
Virgin white
The imagery of “virgin white” connoting purity, juxtaposed against the violent image of “grandmother’s bones”, reinforces how ideals of purity are weaponized to suppress women’s self expression and links the confinement of identity to enduring historical patterns.
Clinging (3)
The speaker’s use of tactile imagery—“clinging,” “thrashing,” “heavy matted paws”— illustrates how patriarchal control physically suppresses women’s growth through violence and physical domination
One bite dead
The enjambment between stanzas mirrors the wolf’s abrupt consumption of the speaker’s creativity as seen in the line, “One bite, dead.” and symbolizes how male-dominated structures erase women’s voices. The wolf also represents gatekeeping within patriarchal structures, where women are led to believe growth is only achievable through male guidance.
Here’s why poetry
The eye repetition in”Here’s why. Poetry” underscores the speaker’s conditioning to view knowledge as a male domain, ultimately restricting her autonomy to become a poet.
It took teh years
Finally, the narrator reflects, “it took ten years,” using temporal imagery to emphasize the passage of time. This delay in the speaker’s growth symbolizes how male control wastes women’s potential by trapping them in cycles of compliance and manipulation.
Transition literacy zoom out
Turning to Thetis and Pygmalion’s Bride, Duffy continues her critique of societal norms that confine women and limit their potential.
I shrank myself (1)
In “Thetis”, the speaker employs imagery in the line, “I shrank myself, to the size of a bird in the hand of a man,” to illustrate how women are forced to diminish their aspirations and identities to fit male-defined expectations.
I shrank myself(2)
The “bird” represents the narrator’s potential, while the “hand of a man” symbolizes societal control.
