gender in aic Flashcards
gerald and eric on women thesis
in his didactic play preistley highlights the vunerability of lower class women, particulally fallen women deemed sinful, as they are so easily exploited by upperclass gentlemen under a mask of chivalry
gerald and eric on women thesis
eric also mass uses euphamsitic langaue in order to draw sympathy for himself as men struggle feel responibility for the serverity of their rmanage on women, thats when IT happened means that we try not to assume the worst though its inevitable
we can see the drive of lust in both eric and gerald firstly through their dehumanising metaphorical descriptions of eva with a sole focus on her appearance- gerlad feels she is quite differnt from the ‘hard eyed dough faced ‘prosititutes he usually encounters, this statment itself is very telling as it shows he is not chivalrously looking to aid most women in these unfortunate conditions only the ones whom he deems attractive, upon seeing eva he describes her as ‘young and fresh’- fresh is an uncomfortable adjective with links to food, alluding to his lust, and also perhaps her innocence and virginity in comparison to the more tarnished seasoned women at the bar. eric has a similar description of eva, he likes her as she is ‘pretty and a good sport’ pretty is very shallow as he has no emotional interest in heronly for the purpose of exploiting her for sex, good sport is a racing term likening her to an animal or a game.
the two do not just exploit her for sexual purposes on the one occasion, showing how easy it is for gentlemen to completely dictate the autonomy of the fallen women when pleased- she becomes very attached to gerald with him admitting he become the ‘most important’ thing in her life, this superlative shows how sad her state is. whilst gerlad clearly just exploits her as he views their relationship through the semantic field of finance as transactional so he ca be sexually gratified- he sees it as ‘business’, she lives on what he ‘allowed her’- she is not more to him than sexual gratification
eva is never shown or present in the play nor do we see what she looks like; this leaves her story completely dictated by the men in her life just as how gentlemen had complete control ovr womens autonomy, it also doesnt limit her to one person showing now this experince was shared between ‘millions and millions of eva smiths’
here priestley wants to horrify the audience by the way two overtly normal men can ruin the autonomy of any women even one so morally pristine as eva
sheila as a women thesis
through sheila priestley stresses the importance of upper class women gaining the autonomy to have liberated and free opinions in a chnaging scoeity rather than complying to the victorian outdated stereotypes of women that their family may be pushing them towards
sheila as a women paragraph
shela is an allgeroy for the need for female liberation such as the sufferegette movement, in a new evolving soceity its important thatthe young women do not forcibly comply to their families standards and isntead gain the autonomy to act freely
