Women Flashcards
How does Constance Naden use Irony in The Lady Doctor (poem) to ridicule ideas about the ideal woman?
“A Doctor she… her very glance might cast a spell” - shows that many people are so disgusted by the idea of a woman being a doctor that they might compare her to a witch or at least convey it in a metaphor
How does Naden convey that ideally a woman should stay at home?
She works a moral into the poem. “She longs for what she once disdained, and sighs to think she might have gained a home of love and gladness”
Where does Naden show that a woman should be beautiful only?
“Diseases man can scarce endure, A Lady’s glance may quickly cure… her smile became a tonic” - hypothetically men value beauty in a woman over intellect
How does Naden ridicule the idea that a woman can be intellectual?
Towards the middle of the poem she writes that this woman had “learning with beauty blended” but it is brief and eventually makes her ugly
What does the rhyme scheme convey?
The regular rhyme scheme and metre emphasises conformity to rules and societal values
How does Naden convey the idea that pursuing men’s jobs is a bad thing?
“She seems a man in woman’s clothes” conveys that it is not feminine to do these things
“In anger, scorn, caprice or pride she left her old companions side, to be a lady doctor”
its a selfish thing to pursue men’s jobs
How do the characters in Woman of No Importance convey that they disapprove of the new woman?
Lady Caroline has old fashioned views and says “Femininity is the quality I admire most in women”
“Oh women have become so highly educated, Jane, that nothing should surprise us nowadays except happy marriages”
How does Wilde convey that the general opinion at the time of women was that they are inferior to men?
Lord illingworth states “Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building”
“What a typical woman you are! you talk sentimentally, and you are thoroughly selfish the whole time”
“women kneel so gracefully; men don’t”
How does Wilde convey that the old-fashioned view of women is that they should be valued for their beauty only?
Lady Hunstanton says to Hester “And you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important
How does Wilde convey through Gerald that the new woman is valued for more than aesthetics?
Gerald says “But women are awfully clever, aren’t they?”
Which structural device does Wilde use in the play to convey that women are becoming more equal?
As the play develops, the ideas about women develop thus at the end Lord Illingworth’s line ‘a woman of no importance’ is used and altered by Mrs Arbuthnot to ‘a man of no importance’ to convey that women are gaining a higher status in society.
How does Thomas Hardy evoke sympathy for Tess as a fallen woman in Tess of the D’Urbervilles?
“Never…had she intended to do wrong, yet their judgements had come” - As the omnipotent narrator Hardy structurally tells us first that Tess had never intended to do anything wrong. We are shown Tess on a human and personal level
Alec D’Urberville says to Tess ‘only you needn’t be so everlastingly flinging it in my face’ as though she is displaying her body to him which the reader knows is the opposite of what Tess is trying to do.
‘bless they simplicity’ is said to Tess in a patronising tone
How does Hardy show that Angel views women in a naive and misogynistic way?
Hardy uses indirect discourse: ‘she looked so absolutely pure’ and ‘nature in her fantastic trickery’ to convey that Angel liked Tess for her virginal qualities only.
Earlier in the novel he says “I wish half the women in england were as respectable as you” which is bitterness against womenkind in general
How is Tess conveyed in comparison to Men?
Tess is often compared to birds such as when she begins ‘making a sort of nest’ whereas the men are often associated with phallic symbols such as “pointing their guns… with a bloodthirsty light in their eyes”
Hardy notes that the men “made it their purpose to destroy life” which is foreshadowing of what Alec and Angel do to Tess - evoking sympathy
