Critical discussions of the masquerade often associate the performance of gender with a lack of social, economic, or political power, ranging from discussions of femininity as masquerade to the cultual history of the masked ball to mimesis in the colonial context This paper investigates male performance in order to propose that masculinity can also be considered a masquera..
In Tess of the D`Urbervilles Hardy aims at criticizing Victorian English society through Tess, who is doubly victimized by Alec`s sexual exploitation and Angel`s narrow middle-class sexual morality The author`s-and the narrator`s as well-intention is, however, frequently challenged by some conflicting elements in the text In Tess, Nature is a powerful antidote to oppr..
This paper aims to explore how Nathaniel Hawthorne`s reaction to his contemporary women writers illuminates the cultural and literary scene of mid-nineteenth-century America, and how Hawthorne and the scribbling women functioned as cultural performers in the same literary scene Hawthorne has often been claimed to have a hosttle attitude toward women writers, particularly..
Louis D Rubio, Jr, in The History of Southern Literature (1985), points out that, to many Southern critics, Mark Twain holds a curious place because he does not seem to conform to what is generally considered the model of Southern literature he does not seem to have a Southerner`s compulsion to tell about the South and to explain the South to others Despite his desire to a..
In Victorian cultare, manliness was one of the most cherished values Probing into the gender dynamics of Victorian society confirms the suspicion that it had a strong need to emphasize masculinity In the same context, Charles Kingsley`s advocacy of athleticism and masculinity can be understood as an attempt at re-establishing the traditional gender roles and identities i..
In The Philosophy of Composition, Poe makes a notorious claim that is central to his artistic creation the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world This aesthetic principle clearly accounts for why Poe`s young, attractive heroines have little chance of survival in his fictional world The female characters often die of unknown fata..