The damsel in distress is a classic figure in literature that is often a young woman placed in a dreadful situation by a villain, requiring a hero to rescue her from evil. Linda and Dewey Dell represent this figure, as both women are left alone in the world and have no one to turn to for help when they are in trouble. Dewey Dell’s loneliness results from her helplessness as a pregnant unmarried girl. Pregnancy to her is “the agony and despair of spreading bones” and “the process of becoming unalone is terrible” (107, 55). Dewey Dell’s realization of the alienation within herself originates from being unable to speak of her unwanted pregnancy. Linda is similarly unable to speak of the abusive environment that Doyle creates. Both women are so involved in their own thoughts that they fail to eliminate the evil that impairs them.
Dewey Dell is conflicted with an undesired pregnancy and she has no one to rescue her. Although she anxiously hopes that Doctor Peabody will help her to get rid of the baby, she lacks the courage to reveal her secret to him. After Peabody does not help her, she is determined to obtain medication in Jefferson for an abortion. She is intent on getting the treatment she wants, no matter what the cost. Dewey Dell feels alone in the sense that she has no guidance pertaining to her pregnancy even though she desires to connect and to communicate with someone who can help her. She blames her unhappiness on the fact that she is “alone” and says that “it would
Dewey Dell feels as though Darl is her safety net, she “can talk to him without knowing he hates her because he knows” that he is not judging her, and is merely there for silent support. However, despite the brothers' good intentions, they overlooked Dewey Dell’s emotional needs throughout the journey due to their preoccupation with their struggles and
Cassandra Stover explains in her Journal Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess, the dramatic shift with Disney princess at the peak of the late 1980s and early 1990s. She explains that the shift can derive from feminist movements and how the change can be directed to the third wave of feminism. She examines the original Disney princesses and decribes them to be more passively aggresive and unindependent, while the new princesses are more independent and brave. The author then explains if the shift from the old to new princesses are actually better, and not just different. Stover analysizes that Disney princesses evolve and are a part of the worlds change on feminism.
The life of a ranch girl is unknown to many people across America. In Maile Meloy’s Ranch Girl, a female narrator brings the reader into her hard life being raised as a ranch girl. Through many different literary devices including, tone, mood, and characterization, the writer set the reader to feel everything the narrator depicts and the reader ingested with a heavier impact than the reader anticipates. The obligation to the community for the ranch girl is to break all stereotypes, thus showing her community and all ranch girls alike that she can be successful and break free of the ranch girl life.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, a slave narrative written by Harriet Ann Jacobs is highly commended for the portrayal of women during the excruciating times of slavery. Disregarding that the slave narrative was initially written for the audience of Caucasian women, “…, as white women constituted Jacobs’s primary audience at the time she wrote her narrative” (Larson,742) the struggles of being a female slave were emphasized throughout the narrative. Harriet Ann Jacobs elaborates on slave women’s worth being diminished. In the slave narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Ann Jacobs, the theme of the perils of slavery for women was portrayed by women being viewed
Dewey Dell betrays him by leaving him in the middle of the night, unattended in an unfamiliar area, which is irresponsible considering his young age. She also commits the act of buying bananas instead of a toy train, which he desired. These betrayals are driven as well by her yearning of getting rid of her and Lafe’s child. When Dewey Dell goes to get her “medicine” from MacGowan, she left Vardaman alone, “I looked out the door, but there wasn’t nobody but a boy in overalls sitting on the curb” (Faulkner 248). In response to this MacGowan asks Vardaman if he wants anything, but he gets no reply in return, then he locks the door and turns off the lights to continue on with Dewey Dell. After Dewey Dell leaves MacGowan’s, she has a conversation with Vardaman about the toy train he wants, “The track went shining around the window, it red on the track. But she said he would not sell it to the town boys. ‘But it will be there Christmas,’ Dewey Dell says...” (Faulkner 250). Instead of buying the toy train for Vardaman she insists on getting bananas that she would enjoy, rather than being selfless and getting something that he would like. She says this knowing that the family will most likely not return to Jefferson again which further accentuates the
Both “Hills like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” center around two women who are repressed by their lives’ circumstances. However, outside of their feelings, their situations could not be more different. Miss Emily Grierson is trapped in a life of solitude, despondency, and desperation. The girl, or “Jig”, is equally as desperate, but her repression is not born of loneliness or restraint—it is the child of her freedom. Repression comes in several forms, but it will suffocate and consume you.
As a woman, the narrator must be protected and controlled and kept away from harm. This seemed to be the natural mindset in the 19th century, that women need to have guidance in what they do, what decisions they make, and what they say. John calls her a “little goose”(95) and his “little girl”(236), referring her to a child, someone who needs special attention and control. His need for control over her is proven when she admits that her husband is “careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction”(49). John has mentally restrained the speaker’s mind, she is forced to hide her anxieties, fears and be submissive, to preserve the happiness of their marriage. When the narrator attempts to speak up, she is bogged down and made guilty of her actions. Her husband makes her feel guilty for asking, he says, “‘I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s sake, as well as your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind!’”(225-226). By making her feel guilty for her illness, John has trapped her mentally from speaking up about it, convincing her that she must be more careful about her actions. Men often impose the hardships placed upon women during this era. They are often the people reassuring them of their “womanly” duties, and guiding them
The heroine, Mrs. P, has some carries some characteristics parallel to Louise Mallard in “Hour.” The women of her time are limited by cultural convention. Yet, Mrs. P, (like Louise) begins to experience a new freedom of imagination, a zest for life , in the immediate absence of her husband. She realizes, through interior monologues, that she has been held back, that her station in life cannot and will not afford her the kind of freedom to explore freely and openly the emotions that are as much a part of her as they are not a part of Leonce. Here is a primary irony.
Middleton and Dekker collaborate to write The Roaring Girl, which concentrates on a real-life London woman named Moll Cutpurse. Moll was reputed to be a prostitute, bawd, and thief, but the playwrights present her as a lady of great spirit and virtue whose reputation is misrepresented by a small, convention-bound civilization. In the play, as in reality, Moll dresses in men’s attire, smokes a pipe and bears a sword representing a colorful and in the underworld life of Moll Cutpurse. She stood London on its head with her cross-dressing and gender-bending behavior, and illegal pursuits. Her defiance of women in this play is exceptional. Also, she is perhaps one of the only players to be scrupulously true to herself; some of the other characters display very hypocritical aspects. Such unorthodox and unconventional role, Middleton and Dekker implies, leads to her spotted standing. She is a roaring girl; An audacious and bold woman-about-town. But beneath this absence of femininity, is a courageous, high-principled woman. Moll interposes in the central plots and is associated in skirmishes with many of the characters, consistently showcasing her ability to stand up for the downtrodden and wronged. Therefore, Moll creates a 'third space ' that identifies her as importantly freed in her navigation of space and social relations.
In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, both authors introduce female protagonists that are confined by men’s authority. By displaying the protagonist's transformation, Glaspell and Faulkner highlight the repercussions of gender roles, to show that when women are trapped, they will go to great lengths to retaliate against their oppressors.
Harriet Jacob was the first African American women to have authored a slave narrative in the United States and was instinctive into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina. Living a good life with her skilled carpentered father and her mother, Jacob didn’t much of being a slave. However, when her mother had passed away, Jacob and her father were reassigned to a different slave owner were her life as a women slave began. Because of this change, she fled to New York where she started working in the Anti-Slavery movement. During this period, she focused more on her family then she did the issue of slavery. Family is an emotional anchor in the Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl because Linda was devoted to her children. She uses symbolism, imagery, and allegory because she wants to demonstrate what families should be like.
Times like these, motherly advice and aid would greatly help the troubled Dewey Dell. As a result, she is taken advantage of, and left with circumstances that could have been prevented if only she had the maternal guidance
One of the most widely used clichés in video games is Damsel in distress. The word comes from French demoiselle, which means ‘’young lady’’. Demoiselle en detresse translates into “damsel in distress”. “As a trope the damsel in distress is a plot device in which a female character is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must be rescued by a male character, usually providing a core incentive or motivation for the protagonist’s quest.”
When Dewey Dell first comes to mind, she is first characterized as feeble-minded. Throughout the book, whenever Dewey Dell would talk, it could be seen that she still had a young mind and she was very slow when it came down to everyday things in life. For example, “He is a big tub of guts and I am a little tub of guts and if there is not any room for anything else important in a big tub of guts, how can it be room in a little tub of guts”(Faulkner, 58). Although this quote is a mouth full, it represents how Dewey sees things or how she is able to express them. With this quote, it becomes evident that she is pregnant, but the way she talks and thinks brings realization that she is not ready for the child.
The Portrayal of the Plight of Women by the Author, In Their Particular Period of Time