Women in Art and Literature

“Before the woman writer can journey through the looking glass toward literary autonomy…she must come to terms with the images on the surface of the glass, with, that is, those mythic male artists have fastened over her human face both to lessen their dread of her “inconstancy” and by identifying her with “eternal types” they have themselves invented to possess her more thoroughly” (812). Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in “The Madwoman in the Attic” discuss the liberation of the woman from art and literature by “killing” the “monster” that women have become (aesthetically) through male perspectives and lenses. Both feminist critics describe female writers as having been the “mysterious creature who resides behind the angel or monster image” (812). The article continues stating that women struggle to break away from “male designs” in order to become the ‘I’ in which a female is her own female and not that of a male’s construction. The woman writer, however, knows that she feels pain, confusion and that her image is a male construct that feeds the continued confines of society.
“The Madwoman in the Attic” describes that the woman who inhabits male dominance is altering her vision and self-development as an artist, or simply a woman, in order to maintain the “copy” of herself as opposed to creating her “individuality” (814). Sherry Ortner argues that women psychologically “ [seem] to stand at both the bottom and the top of the scale of human modes of relating” which, in turn, maintains “symbolic ambiguity” because the woman is denied autonomy and put into a “pen” where she is excluded from culture creating fear, love or loathing.

So, in order for women to stop being this:



The woman must first stop doing this to break away from the patriarchal normative, artistic, hegemonic and societal dominance. It is breaking away from the belief that woman is of gentle mood and spirit always and that she must be a sexualized goddess (men's construction of women) :







































Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan. "The Madwoman in the Attic." Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, Ma: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 812-24.

The Validity in Interpretations of Stories

Structuralism is still going on. It is a profound influence on literary criticism. It is current thinking in post structuralism, it follows drum-structuralism. Richter leaves out the symbol of the sign (the oval with the line through it). The nature of the sign and the role of difference in the sign. With structuralism we enter the era of high theory, as it is known in contemporary literature. It is deeply philosophical and doesn’t even begin in a literary standpoint. New historicism doesn’t begin in literature either. Structuralism pointed us to another linguistic place. Ontology: Study of being. The one we may hold is linked to realism. A realist believes there is an external reality outside of ourselves, independent and objective of our looking at it. Anti-structuralist. Structuralism is anti realistic. Epistemology: the study of knowledge. Empirical, empiricism—we gather knowledge through experience. Structuralists believe knowledge comes through language, not through experience. :
1) Psychology: independent selves, we use language for this, this can be called instrumentalism—it is likely our attitude towards language is something that we use as an instrument, we use language for certain purposes of communication, and thought. This is anti-structuralist: structuralists argue that language uses us, because language provides resources that just flow through us.
2) Linguistics: referentialist /referentialism, an attitude towards what language does for us. Language works because it refers to things, or classes of things in the real world. Structuralism: anti-referentialist –it’s not a thing or class of thing, but a mental entity. It has nothing to do with the real world. There are trees if our language system has a construct and system for it, but if our language system doesn’t, then we have no trees. Language does not get its meaning from referring to the real world. But it gets its meanings from language
3) Philosophy: the identity of things, and of identities. Indentitarinism. In structuralism, there are not things only differences. Like positive identities. The role of difference is very important in understanding this.



Lyotard, Jean-François. "The Postmodern Condition." Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, Ma: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 355-62.

The Proletariat and Bourgeoisie: The Exploitation of Workers

The working class. The ones who own nothing and wished they owned something. The proletariat people are these that cast the wishing. In an economic ladder, a company cannot possibly strive without wage-laborers willing to sacrifice themselves in order to make a living and feed this machine of living: the bourgeoisie own and the proletariats work for the bourgeoisie; the proletariat class sells their labor in order for a pension. Marxism, in a sense, sees the proletariat and bourgeoisie as polar positions, because the working class seeks higher wages while the capitalist prefer to keep the proletariat laboring for minimal wages. However, if there is a class, such as the petite bourgeoisie, who own and work their own businesses, where does that leave the polar opposites (proletariat and the bourgeoisie)? According to Marxist theory, the petite bourgeoisie will be ritually dominated by the bigger, heftier wolf, the bourgeoisie. In order to end the class distinction, Marxist theory argues that the proletariat class will grow weary of the bourgeoisie and up rise. It is in this act of defiance that the bourgeoisie will be overcome and will cease to exist, therefore, eliminating class. Exploitation suffered upon by the proletariat will mark the end of capitalism based on utilization by means of convenience. . Unfortunately, Marx decides once the up rise against the bourgeoisie has surfaced and our society has become classless that communism will take over (and we have seen the result of that: Cuba).

The cheap production of labor that the bourgeoisie employ through the misuse of the proletariat becomes property in expense to the laborer (the proletariat is tricked to produce material and work extra hard for very little pay in order for the bourgeoisie to have a reasonable sum of money). The increase in demand for production will further stress result for the same amount of pay and in time becomes the levy which gives out and results in attack by the proletariat. Nonetheless, until that happens, the bourgeoisie will continue to accumulate wealth for more effort from the working class but will not produce the same result for the working class producing that wealth. In the long run, those who work to produce wealth do not receive the full wealth created by their labor, and do not get to decide how the wealth is distributed, which, again, means the exploitation is a very strong way of mistreatment.

Marx, Karl. "Grundrisse." Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, Ma: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 650-52.

"The German Ideology." Literary Theory: An Anthology. 2nd ed. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, Ma: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 653-58.