Society, Gender Roles and Gender-Conflict Essay -- Research Papers

Society, Gender Roles and Gender-ConflictTime and time again gender-conflict is brought to the attention of the public in various forms. In our time someone who wants to make a stage about gender-conflict and the inequality that is present will be much apparent to use television or song to reach their audience. This however is a fairly new technology. Books or some form of writing on the other hand have been near for thousands of years. Gender-conflict is nonhing new. It is not as though one day it just came out of no where. It has been around since the dawn of time. What is a mans place and what is a fair sexs place in society or is there real a specific place at all further more are we even really that different to begin with? Two untainted novels To the Lighthouse and gentlewoman Oracle are perfect examples of how gender-conflict is viewed and present in our society, but what is it that they are trying to teach us? One of the of import motifs in To the Lighthouse is the conflict between the fe masculine and masculine principles at work in pretty much the blameless universe. Mrs. Ramsay, with her emotional, poetical frame of mind, represents the female principle, while Mr. Ramsay, a self-centered philosopher, expresses the male principle in his rational point of view. Both of which are damage by their restricted and somewhat ignorant perspectives. A painter and companion of the family, Lily Briscoe, is Woolfs vision of the ideal blending of male and female qualities. When looked at more deeply Lily does not only personifies the ideal male/female persona in society but she is also representation of Woolf herself (Fokkema, 14). Growing up as a female little alone trying to tot up into the stereotypical role a women is expected to fill in a mal... ...and ignorant. We all know what must be done to overcome the stereotypes fit(p) in the society. It is just a matter of time. The two novels give us a better look into humanity and what it means to be human, not make or female, but human. Basically what these novels teach us is that it is pitch-black to be a man or a woman plain and simple one must be woman-manly or man-womanly. Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. Lady Oracle.Toronto Seal Books, 1999. Cooke, Nathalie. Margaret Atwood A biography. ECW Press, 1988. Dworkin, Andrea. Woman Hating. New York Dutton, 1974. Fokkema, Douwe W. An Interpretation of To the Lighthouse With character to the Code of Modernism. Tel Aviv, Israel, 1979. Ruddick, Lisa. The Seen and the Unseen Virginia Woolfs To the Lighthouse. Cambridge Harvard, 1977. Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. New York Oxford, 1999.