Exploring the Unbalanced Male-Female Dynamic in Classic Literature

Abstract

Some themes are dominant in different types of literary works. The only difference is how the themes are addressed. This essay aims at looking at different literary works by various authors, and the dominant theme will be deeply discussed. The works under the scrutiny will be ‘Where are you going where have you been,' 'the lottery,' 'trifles,' and 'my last Duchess. Different authors have all done these works at other times and still have different meanings and literal devices. But some themes are evident in them, and this essay wishes to discuss theme dominant in all of them. The theme of male/female relationship. the relationship between men and women are clearly defined whereby the women are seen as the weaker, inferior sex. The male tends to dominate the women and act as the superior being trying to dominate and rule the weaker sex. The theme of the male/female relationship is common in all the works, as mentioned earlier, regardless of the works being of different genres and times. In the Trifles, men are portrayed to occupy the central work in the play, and women are defined to have their places in the homes (Glaspell and Hornstein, 1992). Trifles depict the world as that dominated by men, and women have only been cast in the domestic work with their responsibilities defined as being submissive to men. The women are expected to let men do the hard and intellectual works while the women can only sit and do the easy domestic jobs (Glaspell and Hornstein, 1992). The short play in the Trifles was about a murder case where men were investigating the murder case. Women in the play were only allowed to handle the trifles, which men thought were not important. But as the play comes to an end, it is evident that the women are as equal as the men, or more so, more intelligent than men. The play ends with the women emerging triumphant because they solved the mystery behind John Wright's murder by being most careful in the investigations and looking at the things men thought were insignificant (Glaspell and Hornstein, 1992). On the other hand, in My Last Duchess, men are depicted as eager to take leadership positions in all things, and women have no choice but to obey them. In this poem, men give orders and directions directed to women, and women have nothing of importance to offer but to obey the men of the command give (Browning and Dharker, 2004). The author, Robert Browning, has early enough in the poem showed that men and men who oppress women are dictators who should be followed to the letter without any questions. In the poem, Browning depicts women as objects that act as a joy source to the men. Such is evident where the author says, “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall/Looking as if she were alive (Browning and Dharker, 2004). The author demonstrates men as beings who value their objects more in their women than they do in their real lives. In other...