Feminist Trends to Portray Unrealistic Male Villains: A Critical Response - Coursework Example

? Feminist Trends to Portray Unrealistic Male Villains: A Critical Response Feminist Trends to Portray Unrealistic Male Villains: A Critical Response In contemporary feminist discourses, the common trend, among the literary frontiers, is very often to associate patriarchy with women’s inferiority, suppressed voice and lack of identity in the society. Consequently, though in most cases in the modern literature, the male characters as the representatives of patriarchy are to undergo severe criticisms, often they are too naive to be overburdened with the insults and bullies of the female authors. Frequently the authors form a bond of affinity with the existing metanarrative without questioning the justifiability of their stance and often without any honest effort to look at the other side of the pictures. In such impeachment of the male characters, they repeatedly confuse between the individual male characters and the overall patriarchy. This failure to pursue the dichotomy between a male in a particular context and patriarchy as a much wider topic tend to misguide them to offload their wrath on their male counterparts slaying them with merciless triumph. One, but not all, of these rigid and fundamental feminists is Sylvia Plath whose, upon being read by an unbiased reader, is bound to convey the perception that she is one of those very rare victims of the male tortures and suppressions. Here the term, ‘male’, should denote to a particular or specific man, and is not applicable to patriarchy in a broader context. Plath’s narrators’ common antagonism against men as a community of oppressors compels a reader, though misguidedly, to think of the peculiarity of their behavior and attitude toward men. Such frenzied peculiar violence of one of Plath’s narrator is evident in the following lines from the poem, “Lady Lazarus”: “Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air” (Plath, “Lady Lazarus”). Margaret Dickie comments on this peculiarity in the following lines: “Plath’s late poems are full of speakers whose rigid identities and violent methods not only parody their torment but also permit them to control it. The peculiar nature of the speaker in "Lady Lazarus" defies ordinary notions of the suicide.” (324) Indeed it is as peculiar as that of frenzied women who have been deprived of thinking rationally of men, and essentially she tends to be characterized as an antagonist against men, not against patriarchy. In this regard as Christina Britzolakis says, “Although Plath's 'confessional' tropes are often seen in terms of a Romantic parable of victimization, whether of the sensitive poetic individual crushed by a brutally rationalized society, or of feminist protest against a monolithic patriarchal oppressor…” (37). Again it is for the same reason, a reader question whether Plath is capable of experiencing herself in a man’s position in the society. If Plath would have been able to do so, she most probably would not assume such a one-sided and one-eyed stance against men, and she would not blur the dichotomy between men in particular contexts and men as representatives of patriarchy. Indeed Plath’s unrealistic and villainous portrayal of men are best evident in the poems “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus”, as Eillen M. Aird says, “A companion piece to 'Daddy', in which the poet again fuses the worlds of personal pain and corporate suffering, is ‘Lady Lazarus'. In this poem a disturbing tension is established between the seriousness of the experience described and the misleadingly light form of the poem.” (12) Yet the male antagonists in Plath’s poetry deserve a particular share of her criticism, since the particular contexts of male suppression that Plath deals with depict the nature of patriarchy to a certain extent. Though like Kate Chopin, Jean Rhys, Charlotte Gilman and others Sylvia Plath is preoccupied with the harmful dominance and control of men such as a father or a husband on a girl or a woman, such portrayal of the male characters are totally different from others. In the poem “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath deals with the negative consequences of a father influence on a child. In the poem, the poet compares her father with a number of imagery, such as daddy, shoe, devil, commander of Jewish extermination, etc to portray the unhappiness that her father caused to her. She compares her father with someone protective; but obviously for her protection, this protection is dark and choking. This is evident in her use of the imagery of black shoe. Shoe protects one’s feet but its blackness means that it is a dark protection (Plaths “Daddy”). Both Rhys and Sylvia agree that conservative attitude of family members like father and husband harmful for a woman because they make her passive and choke her psychological growth. In this regard Head says that the patriarchal attitude toward a woman’s position in a family and the stifling care and after all, the failure to view the harmful effect of “forced inactivity” and “forced passivity” on a woman’s psychology ironically drive the protagonist to the verge of insanity (Head 2). Indeed, both Rhys and Sylvia Plaths attempt to point out that the harmful effect of male dominance is a built-in construct of a family with all its norms and regulations in modern society in which women are, in a way, mannered to conform to the male dominance while pursuing their own desires. Indeed, Plath’s stance against patriarchy has severely been challenged by authors like Kate Chopin, Jean Rhys, Henric Ibsen, Charlotte P. Gilman, and a number of others. Unlike Plath, these authors except Kate Chopin and Jean Rhys have showed various degrees of sincerity and carefulness in their evaluations of patriarchy and feminism. Indeed none of these authors have maliciously castigated their male characters with blind wrath. Upon reading Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” or Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” or “Daddy” side by side, a reader will find that their male characters are not arbitrarily antagonistic to their female counterparts; rather they are endowed with certain types of love and affection, while unknowingly inheriting the suffocating and suppressive to their female counterparts. They do it unknowingly, since they inherit it from the patriarchy in which they live. To this extent, Plath’s male characters echo this norm of being inherently patriarchal. For example, the narrator’s daddy in Plath’s “Daddy” is essentially a conservative patriarchal figure who imposes restriction and limitations upon his daughter, as one sees the same wall of the restriction that Torvald in Ibsen’s play raises around Nora. Again in Gilman’s story, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Jane’s husband also appears to be the same self-ignorant patriarchal suppressor who unknowingly imposes the harmful restrictions on the protagonist’s activities. But the way Nora and Jane react to their male-partners’ patriarchal attitude is totally different from that of Plath’s narrator. Unlike Ibsen’s and Gilman’s heroines, Plath’s narrators hold their male counterparts directly responsible for their situations. The characters whom Plath accuses of intentional villainy are portrayed as mere patriarchal role-playing lovers who actively think of their female partners’ wellbeing, but ironically turn into patriarchal oppressors. Since both Nora and Jane acknowledge their male-counterparts’ love, they are considerate enough not to be violently malicious against their husbands unlike the violent nature of Plath’s narrators. Both Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” and Jean Rhys’ “Wide Saragossa Sea” are two foils to Plath’s unrealistic portrayal of men as villains. Also the two texts can be considered as two answers to the question whether Plath’s treatment of men as villains is realistic or not. In their texts, Chopin and Rhys have answered this question quite differently. Unlike Plath’s blind and violent reaction to men, Kate Chopin is quite calculative in her judgment about them. Before the awakening at Robert’s second escape, Edna appears to be one of those heroines, of feminist metanarrative, who are aggressive to their men accusing them as their restrictive superiors. Like Plath’s stance against Chopin’s heroine also grow hatred for her husband’s restrictions. She actively seeks a way out of it and begins to isolate her from the so-called male dominated society. Until the readers reach the end of the novel, they mistake Edna’s husband Leonce Pontellier for a traditional patriarchal antagonist. Unlike Plath’s view of men as villains, Chopin presents the male characters as the passive patriarchal role-players of the society. Both Leonce and Robert cannot but succumb to the demands of the male dominated society. Like Plath, Chopin has not confused between men and the patriarchal society. Neither Robert nor Leonce can be considered as villainous toward Edna. Rather the true villain, if there is any, is the society in which Robert and Leonce live. Chopin further explores deep into modern feminist metanarrative with a question how far it will be justifiable to condemn motherhood and wifehood as the patriarchy imposed restriction on women’s freedom. Far from portraying men as villains she attempts to impeach the society in a broader context for mutilating women’s freedom. Also she does not let a feminist go unquestioned. In the first place, she puts Edna’s role into question whether her decision to leave her husband and family is justified or not. She longs for Robert’s love. But she is not considerate enough to think that someone else such as her husband and children need her love. If she needs absolute freedom, she has got it. But even then she commits suicide because she does not get Robert’s love. Thus Chopin attempts to show that loveless freedom is meaningless. In addition, Chopin wants to purport that Edna is in search of freedom. Necessarily she asks the readers what Edna’s freedom is for. It is seems that Edna’s freedom is to fulfill her carnal hunger. She is infatuated with Robert’s charm. But she seems to be oblivious to the aftermaths of such extramarital affair. Very likely, Chopin wants to say that the society which Robert, Leonce and even Edna herself are committed to is one based on the universal rules of human relationship. Robert’s awareness of adultery and his Declination from their extramarital affair are more of his respect for the marital agreement between Edna and Leonce than of his fear of patriarchal authority. Again through Edna’s attempt to attain freedom by distancing herself from her wifehood, Chopin, unlike Plath, attempts to point out the self-contradiction within the traditional metanarrative. Unrealistically she assumes her wifehood as well as her husband as a barrier to her freedom. Once she frees herself from it, she finds her freedom meaningless, since she at once sees herself depended on Robert’s love. In the beginning of the novel, she is confused about what freedom is and what her true identity role in Leonce’s family. She erroneously takes the marriage-induced duty to the family for the restriction and mutilation of her freedom. But the same marital institution imposes some duties upon Leonce. Though Leonce performs his share, she betrays her share by committing adultery. Even she fails to attain freedom because of her erroneous presupposition. She frees herself from her ties with the family and society. But she is prepared to embrace the sufferings and perils that such freedom infers on an independent individual. If Edna attains the freedom in its true sense by repealing Leonce’s husbandry on her, she would not commit suicide upon seeing the oncoming perils and ordeal. In this regard, the narrator comments: There was with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual. Every step which she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to “feed upon opinion” when her own soul had invited her. (Chopin 187.) Indeed Edna’s avoidances of her social responsibilities enhances, not her freedom, but her self-confidence to be more assertive in her love for Robert. When she sees that freeing herself by repealing her wifehood and by having the freedom to love Robert neglecting the society imposed restriction is nothing but an illusion, and a self-appointment to some other duties and responsibilities, she feels devastated with her sense of betrayal to her family, Leonce and her children. Since she is not prepared for such a U-turn in her awakening, she commits suicide. Edna fulfills her carnal desire from her relationship with a town seducer Alcee Arobin. Though she is not emotionally to Arobin, her animalistic urges are satisfied by him. This affair immediately reminds a reader of the marital relationship between Edna and Leonce. The relationship seems to be a medium of satisfying their hunger. Again Edna’s love for Robert even after her sexual fulfillment by Arobin indicates that it is more than sexuality. Chopin does not say anything clear about what it really is. Robert, in some way, appears to be the personification of the carefree sexuality and equality in relationship, or some explainable emotional attachment that is nothing but one kind of illusion, as at some point while discussing with the doctor Edna refers to her awakening about her love for Robert as well as for her social roles: “The years that are gone seem like dreams—if one might go on sleeping and dreaming—but to wake up and find—oh! well! Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life.” (Chopin 143) A feminist interpretation of Chopin’s novel may be misguided on the point that she commits suicide because her attempt to live freely has been refused by Robert. But such an interpretation often ignores the fact that a self-committed and self-depended individual does not depend on anyone else’s appraisal. For example, Ibsen’s Nora comes to learn that she loves her husband Torvald wholeheartedly, but he does not love her; that she has always worked for Torvald, but she has not done anything for her own, her self-depended individuality awakes and chooses to leave Torvald’s house. Edna also decides to leave Leonce’s with the pretension that she needs freedom of sexuality and freedom of loving. But at Robert’s refusal, she learns that love is nothing more than an illusion and self-interestedness. Therefore not by Robert’s refusal to acknowledge her freedom, but by her sense of being a betrayer, Edna has been devastated the most. Works Cited Aird, Eillen M. Sylvia Plat: Her Life and Work. New York: Eileen M. Aird, 1973 Britzolakis, Christina. Sylvia Plath and Theatre of Mourning. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999 Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: Mike Publishers, 2001. Dickie, Margaret. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Illinois: University of Illinois, 1979 Plaths, Sylvia. “Daddy”, 02 December, 2010. available at Plaths, Sylvia. “Lady Lazarus”, 02 December, 2010. available at Rhys, Jean. Wide Saragossa Sea. London: John Buck, 1998. Read More