Task 1
Write a list of questions relating to the article
which you need to find the answer to.
1. What various similarities do the two texts bear
in terms of Feminist critical readings?
2. In what ways does the main male figure use the
protagonist to meet his needs?
3. How could the father's behaviour be interpreted
in a Feminist reading?
4. What is female subordination?
5. How does Carter make psychic transformations for
her protagonists and remove them from conventional gender roles?
6. What do the following terms mean?
Oedipus Complex:The point at which a Boy feels a
Desire for his Mother as a replacement to his Father. Defloration: The taking
of a woman's virginity. Voyeurism: The Pleasure/ Gratification a Person gets
through viewing another's Sexual Acts.
Task 2
Reduce the article to 5 key sentences
Carter exploits female desire for sexual liberation
in order to play with the reader's minds who understand only the masculine and
feminine roles of normal in a
patriarchal society, exposing traditional construction of femininity and
masculinity.
Feminist research influenced the destruction of
polarisation between man and beast as well as the active/passive roles for
example as her characters present both
sides using fantasy as a representation of a metamorphosis between man and
women.
Carter uses intertextuality to reveal ideological
content in which fairy-tales are designed with fear and enchantment to install
codes of female behaviour In relation to consumption and annihilation.
Carter presents the mechanical maid , presenting the
female as a creation of the patriarchal society (a simulacrum) but also
presents the beast as a social construction that is in empowered to do acts of
'voyeurism' in relation to the male gaze which eventually leads to a mutual consummation.
Sexual realisation and self worth is a product of
removing artificial gender construction and maturing beyond this with freedom
as a revelation to alternative models , as Carter proposes the model of
androgyny.
Reduce each sentence to 1 key word
Expose
Metamorphosis
Intertexuality
Simulacrum
Androgyny
Reduce all 5 words to 1 phrase
Carter exposes constructions and polarities brought
by intertextuality, whilst using simulacrums to lead to a proposed model of
androgyny.
Task 3
Write a 100 word summary on the article
Da Silva's article provides a commentary on how
Carter has exposed the traditional roles between masculinity and femininity in
order to propose new models with psychic transformation and deconstruction of
polarities. Learning of how the tiger is indeed a social construction himself
along with the doll for example exemplifies how society manipulates the
behaviours of femininity and masculinity in order to appear in line with the
conventions with which they are materialised by, as exemplars of simulacrums.
However when men are socially constructed with experience, intellectuality and
culture they have empowerment as controllers. Carter perhaps is attempting to
indicate androgyny is the answer to the problems proposed.
I'm not sure she is promoting androgyny but I do agree with much of what you have written.
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