Women in Literature

Woman in fiction is an entire topic on its own, but we will be talking how they are portrayed.  In the earlier times where gender roles were more or less set in stone with no leeway, women were portray in a lesser role.  If the woman in question has a LOT of power, then she needs to either be ugly or evil… or heck make it both.

 

            It’s incredibly humorous how women of power of significances in fiction are portrayed.  It has gotten to the point where people have created flowcharts to tell just which female character archetype.  Now in Aunt Maria, even the first sentence of the book sets the tone and the image of the female character.  “We have had Aunt Maria ever sense dad died.”  That says so many things, where do I begin?

            Well right off the bad we can tell that it isn’t a third person narrator.  It said by someone who is involved in the actual situation.  We can say that whoever is saying this is being taken care of.  The reference a parent dying means that there has to be something to replace them.  So right off the back, Aunt Maria is a caretaker.  Which in a normal standpoint is all right.  If there are children, anyone would say that they would need someone to look after them.  However when given the choice, they chose to just assign her as a caretaker.

            Now I’m not yelling at the author or anything, but I want to point out that books are usually written in the culture of the time and setting the author wants it to take place.  So the source of this kind of image that is seen in the books and movies, is not from the books themselves.  It comes from the culture they were written in.