Revival of Fallen Women in Coelho’s The Witch of Portobello

The paper aims to explore the direct or indirect link between the patriarchal Nepalese society and the degradation of Nepal’s forestry and environment. The males of Nepal have been dominating and disrespecting women as the inferior sex for centuries, and thereby treating natural resourses as feminine, weak to be manipulated and consumed objectively for their benefits. The research tool taken to carry out the research is eco-feminism. To notice the relationship between gender and natural resources of Nepal, the theoretical concerns of such eco-feminist critics as Greta Gaard and Vandana Shiva are chiefly focused on. The Nepalese society, like most of the South-Asian societies, is a male-dominated society. It exploits both women and nature regarding them to be inferior. The chief finding is that the natural resources of Nepal such as air, water, green fields, climate, land, forestry, minerals, environment, and the species of Nepal have been getting threatened because of the Nepalese patriarchal society. The Nepali people exploit nature as carelessly as they have been exploiting women. It is assumed that the research scholars interested in exploring Nepalese society from the perspective of eco-feminism can take the article as a reference.

Beginning perhaps with Virginia Woolf’s revolutionary plea for social justice for women in A Room of One’s Own [1928] and stimulated by Simone de Beauvoir’s classic polemic The Second Sex [1949], there has developed, especially in the years following the publication of Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics [1970], an identifiable political school of feminist criticism. However, as Terry Eagleton has put it, the feminist critic is ‘not studying representations of gender simply because she believes that this will further her political ends. She also believes that gender and sexuality are central themes in literature and other sorts of discourse, and that any critical account which suppresses them is seriously defective’ [1983, p. 209]. Naturally Lawrence’s novels have been a major focus of feminist interest. He has been praised for his intuitive understanding and sensitive portrayal of women by critics as different in period and style as Anaïs Nin [1932] and Lydia Blanchard [1975], who have vigorously defended Lawrence’s sympathy for the social plight of intelligent women trapped in a male-dominated society. However, feminist criticism on the whole has been severe on Lawrence. John Middleton Murry, in Son of Woman, published in 1931 [Casebook, pp. 95–105], was the first to accuse Lawrence of wishing in his fiction to annihilate the female and rehabilitate the male; but Simone de Beauvoir was the first feminist critic to attempt to politicise the reader’s response to what she regarded as Lawrence’s faith in male supremacy, his feeling that a woman’s role is primarily sexual, and his fear of the modern woman’s raised consciousness. And in Sons and Lovers she sees Paul expecting first Miriam and then Clara to give up personal, individualised love for an impersonal force in which the female worships the male.

This study examines the Balti folktale “Choqpa Bursting Shargo” through a feminist lens, focusing on the representation of female characters and their societal roles. The research aims to explore gender roles, major themes, and the portrayal of patriarchal structures in the narrative. It highlights the elements of oppression and the marginalization of women in a male-dominated society, drawing attention to the societal norms that perpetuate gender inequality. The study employs a qualitative approach, utilizing feminist literary criticism to analyse the folktale. The research is based on textual analysis, examining key themes and character interactions to reveal underlying patriarchal ideologies. The methodology involves identifying patterns of gender discrimination and assessing their implications within the broader socio-cultural framework. The analysis reveals that women in the folktale are subjected to systemic oppression and are often portrayed in subservient roles. The narrative reflects the realities of patriarchal norms, illustrating how female identity is suppressed and controlled. The concept of double marginalization is also explored, emphasizing how women face compounded oppression both as individuals and as a collective. In conclusion, the research underscores the significance of feminist readings of folklore in unveiling deep-seated gender biases. The study highlights the continued relevance of such tales in contemporary discussions on gender equality, advocating for a more inclusive and equitable representation of women in traditional narratives.

Ten years ago feminist theatre and performance criticism was something of an oxymoron. Like most avowedly political criticism, feminist work in the late I970s and early '8os seemed caught in conflicting demands of aesthetics and ideology. Feminist critics of feminist work teetered uneasily among the desires to support women's production efforts, to investigate the ramifications of an unprecedented switch in gender perspective, and to compare women's theatre and performance with an aesthetic standard that had not yet been formulated. Critics writing for feminist presses usually chose to validate what they saw; those writing in academic venues generally took a sociological approach to theatre's reflection of women's social roles. The bulk of the critical effort was aimed toward redressing the historical invisibility of women in the field.1 When French theory began to find its way across the Atlantic it changed the contours of feminist criticism in the academy. Isabelle de Courtivron and Elaine Marks published their landmark anthology New French Feminisms in I98I, and suddenly gave American feminist criticism a whole new vocabulary and new territories to cover. Hel6ne Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva, among others, seemed powerful and poetic in their descriptions of female sexuality as a subversive, antipatriarchal textuality. If women could write with their bodies, as l'criture feminine's florid manifestos proposed, could the body also be a site of a new theatre practice and textual analysis? Could the French feminist pantheon's borrowings from Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan give feminist theatre and performance critics new tools for describing the field? American feminist criticism in the '8os has also been shaped by the field of cultural studies. The influx of British materialism, with its focus on ideology formation in representation, has allowed critics to dig deeper, farther, and wider in the investigation of representation as an ideological apparatus with an active role in preserving social arrangements. The materialist approach has moved academic feminist criticism away from sociological analysis based on assumptions that theatre serves a mimetic

Subtlety is the only way wherein feminine rebellion can flourish and succeed in a male dominant society. This paper attempts to show that collaborative feminine effort leads to collective liberty and that Duffy (2002) pays homage to the feminist waves, especially the radical phase. The poet uses laughter as a metaphor to represent the feminist waves that were initially perceived as a joke but culminated in a force that ensured the emancipation of women. Although women’s desires are often repressed by the patriarchal machinery that seeks to oppress them, united action leads to liberation. Critics of Duffy have focused on her radical feminist and revisionist themes but this paper will also read the Laughter of Stafford Girls High (2002) as a homage to the various feminist waves that have contributed to women’s emancipation discourses globally. The paper draws from Wollstonecraft (1792) whose treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Woman exposed the triviality of women’s education and advocated for equality in learning. Although contemporary society enjoys parity in learning, several feminist critics like Howe (1977) and Hooks (1994) insist that there are still hidden messages within curriculums that tactfully ensure the marginal role of women. The absence of women in the canons gives the pervasive feeling that women have contributed nothing to human progress. The paper, therefore, aligns with the idea of feminine writing posited by Cixous (1976) as the only way through which women can write their unique history. From a reading of Duffy (2002) with the aforementioned theoretical leanings, it was realized that spaces of patriarchal brainwashing still abound despite the perceived progressive worldview. Equally, united action is important for the restitution of the rights of all women globally.
 
 Received: 7 September 2022 / Accepted: 27 October 2022 / Published: 5 November 2022

In India, a woman is conditioned by tradition and cultural bindings in a society with family as a major situate of oppression. A woman is yet to seek identity as an individual with equal status in the family. The identity of women is through her family that creates a dominant ambience where she willingly accepts the responsibility of being a warden in a defined role. Modernization has transformed the life of Indians in many ways, although it has not altered the perceptions of family value system. The need for family continues to dominate the emotional life of women leaving her a mere performer of domestic chores, reproduction, rearing up children and fulfilling the desires of the male .The whole process leaves behind a traumatized woman who is discriminated, exploited, humiliated and oppressed in the male dominant society .A women suffer mainly due to the patriarchal psyche resulting in male prejudice and the prevalent tendency to impose their power over women by emotional abuse. The individuality of a woman is torn between social obligations and stereotypical gender roles. A woman who loses or foregoes her financial independence is caged both emotionally and economically leaving behind a vulnerable woman. To understand the socio-economic changes the role of women in households and the effect of these changes on women must be well understood. Many women writers have tried to challenge the patriarchal dogmas; this suppression is still prevalent in our society. The paper throws light on the dilemma of women and their inner voices in the male dominant society as they journey unto the realm of womanly sensibilities. The paper seeks to present the role of literature in voicing the identity and place of women in a patriarchal society with reference to Shashi Deshpande`s selected novels The Dark Holds No Terrors , Roots and Shadows and That Long Silence. A distinguished contemporary writer with concern on social dynamics that repress individuality of modern, educated, Indian women, her struggles and the distinctly female operative sensibility, Deshpande through her character depict women’s internal struggle to unravel the immense complexities of her identity and gender demarcations.

The Golden Notebook is Doris Lessing’s masterpiece, which was considered as the monumental feminist novel after World War ?. This paper studied and summarized the novel “The Golden Notebook” from the perspective of feminism, further exploring the causes of the confusions of the modern women and the female’s “The Other” status, as well as the heroine character: Anna’s approaches in realizing “Free woman,” based on the comparison and analysis on the female characters in the novel. Through the re-rendering of the heroine Anna’s image of free woman, the article discussed how modern women fight against their fate in a male-dominated society. Aiming at this specific question, this study also pointed out how the character Anna changed her “The Other” status by struggling to look ahead in the bitterness and overcoming the inner nature. Although Lessing refused to attach a feminist label to her work, she had depicted a character, Anna, who has always taken initiative in many aspects of life to realize women’s freedom and self-value.

This article, by using feminist criticism and archetypical criticism, mains to analyze the evil woman images in the ancient Egyptian literature like Great Mothers of terror who tries to capture right and cause deaths, the enchanter who is very crazy and fascinating and the wife who betrays his husband to understand the complexity. Also this thesis reveals the spiritual and cultural meaning of the evil woman images. Lastly, the paper sums up the reasons from Anima, the good and evil in the traditional human nature, male-dominated society and the male author’s viewpoint on female.

The primary aim of this research is to explore how the female protagonists of the novel, Daughters of Shame by Jasvinder Sanghera resist the patriarchal trend of instrumentalizing women as shameful creatures, marginalizing women and how they struggle to establish their identity. Through the close reading of the text from the perspectives of Materialist feminism, the paper focuses on how the major women characters, along with the writer herself, like Shazia, Fozia Maya, Shabana and Yasmin help each other by giving psychological and physical support to fight against exploitation by men. These characters represent the dominated Pakistani Muslim and Sikh women in the modern city in Derby in particular and the Sikh and Muslim communities in general. The memoir has presented women as the object to be used for convenience, the satisfaction of men, and as unpaid domestic laborers. The chief finding is that the memoir depicts the social reality of how Muslim and Sikh women living in Western countries are compelled to tolerate domestic violence, honor-based crimes, and forceful marriage. It is expected that the article will encourage other researchers to apply materialist feminism in other fictions.

Chandra Prakash Baniya's Maharani [Queen] is a telling tale of women's exploitation and their glass ceiling in a male dominated society. The novel depicts how women are either risen to the pedestal of ‘Goddess’ or devalued to the position of a ‘whore’, but never given a genuine respect. By aggrandizing or derogating the status of women, the patriarchal society has always subordinated, subjugated, and exploited them. The scenario of deprivation of women from attaining their rights is the main concern of the novelist. He suggests that the prevalence of biased treatment for women in every sphere - social, economic, political, literary - is rampant, and from getting secondary position to being thwarted to grow is an unfortunate fate meted out to women in this male-dominated society. Patriarchy, therefore, has become a clog in the route of women's progress. The present paper aims at exploring the pathetic condition of women in the novel, discussing how women become the victim of glass ceiling in a social labyrinth created by males. To address this objective, the study has employed feminism as a tool to examine the condition of women, especially drawing the concept of glass ceiling of women from Judith Butler to interpret the text.

One of the major works within feminism is the novel Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Bronte in 1847. Jane Eyre is claimed as one of the greatest and most popular works of English fiction. It is one of the most read, appreciated and discussed pieces of literature of the western world. Jane Eyre is a novel that narrates the story of protagonist’s growth and internal development on her search for a meaningful existence in the society. The purpose of this study is to examine self-actualization and identity in Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre. This research shows the women’s status in the era of Patriarchal England of nineteenth century where they were living under men’s control and they were discriminated in a patriarchal society. This study analyzes Jane’s personal journey and her quest for independence, equality, self-esteem and identity viewed from a feminist perspective. This research paper also presents the social class issues and gender prejudices on women oppressions in maintaining the socio-economic independence and building an identity and equality through self-actualization of the protagonist Jane. This research applies the feminist literary criticism and Marxist feminism approaches to demonstrate the patriarchal and gender barriers that women had to cross over in order to achieve their identity, independence and equality in the society. Secondly, it reflects the patriarchal traits and gender codes along with class oppression that oppressed most women considering them as dependent and object of men. Finally, it represents women struggle breaking the social codes and values to finally reach her autonomy, building self- identity. This research is helpful in conveying different ways through which women can overcome oppressive and sexist societal norms and make themselves heard by participating in social issues and challenging patriarchal (male-dominated) society full of biasness in order to achieve social-independence, equality and build an identity.

This research paper aims to explore resistance of chief female characters, Satyawatee, Gandharee, and Draupadi, in Nilam Karki Niharika’s novel, Cheerharan, against the deprivation of economic, social, and cultural rights of women in the male-dominated Nepalese society. Satyawatee and Gandharee are victimized by patriarchy and portrayed as submissive. But Draupadi resists against the victimization of women in the novel. In an identical way, some women have internalized sexism in Nepalese society while others have objected to this. Draupadi, the chief character of Cheerharan, acts as an adamant feminist to revolt against the treatment of Nepali women as the inferior sex. The theoretical tools taken to explore the assumed truth are the feminists’ ideologies developed by such radical feminists as Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf. The study demonstrates that Cheerharan is the depiction of the pathetic condition of the Nepalese women which has not changed significantly from the ancient time to the present time. The chief finding of the paper is that Satyawatee and Gandharee, like most of Nepali women, know the ill practices of men but can’t resist against them because they take the socialization process for granted; while Drupadi, like a bold modern Nepali woman, reacts against the ill-practices of males towards females. It is assumed that the researchers intending to explore Nepali literature from the feminist perspective can take the paper as a reference.

This paper is an extract from an MA thesis, which is entitled “‘Still We Rise’: A Feminist Study of Female Character’s Quest for Identity in Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles, The Sisters Rosensweig, and Isn’t It Romantic”. It examines The Heidi Chronicles (1988) from a feminist perspective, depending on Simone De Beauvoir’s notions in her foundational work The Second Sex (1949). This study shows the impact of the second wave of feminism on the changing roles of women in the nineteen-sixties. This study answers the questions: What challenges are set before Heidi’s way that prevents her from ascertaining her independence? How does Heidi violate the old notion of femininity? This paper explores the protagonist Heidi Holland’s journey of self-discovery and her pursuit of subjectivity, arguing that she faces numerous professional and personal challenges in a male-dominated society as she strives to assert her identity and prove her selfhood. The analysis concludes with Heidi’s resistance to patriarchal cultural norms, which obstruct her life path and hinder her quest for independence.

The study explores how Shakespeare portrayed women as objects by using the explanations about ‘things’ from Slavoj Žižek’s feminist perspective. Through qualitative analysis and critical discourse methods, the researcher examines main female figures in Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, A Midnight’s Summer and Antonio and Cleopatra. A major issue is that women are treated like objects and portrayed as satisfying male desires or copying how society expects them to act which helps to support patriarchal ideology. The study brings out how, according to Žižek, his idea of the ‘thing’ helps to explain the many layers of how women are portrayed. Through their exceptional talent for depicting human behaviour, Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, Gertrude, Desdemona and Emilia illustrate women's status in a male-dominated society. These female characters, with their depth and complexity, surpass the constraints of their era, making their stories timeless. The objectification of this raises tragic results, ranging from betrayal to loss of identity. His female characters, while often shown as passive, also move against and flip typical feminine roles, exposing extra psychological difficulties for both, but especially for the women. Conclusively, the research reveals more detail about women’s roles in Shakespeare’s plays, noting they are shown as more than simple objects in the story. It actually reflects wider society’s concerns about being feminine and in charge. Positioning Shakespeare’s dramas alongside Žižek’s theory encourages new methods of exploring issues at the crossroads of gender, desire and ideology in early modern writing, as well as their continuing importance in current thought.

This chapter reviews past research studies to lay out the structural conditions influencing Chinese fatherhood in Hong Kong and discusses recent development and notions related to family and fatherhood. As a former British colony and a Chinese society, values from the West and Confucianism are both important social and cultural forces in shaping paternity in the male-dominant society. The development of liberal feminism is influential in pushing a more gender-equal work and family conditions, laying the foundation for the recent emergence of the “new good father” notion. However, without a thorough feminist perspective in formulating social policy and the return of Confucianism by the post-colonial government, Hong Kong society remains largely patriarchal, as reflected in the perpetuation of conventional family value and role in the social service sector and the men’s movement.