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Analysis Of Atwood And Carter's 'Visual Pleasure And Narrative Cinema'

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Analysis Of Atwood And Carter's 'Visual Pleasure And Narrative Cinema'
Ultimately, Atwood and Carter intriguingly critique on the place of women in society at the time through their feminist texts (1980s) where the second wave of feminism looks beyond the right to vote due to complications arising on managing the domestic sphere and the workplace but also allow women to take control of their bodies and sexuality through for example the oral contraceptive. A contemporary feminist concern would also hold female sexuality as a prominent aspect of feminism to challenge contemporary perspectives on the place of women by revealing the suffering and oppression of female bodies and sexuality that society inflicted. Both writers, take on an academic feminist perspective by using literature from various angles to comment …show more content…
The clothing metaphor is filled with gustatory imagery symbolising control through stripping her with ease like ‘stripping leaves off an artichoke’ and resembling the pornographic image of Rops sexualising the image of women. In addition she is always forced to wear a collar of rubies with the simile ‘red ribbon like the memory of a wound’ likening her to the image of a dog reducing women to domesticated beings and hence being deprived of their identity whilst being infantilised. In addition, the transitory nature of male desire is shown through in The Snow Child where the daughter is subjected to necrophilia by the Count as he ‘thrust his virile member into the dead girl.’ The article ‘the’ reduces the young girl to every woman in society therefore symbolising that vulnerable women have an inevitable fate which would lead to death as demonstrated by the ‘dead girl’ through patriarchy. It is too simplistic to ignore the nature of the text as it is a fairy-tale which is to educate young girls on how to conduct themselves hence this is quite discerning in the sense that these fairy-tales embody frightening truths of the oppressive forces of patriarchal society. The Sadeian Woman by Carter states that ‘this is why they were invented in the first place’ suggesting that fairy tales were ‘invented’ to placate women to ensure they do not question their place in society thus linking to religious institutions such as Gilead in Handmaid’s Tale and the fairy tale form of The Bloody chamber. This

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