How do the writers present sexuality and gender in Tales Of Ovid?

G rarity uper roles realise been continu every(a)y redefined throughout literary hi twaddle. The exploitation of knowledgeableity and sex activity is presented in bottomland The Scenes At The Museum, A tramcar Named Desire and Tales Of Ovid as driven by context and in ill-tempered patriarchal society.From Hughes classical show of a hu humankind passion in extremis1, so strong that it combusts, levitates, or mutates into an experience of the super lifelike2 to aerial tramways succes de scandale3, dealing with sex to an extent, and in a manner non until now encountered on the stage and wherefore Museums sterile and comical fool of sex, the mut superpower of sexual practice and gender has transcended generations but has been subject to contrasting literary perspectives. The degree of suaveness of gender can be clearly seen to mirror the context of societal and historical change inwardly which the three whole persists were created.In the introduction of Ovid, Hughes d escribes the significance of the tales being written at the minute of the birth of Christ within the Roman Empire. The Grecian/ Roman pantheon had go in on mens heads4 and Hughes makes a clear drive to equate Adonis with Jesus Christ, describing him as the miraculous baby5 and paragon6. For all its Augustean stability, Rome was at sea in hysteria and despair, caught in a tension amongst the sufferings of the gladiatorial arena and a probing for ghostlike transcendence.This era of volatility is deviseed in the marked liquid of sexuality in Hughes Ovidian world, where men and women becomes birds and trees. As such(prenominal), personal identity itself is problematic gender can no longer be exclusively prescriptive. According to social lion Curran, Ovid accreditd the fluidity, the breaking polish up of boundaries, due to the uncontrollable variety of temper and the unru ripss of human passion. 7 Hughes unsettlingly explores this in the story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditu s, where the carnal nymph Salmacis shames the timid boy Hermaphroditus.You can read alsoSimilarities and Conflicts in a Streetcar Named DesireAs he continues to struggle, she prays that we neer, never/ shall be separated, you and me8. Her plea is hubristically answered and, with a smile, the gods look on as the 2 bodies/ melted into a single body/ seamless as the water. 9 The conjunction of the two sexes seems unsuitable as observed in the dr takeing of what a modern consultation would recognise as a hermaphrodite. Hughes selection of this myth, with the same destructive conclusion as Ovids original, conveys the commingling of the two sexes as allow foring in the debilitation of the male qualities, rather than their strengthening, thus presenting effeminacy pejoratively.The dissolution of gender boundaries is reiterated by Hughes in his story of Tiresias. Tiresias passage through femininity, having lived and recognize in a womans bodyand also in the body of a man10 leaves him with the crotchety experiences of two sexes. His knowledge about feminine pleasure, that women do, as Jupiter contends end up with nine-tenths of the pleasure, angers Jupiter and his revelation proves damaging as she blinds him. It fill ups solitary(prenominal) one man, at once a woman, to destroy the reassuring view that placed wives beyond the enamour of pleasure.Social upheaval was also explicit at the beginning of the twentieth speed of light. Two World warfares had, temporarily, shifted the gender power balance with women filling sluggish male roles only for these to be reassumed in the 50s. William Streetcar is an sharp d largetion of the continual metamorphosis gender roles were encountering in the struggle for supremacy, both at home and nationally between the Old South and the pertly America. In Streetcar, Blanche, as a manifestation of the antebellum, is taken away, leaving Stanley retentivity his new son.The new decedent acts as a symbol of the end of the d ecaying Du Bois line and a sort of victory for the new Kowalski family. As the Cambridge ally To Tennessee Williams states Theatregoers did non easily shake off lingering apprehensions that were born of the 1930s depression and nurtured by the 1945 unleashing of nuclear weapons in this climate, the loose structure and team spirit am outstandinguities of Streetcar struck a chord of truth. 11 Furthermore, when Williams describes Stanley shouting Sttellah 12 in a heaven splitting voice, we see the further power of the Kowalskis, who have rocked the status quo to the same extent as Venus doomed love13 in Ovid, that means she has neglected even Olympus14. Ted Hughes exploration of gender fluidity is a more progressive one, in that a 21st century audience is much more subject to transgender and sexual deviance than Tennessee Williams contemporaries. Williams homosexuality was illegal for the greater part of his life, but he prime ways, open or oblique, of speaking of them in his ro leplays.There is, indeed, a real common sense in which Williams is a product of his work. When he began to write he was playing field Tom. The invention of Tennessee was not merely coterminous with the elaboration of theatrical fictions it was of a piece with it. In that sense it is not entirely fanciful to nominate that he was the product of the discourse of his plays. Indeed he created female bowdlerize egos, such as Blanche in Streetcar, before he began, as he did in later life, to dress up as a woman15. Where did his work end and his life begin?The man who consigns Blanche to insanity later found himself in a straitjacket. As critic Hana Sambrook more explicitly notes thither are those who believe that the tragic figure of Blanche Dubois is a transsexual presentation of the promiscuity of Williams himself16. Certainly, Blanches many intimacies with strangers17, her unfeminine necessitate licentiousness and travesty of hypocrisy aligns Williams with his protagonist. For a man for whom the concealment of his true sexual identity was for long a necessity, the fragmentation of the self into multiple roles offered a accomplishable refuge.Blanche enters the play an actress and Williams creates her nature as a series of roles, by apply structural techniques to focus the audience upon her even when off stage perceive bathing serenely as a bell18 whilst singing obliviously in contrapuntal19 contrast to the lurid revelations of her past being detailed by Stanley in the adjoining room. Blanches desire for disguise is a counterfeit pretension, using the smoke and mirrors of her alcoholicism and fine clothing, to concoct an elaborate alternative universe she can abscond to, enabling her to put on soft colour, the colours of butterfly wings, and glow20.This indirect, dramatic language and vivid imagery is exemplary of her escapism and her view of herself as delicate21 reinforces the image of Blanche as a fragile moth that pervades Williams stage direction s. Despite this, Williams does not wholly present Blanche as a faded Southern belle22 as some critics claim, but kinda sheds a favourable light on Blanches attempts to protect and economize the genteel values of the old Southern civilisation.Williams states that Blanche was the most rational of all the characters hed created, evident in her contradictory wilful ignorance of the causes of the loss of Belle Reve, yet her agreement that the root cause was her familys epic fornications. Williams also reveres Blanche as his strongest character in many ways23 and her unique internal integrity of neer inside, I didnt lie in my heart24 has seen her resist the savagery and savagery of a relentless modern society. Thus, even to the very end of the play, Blanche has never yielded to any coarse violent actions and rude behaviour, crying run offFire during Mitchs attempted rape and fighting Stanley to her physical snare with a broken bottle when eventually violated. When the big Matron t ries to subdue her physically on the floor, she never hold ons resisting until the Doctor gently offers her his arm like a real gentleman. Blanches self-respectful leaving further indicates her spiritual integrity, as critic Robert James Cardullo25 claims Blanches ascension from crucifix pinioning on the floor and her spirited driveing the way out of the hell of her infants home creates a moving tragic catharsis for the audienceBlanches defeat has considerable aesthetic dignity. Williams writings was strangely unmoved by the issue of gay rights and the issue of homosexuality that was so prominent in his private life, while clearly a drawstring in his work, was never a important theme and certainly never defended or promoted, neither publically nor politically. He seems to use Blanche as an manner of a conflict which clearly existed between his morality and sexuality, never to be resolved and never aired fully in his plays, despite its applicability in the plays political co ntext.By contrast, in Behind The Scenes many aspects of life seem constant and the stability of gender roles seems to reflect this. In Museum, the past permeates the present and the present is doomed to replicate the past. The patronage ghosts and objects such as the pink glass button that goes rolling d hold the years act as chronological touchstones and history repeats itself through the lives of consequent women. Sophia, Alice, Nell and Bunty all lead lives marred by misery, disappointment and domestic drudgery.none of these women marry for love and all encounter marital strife. Alice, an impoverished widowman marries Frederick in baffle to give up teaching, Nell marries Frank out of desperation, her two previous fiances having been killed in the war, and Bunty marries George when abandoned by her American fiance Bick. discomfited in potential, detain and unhappy, the women share a sense that they are vivacious the wrong life26.Parallels between past and present create a s ense of historical inevitability that is endorsed by a series of echoes between the lives of different women. Nell falls for Jack who has high, sharp cheekbones like razor gather shells27 and by the end of the novel, crimson has fallen for a strikingly exchangeable Italian with cheeks as sharp as knife blades28. Bunty looks like Nell and Ruby looks like Alice. The latter pair both believe in fortune29 and embrace it in the mistaken form of men.Alice, Bunty and Ruby have all had comely30. With typically perceptive narration for her tender age, Ruby accounts for this hereditarily as one of those curious genetic whispers across time dictates that in effects of focus we will all (Nell, Bunty, my sisters, me) brush our hands across our foreheads in incisively the same way that Alice has just done31. The reference to genes by Atkinson implies that behavioral patters are inherent and inescapable.Even Adrian, as the sole gay man in the novel, is presented in cliched terms as having an interest in hairdressing, his intimate conversation with a barman prompting a dramatically ironic exclamation of thats queer32 from the unwitting Uncle Clifford. Gender roles within all three texts are enforced through the sexual agency of men over their female companions. Critic C. W. E Bigsby noted that the calamity of Streetcarlay in the fact that this was the first American play in which sexuality was patently at the core of the lives of all its characters, a sexuality33.Williams presents sex as having the power to redeem or destroy, to enhance or negate the forces, which bore on those caught in a moment of great social change. The gaudy seed bearer34 Stanley is a lascivious representation of the new South and he uses his intense virility and sexual power to great effect. His sexual magnetism is exemplified by the symbolic package of meat thrown to a visibly delighted Stella in the initiative move scene. The connotations of his sexual proprietorship over Stella and he r sexual infatuation with him are not confounded on the watching Negro woman.In stark contrast, Bunty feigns deafness at the butchers innuendo laced conversations35, exposing him as a bluff parody of himself36. Her caustic description of him as a go throughsmooth shiny skin stretched tightly over his buttery soma37 is both comical and telling in her uptight rejection of his smutty behaviour. This gruesome tone continues into the awkwardly comical depictions of male sexual supremacy in Behind The Scenes fornications.Rubys conception by a typically tipsy George and equally typically stoic Bunty who is pretending to be sleepyheaded38, summarises well Atkinsons presentation of a tired female long-suffering to male virility in the repressed society of 40s England. Georges transfer is with his trouser round his ankles, a less than dignified epileptic penguin39, as the World Cup final carries on unheeding40 in another typically callous death of Behind The Scenes. This potency leads to a trapping sexual dependence of women upon men, symbolically reflected by Williams in the eponymous streetcar, bound for Desire, and then for the Cemeteries41.The streetcar stands for Blanches headlong blood into disaster at the hands of her lust. Like the streetcars destination, Desire, the stop called Elysian Fields is an obvious symbol an ironic fantasy however, as the Elysian Fields the abode of the blessed dead in Greek mythology turns out to be a rundown street in young Orleans. The very same symbol of the rattle trap streetcar42 is utilize by both sisters in scene 4, as a euphemism for sexual experience. They speak explicitly of the blunt desire43 that decides their choice. In answer to Stellas pursuanceion havent you ever ridden on that street-car? 44 Blanches shrilly riposte of it brought me here45 displays both self-knowledge and self- torment of her current destitution. Ominously the pragmatical Stella offers no words of self-criticism prior to the only fleeti ng moment that she confronts her wrong oh god, what have I done to my sister? 46. Moments later, in the middle of her luxuriant47 sobbing, she yields to Stanleys lovemaking, compounding her guilt. This dependence is echoed in Tiresias from Ted Hughes Ovid where women are said to take nine tenths of the pleasure48 during sex.Men are vital for women to experience any sexual satisfaction and female desire last renders them reliant and weakened. Their dependence is compounded by a financial reliance. Marxist feminist supposition argues an economic dependence on men deprives women of the right to dominate their own fate, reducing them to existence by male affiliation. On a teachers salarybarely sufficient for her living expenses49, Blanche had to come to in the altogether Orleans for the summer as she didnt save a penny move year50.In the viewing of her married mans suicide and the epic fornications51 of her grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers52, she is forced again to turn to men for financial support, depending, as is her mantra on the kindness of strangers53. Her attempted allurement of Stanley is based on the perception that maybe he is what we need to mix with our blood now that weve lost Belle Reve54. Her spiral of desperation turns to Mitch and finally the nebulous millionaire Shep Huntleigh who comes to stand as a symbol of material strength of dependence and guarantee for women, more scarcely for Blanche.Blanche recognises that Stella could be happier without her physically abusive husband, Stanley, yet her alternative of Shep still involves hump dependence on men. When Stella chooses to remain with Stanley, she chooses to rely on, love, and believe in a man instead of her sister. Williams does not necessarily criticise Stellahe makes it quite clear that Stanley represents a much more secure future than Blanche does. That Shep never materialises strongly suggests that if women place their hope and fortune on men, their oppressed and strung-out status can never be changed.Bunty, like Stella, who has to request that her husband better give her some money55, confirms her reliance on George in having no intention of operative after her marriage56. Buntys quest for stardom and self-discovery conflicts with a mode of motherhood that requires service, sacrifice, and selflessness. As she moves into adulthood during World War II, Bunty tries out a series of different quixotic identities in the look for for selfhood Deanna Durbin57, Scarlett OHara58 and Greer Garson59.However, as her family grows, her dreams diminish, and Bunty is forced to forgo a self she has not yet fully realised. The erosion of self is symbolised by the abbreviation of her hang for Bernice, to Bunty, which George truncates to Bunt60. Ironically, George marries Bunty only because he thinks she will be a big help in the shop61 and thus Bunty is comically presented as trapped in the role of the Martyred wife62 despite her belief that marriage to Geo rge would bare her from the graft that she imagines herself to be above.Rubys mock panorama of pity in her narrative gives an account of Buntys woes in a sardonic tone her tranquilisers are Buntys little helpers63 and Atkinsons scummy portrayal of Bunty as put out but ultimately judge of her role as a married woman contrasts with Williams poignant subdual of Blanche and Stella. cozy and financial dominance coalesces in another tool for the subjugation of women rape. Hughes presents his women in terms of capital value Philomena is a priceless gift, operational to cash in your whole kingdom for64.As a result of rape in Streetcar and Ovid, the victimised females are presented as devalued and diminished in worth in the views of patriarchal society. Myrrha, utterly gross out with her life65 is described as polluted66 and contaminated67 in the wake of her incestuous act, which removes her from life and death in some nerveless limbo68. Male exploitation of Blanches sexuality has le ft her with an equally low-down reputation.This notoriety makes Blanche an unattractive marriage prospect, but, because she is destitute, Blanche sees marriage as her only contingency for survival, trapping her in the cycle of submission to men. It is telling that Blanches rape is not condemned, and it can be argued that Williams portrays her violation as inevitable in patriarchal culture and also self-inflicted by her provocative behaviour, a disputable thought for a modern audience. In her ingratiation of Mitch, she uses all kinds of strategies to deceive him enough to make him-want69 and conceals her true age, because Men dont want anything they get too easy.But men lose interest quick when the girl is over-thirty70. This represents the internalisation of patriarchal society that her behaviour has precipitated. Her trunk, symbolic of her own displaced and materialistic identity, is full of the flashy pretension of fake finery that she perceives men to desire, and the Chinese lampshade softens the glare of the Mitchs gaze on her fading mantrap and adds to the magic Blanche desires the dressing up of ugly reality. However, both are ultimately violated with a strong sense of dramatic irony.When first Mitch and then Stanley tear off the paper lantern, she cries out as in pain. The opening of the trunk becomes a divesture of interiority Stanleys question what is them underneath? 71 becomes a central one as the trunk functions as a metonymy for some unchartered territory about to be fundamentally disrupted, but to no condemnation from the playwright. Similarly, even when the male hunter Actaeon is punished upon inadvertently offending the nakedly bathing goddess Diana with his sight, Hughes suggests that Actaeons crime was one of fortune Destiny, not guilt, was enough/For Actaeon.It is no crime/To lose your way in a tenebrous wood72. Hughes suggests here that Actaeons death is the necessary ordeal to lead him through hell to paradise. When sexual aggressi on or rape is exhibited by females however, the result and portrayal are markedly different. Salmacis and Blanche are remarkably identical in this respect. Salmacis is a naiad (a nymph who presided over springs and brooks) and as such is described in typically natural imagery as improve / as among damselflies73, gathering lilies for a garland74.This peaceful language of the natural world is tinged however with a more foreboding aggression in the viper75 like elegance of her sinewy otter76 like body, which portends her sexual experience in contrast to the innocent young boy Hermaphroditus, who blushes at the naming of love. Hughes places the focus on the feminine snares of the lascivious water nymph, who is aggressively sexual in a very Blanche like manner. She knows she had to have Hermaphroditus77 and proceeds to unashamedly flirt, checking her waistcloth her cleavage78.Her sensual language is heightened by its inference of a taboo love with the incestuous reference of what a l ucky sister As for the mother/ Who held you, and pushed her nipple between your lips/ I am already sepulchral with envy79, exemplifying her sexual command over the boy, who refuses her advances without really subtile what she wants. He desires only to bathe and his obliviousness to her advances are indicative of his younker and inexperience but also his male gender precluding him from the experience of passion, as echoed in the nine tenths of the pleasure80 that the female takes in Tiresias.Thus he becomes an easy prey and Like a snake81 she flings and locks her coils/ around him82, a tangle of constrictors, nippled with suckers83 the disturbing organic metaphors further exemplifying her atypical literary position as the female aggressor of rape. Throughout this scene however, Salmacis is never rendered as in sexual control Hermaphroditus will not drop out/ or yield the least kindness/ of the pleasure she longs for/ and rages for, and pleads for84. Hughes implication of their d emise as a result of their unnatural union is clear the only way in which a woman can rape a man is if he is not clearly male.To conclude, in the words of an unidentified critic gender roles figure so prominently in literature that they begin to take on a life of their own, whereas to become fluid in the mind of the writer and reader alike it is evident that when working with ambiguity, man and woman, whose boundaries are few and far between, become locked in a dimension of transmutation. These words said of Ovid, offer a succinct summary of the three works, applicable mainly to Hughes characters such as Salmacis and Tiresias, and Williams Blanche. last however, despite the differing time periods in which they were written the role of gender is an inextricable fibre in ancient, southern and modern literature. The three writers posit sexuality and gender contrastingly Williams uncompromising personally and socially powerful85 play, Hughes matter-of-fact narration and Atkinsons co mically cliched bildungsroman. A prominent law of similarity in the treatment of gender by all three authors is the ability of each to manipulate and intertwine not only their ideas of the gender line but also those of their contextual popular culture in order to effectively and complexly examine its role.