Scarica essay on female role models e più Guide, Progetti e Ricerche in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! 1) Write an essay on the female role models you have recently studied in your English class. What have you learnt from them? Throughout the history of our society women have always been portrayed as inferior to men. This characteristic defined the moral outlook of women and built standards which defined the role they had to take on. They were expected to stay home and fulfil domestic duties, to be the “nousewife” and the caretaker for the family at the expense of their passions, interests and individual intellectual freedom, struggling to find their place in a predominantly male-oriented world. However, in the Victorian Age and then in the Modern one, the way women perceived themselves started changing: they demanded gender equality, they wanted to be treated as independent human beings, who looked for self-realization and who had the same rights as men, such as the one to vote or to have access to education. In this long and exhausting battle, fought mostly by well-educated women of the upper classes, literature played an essential role. lt has been like a revolutionary weapon, which found expression in the characters of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Judith Shakespeare, Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Eyre. Tess embodies the power of suffering and survival, she has the energy to endure and go on living despite all the obstacles that she undergoes, and always preserving her innocence and purity. She is a victim of the society she lives in, but she accepts her destiny and decides to take action, without losing her affection and trust. Judith is a passionate and talented woman, with an incredible thirst for knowledge, who suffers the figure of her brother. He can, unlike her, educate himself, study and cultivate his abilities in writing, but this doesn't stop her from fighting for her dreams. Her quick fancy, self-confidence, strength and courage bring her to leave home at only seventeen years old (refusing to marry the promised husband chosen by her father) to pursue her desire to become who she wants and be the one to write her own story. Dorothy, instead, is financially and physically independent and has the fortune to have an intimate relationship with her brother, who indeed takes inspiration from what she writes in her diary to compose his poems. However, since she is a woman, she will never be as famous and remembered as him. She is humble, caring about life and very sensitive, and her curiosity brings her to show an interest in poor people. But, most importantly, she has the power to look inside her heart, listen to her feelings and not let society dictate how she has to behave. Moreover her relationships with Wordsworth and Coleridge, based on equal rights, contribute to raise men's awareness regarding the gender equality issue, by setting two examples of what reciprocal respect between man and woman should be. Last but not least: Jane, a woman considered unconventional for her remarkable straightforwardness and sense of individuality, in contrast with the hypocrisy of her time, and who is the perfect reflection of her creatress, Charlotte Bronté. Jane is very passionate, rebellious, strong, emotional and always speaks out her mind, things that reveal her strong sense of justice, which brings her to always keep true to herself. This intense and autonomous lady aims at her own self-fulfillment and -reliance, a fact that leads her to find
