MARY JOY MANZANILLA

VERGEL MANGANTE
ALESSIA MERZ MERCADO

CULTURAL CRITICISM

Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist is a collection of articles written by the writer, academic, and
social critic. The New York Times best book, published in 2014 by Harper Perennial, examines
society, culture, and politics via a variety of issues ranging from pop culture to literary debate to
political legislation to personal recollections. Gay addresses current sexism and racism in ways
that highlight the humanity of marginalized people and how oppressive institutions deny their
humanity. She illustrates that the systems trickle down even into seemingly frivolous aspects of
modern life. By the end of the book, it becomes clear that Gay’s advocacy for “bad feminism”
and her critique of society, culture, and politics is an embrace of the fullness and complexity of
human existence and expression.

There are five sections to the book. Gay delivers four articles in Part 1, "Me," that
introduce readers to her identities and interests. The pieces anchor the rest of the book in Gay's
unique viewpoint on entertainment, culture, and politics. In part 2, "Gender and Sexuality,"
comprises the majority of the book. Essays 5–15 focus on how gender oppression affects media
representation and women's real-life experiences, whereas Essays 16–22 broaden the discourse
on patriarchy to demonstrate its impact on men, which has a negative impact on all those who do
not conform to the rigid norms and gendered behavioral guidelines that patriarchy imposes. Gay
focuses on racial oppression and how it manifests itself in media and entertainment in Part 3,
"Race and Entertainment," stressing film work and the traps that filmmakers fall into as a result
of Hollywood's need for restricted and often clichéd portrayals of Black experience. Part 4,
"Politics, Gender, and Race," turns from pop culture and creative labor to current events that
support Gay's ideas regarding artistic representations of society and culture. The section explains
why it is vital to explore apparently trivial subjects. In Part 5, "Back to Me," Gay discusses
mainstream feminism and declares her support for "bad feminism”.
MARY JOY MANZANILLA BSED ENGLISH 3B

LITERARY CRITICISM DECONSTRUCTIONIS CRITICISM

THE NEWLY BORN WOMAN

Hélène Cixous states in her 1975 essay "The Newly Born Woman" that mind has always operated through
antagonism, specifically opposing couples, or the couple. Each side of the opposition corresponds to a
man or female and is placed in a hierarchical order. The masculine trait usually triumphs in the system she
presents. Thus, maleness is defined as active, whereas femaleness is portrayed as passive. Cixous goes on
to say that because of this hierarchy, which places men as superior to women, a space for women has been
obliterated. Cixous investigates the role of women in philosophical paradigms and discovers that women
are marginalized. She does not exist and cannot exist; nonetheless, there must be some remnant of her.
After that, Cixous claims that "philosophy is built on the assumption of woman's abasement" (350).
According to her interpretation, knowledge is built on the absence and exclusion of the feminine. After
building the groundwork that reveals the difficulty with the existing system, Cixous imagines a new
framework of knowledge that may be built without the intimate relationship between logocentrism and
phallocentrism. "All of history, all of the stories would be available to recount differently; the future
would be unfathomable," according to the new framework (Cixous 350). She goes on to say that we are
not yet functioning under this new framework and that one cannot speak about 'woman' or'man' without
entering an intellectual theater in which the profusion of representations...constantly changes everyone's
Imagination and invalidates any conception in advance. In other words, the option of rewriting history to
incorporate the feminine exists, but it is not yet attainable since we have yet to eliminate the plethora of
representations that now prohibit conception. We would inhabit our physical bodies differently and see
the world differently if we discarded these. After explaining the current predicament, Cixous proceeds to
consider one possible exception: bisexuality. She is interested with "the location inside oneself of the
existence of both sexes...[and] the amplification of the consequences of desire's inscription on every part
of the body and the other body" (Cixous 352). Cixous believes that the simultaneous existence of one's
own body and another body within one form will not be repressed, but rather glorified. Cixous then
expresses the notion that "now writing is a woman's domain." ...she confesses there is another" and
reveals that writing is the point of access for bisexuality for her (and some others) (352). For all, while
writing, the author pretends to be someone else, leaving the author's own self partly empty. This portrayal
and acknowledgment of both self and other is central to Cixous' concept of bisexuality. One may reassess
difference by being oneself and offering permission to otherselves. Cixous says that by reevaluating
difference, the feminine (and masculine) will emerge. Cixous' concept of rewriting all myths and histories
with a new language of distinctions reminds me of Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. In this work, Rhys
retells Charlotte Bront's Jane Eyre from Bertha's point of view. Bertha is Mr. Rochester's wife, who is
imprisoned up in his attic in England in Jane Eyre. In her reimagining, Rhys writes from Bertha's
childhood perspective in her original Caribbean household. Rhys is able to transform this historical
character from the madwoman in the attic to a whole female by reconstructing her. Although I haven't
read Jane Eyre, I believe Bertha is neither a sympathetic nor a main character. She is the veiled feminine.
Rhy's work reconfigures Bertha's situation, making her sympathetic and alive in the narrative. While the
novel's mere existence invokes Cixous' concept of rewriting history, the novel's specifics also employ
Cisoux ideas of bisexuality. Tia, Bertha's childhood buddy, tosses a rock in her face in one early
occurrence. Bertha recounts that when Tia hurled the rock, "we gazed at each other, blood on my face,
tears on hers." It was as though I saw myself. "As though via a looking glass" (Rhys 27). Bertha
recognises the existence of another in herself in this line; she sees her face in Tia's and Tia's face in her
own.
MARY JOY MANZANILLA BSED ENGLISH 3B
LITERARY CRITICISM CLASSICAL AND MEDIEVAL CRITICISM

THE WINTER’S TALE

The premise and fundamental conflict of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale are dri
ven by the topic of jealousy. The first three acts of the play depict the early phases of Leontes', K
ing of Sicily, jealousy and its fatal consequences. Leontes' sudden and baseless worry that his pre
gnant wife, Queen Hermione, is having an affair with his boyhood friend, Polixenes, King of Bo
hemia, eats away at him like a sickness in the play. This fictitious adultery between Hermione an
d Polixenes is the result of the queen's tenacity and ability to persuade her husband's friend to sta
y in Sicilia for a bit longer. Because the Queen is pregnant at the time, Leontes thinks the infant i
s not his and orders its death after birth.Leontes views his wife's connection with a friend as an af
fair, launching the play's vicious, jealous struggle. Jealousy strikes Leontes with a force that is im
possible to grasp. Leontes may feel ignored or sexually dissatisfied with his wife in the later stag
es of pregnancy, according to a contemporary psychotherapist. Conversely, he may think that his
people and queen only admire him because he is the King of Sicilia, and that Polixenes, another
king, threatens his connection with Hermione and his followers (Grimes).
Leontes' passionate jealousy is sometimes likened to Othello, another renowned Shakespe
arean drama. Both men in these plays wrongfully suspect their spouses of adultery, and their viol
ent reactions ruin their marriages while upsetting the political equilibrium. Derek Cohen says in
his diary, "by accusing their spouses of sexual infidelity, Othello and Leontes provide themselves
with a sorely needed purpose for expressing in words what they both love and fear- the idea of th
eir women making love to other men" (Cohen). Desdemona's connection with Othello's friend Ca
ssio is the source of Othello's jealousy in Othello.
Both main characters are afraid that their spouses have committed the ultimate betrayal a
nd that the outcome would portray them as unsuitable to rule their people if even their wives do n
ot honour their vows. Othello and Leontes' jealousy is what propels both plays and causes them t
o suffer.Although both plays portray the consequences of each main character's unreasonable env
y, the distinctions between the two Shakespearean masterpieces are substantial.
 In terms of genre, Othello is classified as a tragedy because of its sad ending, but The Wi
nter's Tale is characterized as a tragicomedy since it ends in a more harmonious manner than the
former. Iago, the play's protagonist, fuels Othello's jealousy. This character is vital to Othello's fa
te. Iago, who has jealous impulses for Othello, deceives and psychologically interferes with his c
onfidence in Desdemona.Unlike Othello, Leontes is convinced of his wife's supposed infidelity e
ntirely on his own; there is no Iago figure whispering in his ear and prodding him on. Leontes, if
anything, owns Iago! Most crucially, unlike Othello's, Leontes' mistreatment of his family is not
permanent. After sixteen years of repentance and sorrow, Leontes is reunited with his queen and
longlost daughter, lending The Winter's Tale a redemptive element, whereas Othello is just tragic
.

Both The Winter's Tale and Othello demonstrate the devastation envious thoughts and de
eds can cause in relationships. They serve as cautionary stories, urging the commencement of co
nversation among dynamics, whether romantic, platonic, or family. Desdemona's life would be s
pared, Hermione's reputation would be uncontested, and Leontes and Othello's anguish may have
been prevented if they had initiated dialogues with their spouses. "O!" wrote William Shakespear
e.Beware,mylord, of envy; it is the greeneyed monster that mocks the flesh it feeds on" (Shakesp
eare).