Literatura Inglesa

Outline:
* Introduction
* Patriarchy and women oppression
* women`s struggle for freedom
* conclusion

Introduction
First of all it would be interesting to cite the work of Pyle; Mahon and O’connor about the situation in Ireland. “Yet Ireland has typically been seen by sociologist as an extremely patriarchal society. A situation maintained by the institutional church, thestate, the economic structure and the social and cultural construction of heterosexuality”,(Pyle,1990; Mahon, 1994; O’connor,1998).This statement roused my interest and became my motivation concerning the portrayal of women in the work of James Joyce, “Dubliners”, as it summarizes the cruel reality of the position of women at that period. Besides, it provides us with a general impression of what Dublinmight have been, focusing on the rather inharmonic relations between men and women.
This paper is organized into two main parts. The first part provides us with definitions of “patriarchy” cited by many different authors, taking into account the portrayal of women in the work of Joyce. This first part is going to put emphasis on examples about the situation of women presented in some of theshort stories.
After analyzing the portrayal of women in Dubliners, I will go on to the second part of this paper which will include a general view about women`s struggle to achieve their freedom. In this second part we will see that the portrayal of women as oppressed and subordinated persons is not so limited in the work of Joyce. In fact we are going to see that women are the key characters inmany of the short stories especially in the last one “The Dead”.

Patriarchy and Women oppression
Patriarchy literally means “rule of the father”. The term was originally used to describe social systems based on the authority of male heads of household. But then it acquired a more general usage, especially in some feminist theories, where it has come to mean male domination in general.Besides, defining patriarchy explains the reason for the treatment of women through the ages and what it means to their future and success in life. Patriarchy not only explains how our society functions but how it controls women. It refers especially to the domination of males in a social hierarchy.
Pollert (1996:653) have seen patriarchy as a useful shorthand descriptive tool to indicate maledominance. Connell argues that the majority of men benefit from the patriarchal dividend in terms of honor, prestige and the right to command, (995:215). According to Pyle, Mahon and O`connor Ireland did not appear to be a country for women because they did not have their own rights and as a result they suffered male dominance. As regards this dominance of men upon women we may find many examplesthrough out Dubliners especially in the short story “Eveline”. Eveline is the major character of the story, she is portrayed as a young girl, who is expected to take care of her home and father because she had to keep the promise she made to her mother on her deathbed. Taking care of her home is one example of Eveline's oppression and it seems that she is unhappy in her position as a housewife.
“Shehad hard work to keep the house together and to see that the two young children who had been left to her charge went to school regularly and got their meals regularly."
In this story we find a father who is a domineering and an unfair man, who has his daughter working outside and inside the house and then keeps her salary. Through the relationship between Eveline and her father we mayrealize the situation of oppressed woman in Ireland. Eveline is dominated by the patriarchal figure that treats her differently because she is female.
“ Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father`s violence… "When they were growing up he had never gone for her, like he used to go for Harry and Ernest, because she was a girl."
“Conell suggests that...