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The Representation of Women in Literature Literature has been reflecting human life since it appeared. It was created to reflect the surrounding world, human dreams and strives. Literature always represented, and continues to do it, different walks of life, human relations, social roles that people play in life. It has also showed societal functions of women. Naturally, there exists certain gradation of characteristics attributed to the people described in literature.
Thus, women have been described in societal functions as having the characteristics (or archetypes) of a tiger, an angel, and a vase. First of all, lets study what these archetypes mean: Archetype tiger implies fierce, anger, cruelty, strength, valor, passion. Archetype vase means calmness, immanence, concentration on inner world, tenderness, harmony, fruitfulness, elevated feelings and thoughts. Archetype angel is a symbol of invisible protection; ethereality, tight connection with everything elevated, respect of good force, purity, virginity, strive to eternity, spiritual and moral values.
Although these archetypes have been in literature for a long time, it seems that they dont exist on their own, independent from each other and quite often neither of them suits to a certain female character. One can argue that it is very easy and always possible to differ, for example, characteristic of tiger from the characteristic of angel. I believe it is not quite true. Human character is very complicated and comprises different features. Everybody of us possesses something from a tiger and something from an angel. And in spite of all the types and stereotypes that literature has, it describes people from our real world, who preserve all the many-leveled complexity of human character.
As an example, lets take the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote about different common people with different fates, and whose female characters are very vivid and quite realistic. These women are not just imaginable characters, but they can be found in a real life. For instance, the heroine of a story Taibele and Her Demon. Taibele was a common woman, very typical I would say. Everything she wanted was a calm family life with a husband who would love her, with children whom she would care about. She was a hardworking, honest, very kind and sympathetic.
But her fate was rather sad. Her three children (a son and two daughters) died, her husband appeared to be too weak to recover from this event and finally left Taibele alone. And what about Taibele herself? This calm and kind woman appeared to be very strong. All that had happened didnt destroy her faith in life, she didnt become ruthless to others, didnt envy them. No.
She remained the same sympathetic woman and still smiled easily, the dimples playing on her cheeks, as it wasn't in her nature to rail at fate or cling to sorrow. She continued to keep her house clean; she continued to keep dry-goods store and meet with her friends. She understood that there was nothing to hope for in her life but kept living with kindness in her heart. When she met her devil, it was like a gift of fate. The situation here is very interesting. Despite her relationship with the devil, Taibele didnt become less good and kind (as it is expected to happen with such a woman) than she was, as it wasnt the lust but the love.
The devil (although we knew that it wasnt a devil but a teachers helper Alchonon) gave her a mysterious world, where Taibele didnt feel herself lonely. She knew that there was somebody who needed her. And this what almost every woman launches for. That is why she felt so empty when the devil left her, that is why she felt she had so many in common with the dead teachers helper who had nobody to grieve about him. A cry broke from Taibele. This Alchonon had lived a lonely life, just as she did.
Like her, he left no heir. So, what archetype is this? One can argue that Taibele is a vase (as she lived in harmony with herself, was calm and it can be said concentrated on her inner world), but she is not so tender as a vase, but possesses strength of a tiger. Taibele has something from an angel, a sympathy and kindness for example, but again there is no virginity in her.
It is difficult to say exactly what archetype this female character, also the tendency to a vase can be traced. Another female character Risha Ehrlich man from the story Blood can also be more or less referred to one archetype a tiger. The only thing this woman was striving for was her personal fulfillment. In her search for it she broke one moral and ethic rule after another and finally made a challenge to God himself, thus destroying herself, her personality (the fact that she became a beast, whom people were afraid and who hurt people). She was left alone in the end of her life without friends, without religion, even without a right to be buried like other people and with other people. Risha was a widow after having been married twice and everybody, including herself, understood that she was the reason of her husbands deaths.
Risha was passionate, strong and very cruel. The scenes of slaughter of animals are terrible and are hard to believe in. This character is the one that is dominated mostly by features inherent to one archetype. But in spite of possessing the features of a tiger Risha rouses the feeling of pity.
She is courageous, buy not valor, as she protects only her own interests. And in her unchanging strive for fulfillment an immanence of a vase can be seen. As it seen from all that was said above, it cant be said that a character belongs to one certain archetype, although the features inherent to a certain archetype dominate it. Still there is at least a tendency that can be traced. But there exist characters (and in our case female ones) that cant be referred to one certain archetype at all. As an example we can take two heroines from Isaac Bashevis Singers stories Yentl the Yeshiva Boy and Kunigunda (Yentl and Kunigunda respectively), and not a main female character from the story Gimpel the Fool Elka.
A town prostitute Elka from Gimpel the Fool married Gimpel being five months pregnant. When she gave birth to a child in a four months after their marriage she simply told Gimpel a baby is premature and gullible Gimpel believes her. Despite the fact that Gimpel is very kind and faithful to her, she betrayed him throughout her life (as a result she had ten children none of whom were Gimpel's. Before her death she told him the truth and asked for forgiveness.
What archetype is this one? There is no dominance of any. Elka didnt strive for any certain goal. She is not valor or especially cruel. Like a tiger is. At the same time she is not tender and doesnt possess elevated feelings or thoughts like a vase does.
And she is certainly not an angel, as she is not ethereal, pure or virginal. But at the same time she possesses some features of these archetypes. For example, she is strong like a tiger and fruitful like a vase. The same is with Kunigunda. She had a very sad destiny. She was badly treated when she was a child and constantly beat.
When she grew up people didnt understand her, they made fun of her. Kunigunda never got married, lived near the swamp. There was nobody to help Kunigunda and she was doomed to spend a live a lonely life. People believed that she was the reason of everything bad happened to them.
Ironically Kunigunda was afraid of people. This was the reason of her curses, her claiming of being she simply tried to protect herself from the cruel world. In the end of the story it even turned out that there were people whom she really helped. Yes, she was cruel and fierce like a tiger archetype, but at the same time she didnt possess passion of a tiger but was concentrated on her inner world, which is inherent to a vase. The things are even more complicated with another very interesting heroine Yentl from Yentl the Yeshiva Boy. The story on the whole touches the problem of the role that woman plays in society.
From her early childhood Yentl's father brought her up like a boy and this influenced her future life. Yentl didnt want to be simply wife, who only looked after her husband and children. She wanted to study Talmud, and only men were allowed to do it. That is why after her fathers death, Yentl dressed like a man and went to study with other men.
The situation, in which Yentl turned out to be, was very complicated. She felt in love with Avigdor, but couldnt be with him as in the long run, it appeared very difficult for her to refuse from life as a man. She said to Avigdor that she was " neither one [sex] nor the other" and that she had "the soul of a man in the body of a woman. " Yentl married another woman, thus breaking religious rules. She was mixed up with her life, with her wishes. Trying to find herself, trying to understand herself, Yentl destroyed other peoples life. She is cruel as a tiger, but this cruelty is unconscious.
She is concentrated on her inner world like a vase, but she lives in harmony neither with people surrounding her, nor with herself and doesnt possess the feature of fruitfulness. From an angel she possesses purity and virginity, but at what cost? I think Yentl is the best example to show that there is no pure archetype. This character is many-leveled and very complicated. The uncertainness of Yentl in who she is and what she really wants, wish to make people happy and at the same time unconscious cruelty towards them, which leads to destruction of their lives makes Yentl a very interesting character from the point of view of research. It possesses the features of different archetypes with no domination of any of them.
The characters of women taken from the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer and described in this work prove the thesis that there is no pure archetype. As there is no, for instance, simply bad and good character in the real life, there is no simply a tiger, a vase and an angel in the literature. If they had been existed it would have shown that the literature simplifies the real life, which it reflects. But this work proves the opposite. Literature tends to reflect the life as it is and people as they are. In our case women characters are not simplified.
They possess different features, that are used to be referred as bad and good (a simplification in some way too). They can love and hate, make up with their destiny and struggle for better life. They are not afraid to change their lives dramatically. All of them are looking for love and happiness. All of them want to be understood and to be accepted as they are.
And may be these are the features of the archetype of the woman (that comprises all the characteristic of a tiger, an angel and a vase), which hasnt been named yet.
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