Feminist Perspective of The Heptameron

This study will provide a character critique on the woman Oisille and the man Hircan from Marguerite de Navarre's The Heptameron, emphasizing the feminist perspective of the work. The supposed author Marguerite is seen through her characters as a Christian humanist, a woman with decidedly feminist leanings, but with that feminism thoroughly awash with much more humor than rhetoric. The tales presented are bawdy and full of acceptance of the human condition at its best and worst, but there is always the sense that the world of human beings is a part of the Christian reality. Marguerite was active throughout her life in efforts to reform and liberalize the church.

It would not be outrageous to see Oisille as something of a heroine and a personification of the author's ideal woman, as Chilton describes her in the Introduction: "It is Oisille who is the group's spiritual leader, and this within the setting of a monastery, that is, within an exclusively male community" (12). In other words, Oisille is seen as spiritually higher than a group of men who are supposed to be dedicated to spiritual achievement.

Hircan, on the other hand, is the personification of the male macho beast. The feminist slant of the writing is seen in the contrast between the spiritual Oisille and the gross Hircan, and on the second page of the Prologue, we are made aware that this is a book in which women are portrayed in a feminist light as beings capable of great achievement, equal or superior to men in

Related Essays

Willa Cather & the Feminist Perspective Written by a Woman .... Woolf was the first to examine from an avowedly female perspective the conventional .... and so Woolf wants to establish a tradition in which feminist writers take .... (9458 38 )

Analysis of Emily Dickinson's Poem #732 .... From the feminist perspective, the poem gives the reader sad insight into what is lost when a woman surrenders her own desires and dreams, her own self in fact .... (1316 5 )

Successful community organizing .... forces affecting each group. The feminist perspective is addressed in each of these three chapters. Wynetta Devore's essay on the .... (2254 9 )

My supervision philosophy .... and supervisees who feel circumscribed by the limitations and expectations of mainstream patriarchal society and practices, the feminist perspective can thus .... (1831 7 )

Women & Poverty in the US .... However, there are several perspectives about the fundamental causes of the existence of this social problem, including the feminist perspective and the .... (2643 11 )

to do everything he had to do in order to bed the woman he sought. He is asked what the man should have done when he was being resisted by an older woman as well as by the younger woman he sought to have sex with. To this the indignant Hircan responds: "He should have killed the old one, and when the young one realized there was no one to help her, he'd have been half-way there!" He is met with astonishment, but he adds that "If I'd gone that far [i.e. as far as the man in the story had gone to bed the young woman], I'd consider my honour ruined if I didn't go through with it!" (96-97). We see that Hircan's values are starkly contrasted with those of Oisille. Oisille claims to be a Christian and everything she says and does seems to be clear evidence of the truth of her claim. She is shown by Marguerite to be a thoroughly good woman, in mind, body and soul. On the other hand, Hircan claims in his way to be a Christian, but his every word and action after that claim prove the claim to be utterly false. He says he agrees with the Christian speech of Oisille (in the Prologue) and he speaks of "the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the great and wonderful things He has done for us" (67). However, when he speaks of his attitudes to

Category: Literature - F