Gender roles in literature

That obsession with beauty is at the heart of the character of the wicked Queen in the Grimm Brothers' "Snow White." The Queen is a one-dimensional female stereotype, concerned with nothing but being the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. When the mirror tells her that not she but Snow White is the most beautiful, she launches the first of several assassination attempts on Snow White. The Queen, then, is portrayed as a woman incapable of growth or depth, incapable of anything but the egoistic pursuit of fame through beauty. She meets a hideous fate for her murderous pursuit of being the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, sentenced to dancing to her death in "red-hot iron shoes" (Grimm 46).

Snow White, the purported heroine of the story, shows no heroic qualities whatsoever. She is another stereotype--the beautiful, passive female with little or no intelligence, doomed because of her naivete and helplessness--were it not for the charming prince

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n, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. 389-511. Mole in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, Tom Sawyer in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Esperanza in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street all mature in some significant way. Mole matures from a naive, superficial, awe-struck denizen of the world of nature to a courageous and wise leader and hero in that world. Tom Sawyer matures from a self-centered rascal bent only on mischief to a much more responsible young man with emotional commitments to others. Esperanza matures from a passive girl confused by the world and her own feelings of loneliness and shame to a young lady determined to make her own way in the world as a woman with not only her own house but her own identity. Mole is at the beginning of the story "the only idle dog among all [the] busy citizens" of the animal world (Grahame 865). he has left his springcleaning half-finished and gone to the river where he is "bewitched, entranced, fascinated" by everything he sees (Grahame 866). The Toad "play[s] upon the inexperienced Mole as on a harp" (Grahame 875). Mole is a good animal, compassionate, curious, full of wonder, but he is not aware of the evil in the world or of the necessity of havi
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Approximate Word count = 2648
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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