Araştırma Makalesi
BibTex RIS Kaynak Göster

Beauty: Liberation and/or Confinement in The Life and Loves of a She Devil by Fay Weldon

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 16 Sayı: 1, 247 - 273, 30.05.2024
https://doi.org/10.46655/federgi.1343110

Öz

This essay critically examines the transformation of the protagonist, Ruth Patchett, in Fay Weldon’s novel The Life and Loves of a She Devil (1983). The transformation that Ruth undergoes can be viewed in two ways: both in terms of her role in society and her physical appearance. Initially a submissive housewife, Ruth evolves into an independent businesswoman who undergoes extensive cosmetic procedures to conform to prevailing beauty standards. This article reveals, through an analysis of Ruth’s liberation from traditional domestic obligations and her response to societal constructs of beauty, the marginalization she experiences as a result of her deviation from societal norms. Ruth’s rebellion against the idealized attributes of a housewife reflects her pursuit of qualities associated with appealing femininity. Hence, this article highlights how Ruth transforms herself into a seductive object of the male gaze to remake herself into a powerful subject. Through this transformative journey, the article elucidates the interplay between societal ideals of beauty, female liberation, and implications on personal fulfilment. Although Ruth’s transformation into the ‘ideal’ woman endorses the patriarchal codes of ideal and standardised beauty, this essay argues that the same transformation reverses the process to reveal how female empowerment can be achieved through the manipulation of standards.

Kaynakça

  • Bordo, Susan. “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity,” Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and Body (Tenth Anniversary Edition) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 165-184.
  • Callaghan, Karen A. “Introduction,” Ideals of Feminine Beauty: Philosophical, Social, and Cultural Dimensions ed. Karen A. Callaghan (London: Greenwood, 1994), vii – xv.
  • Davis, Kathy. Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
  • Davis, Kathy (ed.). Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body (London: Sage, 1997).
  • Davis, Kathy. “‘My body is My Art’: Cosmetic Surgery as Feminist Utopia?,” Feminist Theory and Body: A Reader eds. Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick (New York: Routledge, 1999), 454-465.
  • Davis, Kathy. “Remaking the She-Devil: A Critical Outlook at Feminist Approaches to Beauty” Hypatia 6, no. 2 (1991): 21-43.
  • Faulks, Lana. Fay Weldon (New York: Twayne, 1998).
  • Gilman, Sander L. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery (Chichester: Princeton University Press, 1999).
  • Golban, Tatiana and Özge Karip. “Beauty as Fairy Tale in Fay Weldon’s Novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” Humanitas: International Journal of Social Science 5, no. 9 (2017): 219-230.
  • Grosz, Elizabeth. Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies (London: Routledge, 1995).
  • Heartney, Eleanor. “Foreword: Cutting Two Ways with Beauty,” Beauty Matters ed. Peg Zeglin Brand (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), xiii-xv.
  • Howson, Alexandra. “The Body in Consumer Culture,” The Body in Society: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), 93-119.
  • Kenyon, Olga. Women Novelists Today: A Survey of English Writing in the Seventies and Eighties (Brighton: Harvester, 1988).
  • Maine, Margo. Body Wars: Making Peace with Women’s Bodies, An Activist’s Guide (California: Gürze Books, 2000).
  • Martin, Sara. “The Power of Monstrous Women: Fay Weldon’s The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” (1983), Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus (1984) and Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry (1989)” Journal of Gender Studies 8, no. 2 (1999): 193–211.
  • McCormack, Catherine. Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking (Icon Books, 2021).
  • Olsen, Tillie. “Women Who Are Writers in Our Century: One out of Twelve” College English 34, no. 1 (1972): 6-17.
  • Orbach, Susie. “Forty years since Fat Is A Feminist Issue,” The Guardian, 24 June 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/24/forty-years-since-fat-is-a-feminist-issue (Access Date 6.12.2023)
  • Peach, Lucinda Joy. “Fashion, Beauty, and Women’s Health: Introduction,” Women in Culture: A Women’s Studies Anthology ed. Lucinda Joy Peach (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 171-222.
  • Pentney, Beth. “‘A comic turn, turned serious’: Humour, Body Modification, and the Natural in Fay Weldon’s The Life and Loves of a She Devil,” Gender and Laughter: Comic Affirmation and Subversion in Traditional and Modern Media eds. Gaby Pailer, Andreas Böhn, Stefan Horlacher, and Ulrich Scheck (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009), 81-91.
  • Valentine, Catherine G. “Female Bodily Perfection and the Divided Self,” Ideals of Feminine Beauty: Philosophical, Social, and Cultural Dimensions ed. Karen A. Callaghan (London: Greenwood, 1994), 113-123.
  • Waugh, Patricia. Feminine Fictions: Revisiting the Postmodern (London: Routledge, 1989).
  • Weldon, Fay. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (New York: Ballantine, 1983).
  • Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women (London: Doubleday, 1991).
  • Woolf, Virginia. “Professions for Women,” The Death and the Moth and Other Essays (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970).

Fay Weldon’ın Bir Dişi Şeytanın Hayatı ve Aşkları Romanında Özgürleştirici ve/ya Sınırlayıcı bir Kavram olarak Güzellik

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 16 Sayı: 1, 247 - 273, 30.05.2024
https://doi.org/10.46655/federgi.1343110

Öz

Bu makale, Fay Weldon’ın Bir Dişi Şeytanın Hayatı ve Aşkları (1983) isimli romanındaki Ruth Patchett karakterinin dönüşümünü eleştirel bir şekilde incelemektedir. Ruth’un dönüşümü hem toplumsal rolü hem fiziksel görünümü açısından çift katmanlı olarak incelenebilir. Başlangıçta itaatkâr bir ev kadınını temsil eden Ruth, yaygın olarak kabul görmüş güzellik standartlarına uyum sağlamak için estetik ameliyatlar yoluyla fiziksel bir değişim geçiren bağımsız bir iş kadınına dönüşür. Bu makale, Ruth’un geleneksel ev işleri sorumluluğundan kurtuluşu ve toplumsal güzellik kavramına verdiği tepkiyi inceleyerek toplumsal normların dışına çıkması sebebiyle ana karakterin dışlanma deneyimini ortaya koymaktadır. Ruth’un idealize edilen ev kadını özelliklerine karşı isyanı, aynı zamanda çekici ve büyüleyici bir kadınlık kavramıyla ilişkilendirilen nitelikler arayışında olduğunu da yansıtmaktadır. Bu doğrultuda bu makale, ana karakterin kendisini erkek gözünde çekici bir nesneye dönüştürmesini tekrar bir özne olmak için nasıl kullandığını vurgulamaktadır. Ruth’un dönüşüm yolculuğu aracılığıyla, çalışma, toplumsal güzellik idealleri, kadın özgürleşmesi ve kişisel tatmin arasındaki etkileşimi gösterir. Ruth, fiziksel acılar yaşasa da mutluluk arayışı ailevi, maddi, sosyal ve cinsel başarı vaat eden bir arayıştır. Ruth’un ideal kadına dönüşümü, ideal ve standart güzelliğin ataerkil kodlarına hizmet ediyor gibi görünse de, bu çalışma aynı dönüşümün, bu standartların tersine kullanılarak kadının güçlenmesini ortaya çıkardığını ileri sürmektedir.

Kaynakça

  • Bordo, Susan. “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity,” Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and Body (Tenth Anniversary Edition) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 165-184.
  • Callaghan, Karen A. “Introduction,” Ideals of Feminine Beauty: Philosophical, Social, and Cultural Dimensions ed. Karen A. Callaghan (London: Greenwood, 1994), vii – xv.
  • Davis, Kathy. Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
  • Davis, Kathy (ed.). Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body (London: Sage, 1997).
  • Davis, Kathy. “‘My body is My Art’: Cosmetic Surgery as Feminist Utopia?,” Feminist Theory and Body: A Reader eds. Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick (New York: Routledge, 1999), 454-465.
  • Davis, Kathy. “Remaking the She-Devil: A Critical Outlook at Feminist Approaches to Beauty” Hypatia 6, no. 2 (1991): 21-43.
  • Faulks, Lana. Fay Weldon (New York: Twayne, 1998).
  • Gilman, Sander L. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery (Chichester: Princeton University Press, 1999).
  • Golban, Tatiana and Özge Karip. “Beauty as Fairy Tale in Fay Weldon’s Novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” Humanitas: International Journal of Social Science 5, no. 9 (2017): 219-230.
  • Grosz, Elizabeth. Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies (London: Routledge, 1995).
  • Heartney, Eleanor. “Foreword: Cutting Two Ways with Beauty,” Beauty Matters ed. Peg Zeglin Brand (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), xiii-xv.
  • Howson, Alexandra. “The Body in Consumer Culture,” The Body in Society: An Introduction (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), 93-119.
  • Kenyon, Olga. Women Novelists Today: A Survey of English Writing in the Seventies and Eighties (Brighton: Harvester, 1988).
  • Maine, Margo. Body Wars: Making Peace with Women’s Bodies, An Activist’s Guide (California: Gürze Books, 2000).
  • Martin, Sara. “The Power of Monstrous Women: Fay Weldon’s The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” (1983), Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus (1984) and Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry (1989)” Journal of Gender Studies 8, no. 2 (1999): 193–211.
  • McCormack, Catherine. Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking (Icon Books, 2021).
  • Olsen, Tillie. “Women Who Are Writers in Our Century: One out of Twelve” College English 34, no. 1 (1972): 6-17.
  • Orbach, Susie. “Forty years since Fat Is A Feminist Issue,” The Guardian, 24 June 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/24/forty-years-since-fat-is-a-feminist-issue (Access Date 6.12.2023)
  • Peach, Lucinda Joy. “Fashion, Beauty, and Women’s Health: Introduction,” Women in Culture: A Women’s Studies Anthology ed. Lucinda Joy Peach (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 171-222.
  • Pentney, Beth. “‘A comic turn, turned serious’: Humour, Body Modification, and the Natural in Fay Weldon’s The Life and Loves of a She Devil,” Gender and Laughter: Comic Affirmation and Subversion in Traditional and Modern Media eds. Gaby Pailer, Andreas Böhn, Stefan Horlacher, and Ulrich Scheck (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009), 81-91.
  • Valentine, Catherine G. “Female Bodily Perfection and the Divided Self,” Ideals of Feminine Beauty: Philosophical, Social, and Cultural Dimensions ed. Karen A. Callaghan (London: Greenwood, 1994), 113-123.
  • Waugh, Patricia. Feminine Fictions: Revisiting the Postmodern (London: Routledge, 1989).
  • Weldon, Fay. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (New York: Ballantine, 1983).
  • Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women (London: Doubleday, 1991).
  • Woolf, Virginia. “Professions for Women,” The Death and the Moth and Other Essays (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970).
Toplam 25 adet kaynakça vardır.

Ayrıntılar

Birincil Dil İngilizce
Konular Kadın Araştırmaları
Bölüm Araştırma Makaleleri
Yazarlar

Emine Şentürk 0000-0002-7546-1587

Erken Görünüm Tarihi 23 Mayıs 2024
Yayımlanma Tarihi 30 Mayıs 2024
Yayımlandığı Sayı Yıl 2024 Cilt: 16 Sayı: 1

Kaynak Göster

Chicago Şentürk, Emine. “Beauty: Liberation and/Or Confinement in The Life and Loves of a She Devil by Fay Weldon”. Fe Dergi 16, sy. 1 (Mayıs 2024): 247-73. https://doi.org/10.46655/federgi.1343110.