How to Stay in the Lines: Weaponizing Fear and Shame as Means of Control Hannah Jamieson Project Mentor(s): Sarah Sillin, PhD For a long time, society has used emotions like fear and shame as weapons to ensure children don’t act out— especially in relation to gender. Through the lens of Eliza Leslie’s short stories “Lucy Nelson” and “Billy Bedlow”, this paper discusses the different ways children and young adults are made to stay in line: from the fear of rejection to the shame of being made to feel wrong. Boys experience constant pressure to perform and to be masculine at all times with any slip-ups being seen as immediately wrong and harmful. Girls experience things like The Tomboy Time Limit, telling them when it’s time to shape up and become ‘ladylike’. Leslie’s stories are lessons—warnings to those who stray—that represent the lengths people will go to in order to protect the gender binary and norms they deem right and correct. In Billy’s struggles to fit in among other children and Lucy’s embarrassment in the punishment she was made to take, we see the historic— and even contemporary —ideas of gender represented, as well as how misdemeanors should be dealt with. Eliza Leslie’s stories, her gospel on what makes good little boys and girls, grants us a better idea of weapons and tools still utilized in our own contemporary society due to harmful and perpetuated systemic rhetoric. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation (May 20, 9:30am–5:00pm) Keywords: Gender, Shame, Fear, Literature SOURCE Form ID: 21 The male gaze and objectification of women have been questioned in many literary works, and the novel Ulysses by James Joyce should be no different. James Joyce (1882–1941), who is known for his modernist works and experimental use of language, literary styles, and narrative techniques, is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Feminist critics remain divided on whether Joyce used his writing to challenge patriarchal ideology or reinforce it. Suzette Henke argues that Joyce’s portrayal of women evolves beyond the “virgin/whore dichotomy dominant in Western culture.” In contrast, Sandra Gilbert argues that Joyce “sentences” his women characters as a means to control them, and Heather Cook Callow takes a neutral stance, stating that Joyce critiques patriarchal structures, which does “make him a possible ally.” To stake my own claim, I conduct a feminist critical analysis of two episodes within Ulysses , “Nausicaa” and “Penelope,” in which female characters Gerty MacDowell and Molly Bloom narrate their own thoughts on female gender identity, while also drawing on other key moments in the novel that critique the ways the male gaze objectifies and portrays women as sexual objects, specifically through the eyes of Leopold Bloom. I argue that Joyce and Ulysses align with feminist critical theory by bringing to light and exposing the objectification of women, by deconstructing traditional gender identities, and by giving power and agency to his female characters and voices. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation (May 20, 9:30am–5:00pm) Keywords: Feminism, Objectification, Male Gaze, Gender Identity, Agency SOURCE Form ID: 18 Bloom’s Male Gaze and Objectification of Women in Ulysses Millie Land* Project Mentor(s): Christopher Schedler, PhD
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