Animal Farm Is a World of Man

Abstract

In the beginning of the 20th century, feminist literary theory was concerned mainly with the social and political role of women, as well as women’s role in literature. In the second half of the century, it is tried to study women’s social positions and their rights compared to the male counterpart. One of the most explored themes since then was gender and patriarchy. The aim of this paper is to show how women were depicted in literature after half a century of the struggle of the first wave feminist towards equality and stress the importance of theorizing the concept of patriarchy, as a first step to understanding women’s subjugation. This unfolds through a re-visitation of George Orwell’s fiction novels. Orwell is better known by his political writing. Although

he has never used the word “Feminism”, in any of his fictional works, two decades after his death, the radical feminist, Daphne Patai accused him that he is anti-feminist, fundamentally because of his deprecatory stands towards women through his female characters. The selected texts reinforce patriarchal ideology, through the way Orwell portrayed his male and female characters. A feminist analytical approach will be adopted in the realization of this research, in order to analyse the novel in depth, with a focus on Orwell’s portrayal of female characters. Observing and commenting how he debases, mistreats and degrades them. Further, it sheds the light on how he portrays his male characters by analysing female and male protagonists. The significant of the study is to show the social and political context of the time regarding the role and the identity of women in the British society in the 20th century, and how women were treated under patriarch society and still until our days. Moreover, it sheds light on how patriarchy the concept of women oppression helped in the development of feminist theories.

Keywords: Patriarchy, oppression, female, feminism, male.

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