英语比较文学Essay代写范例：Reinforcing Family Gender Roles and Challenging Gender Stereotypes

Children’s Literature W01 儿童文学essay代写范文

Reinforcing Family Gender Roles and Challenging Gender Stereotypes  in Charlotte’s Web and Bridge to Terabithia 

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本文通过强化家庭性别角色与挑战性别刻板印象 以《夏洛的网》和《通往特雷比西亚的桥》为例 如果有人读过《夏洛的网》（讲述蜘蛛夏洛和小猪威尔伯的友谊故事），或者看过电影《通往特雷比西亚的桥》（讲述杰西和莱斯利在奇幻世界中的冒险故事），他们很可能会对作品中与性别相关的描写印象深刻，例如《夏洛的网》中弗恩对威尔伯的悉心照料所展现的母性，以及《通往特雷比西亚的桥》中莱斯利的假小子性格。本文将聚焦于这些角色以及其他人物，例如父母形象，以继续探讨这一问题。本文认为，这两部作品都强化了家庭性别角色，并基于各自的历史背景挑战了一些性别刻板印象。然而，强化家庭性别角色和挑战性别刻板印象的程度却有所不同。

If someone has read about Charlotte’s Web, a story about friendship between the spider Charlotte and the pig Wilbur, or watched the movie Bridge to Terabithia about Jesse and Leslie’s adventures in their fantasy world, they will probably be impressed by the depictions related to gender, for instance Fern’s motherhood shown in her great care to Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web, and Leslie’s tomboy characteristics in Bridge to Terabithia. This essay will focus on them and other characters to continue exploring this issue, for example the parental figures. It is argued by this essay that both works reinforce the family gender roles and challenge some gender stereotypes based on their respective historical contexts. However, the degrees of how the family gender roles are reinforced and gender stereotypes are challenged are different. 

Reinforcement of Family Gender Roles 

Both Charlotte’s Web and Bridge to Terabithia present the traditional gender roles in family where mothers are the caregivers staying at home, and fathers are the breadwinners working outside. 

In the first chapter “Before Breakfast” of Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White suggests mother’s and father’s roles through the first sentence “‘Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ said Fern to his mother as they are setting the table for breakfast” (1). Here, Fern’s mother is fulfilling her role in the kitchen, while her father is carrying an axe going outside. Though his job is still unknown to readers, at least they know he is doing some jobs that require strength outdoors, irrelevant to the housework of cooking. Only through the first sentence, different gender roles in family are revealed. Apart from that, it indicates gender socialization which is the process by which people learn cultural rules, norms and expectations related to their genders (Vinney). People can learn it from different agents, like teachers, parents, and the media (Vinney). In Fern’s case, she learns how to be a girl and perhaps a future woman from her mother, starting from helping her mother set the table for breakfast. 

These traditional portrayals of family gender roles have its historical context. Charlotte’s Web was written in 1952, seven years after World War II. Although women gained lots of work opportunities and achieved a certain degree of economic independence during World War II, situation changed when the war ended, and male veterans came back (Holt 2). To protect interest of those veterans who needed jobs, women were instructed by government propaganda, magazines, and films to subordinate their interest to be “good women, mother, and wife” (Holt 2). As a result, the traditional roles of mothers and fathers during the 1950s represented by the parental figures in Charlotte’s Web are not unusual, which continues to influence people living during the 1970s when Katherine Peterson wrote the novel Bridge to Terabithia. 

At the beginning of the movie Bridge to Terabithia, the director shows a classic scene of the breakfast table when Jesse is coming home—children sit and eat food prepared by their mother who wears an apron and works busily in the kitchen (Terabithia 03:50-03:54). In this scene, Jesse’s mother shows her responsibility as a housewife taking care of the children. As for his father Mr. Aarons, the sound of his keys (of the garden, his car, and the store) implying his job as the breadwinner and gardener working outside home. However, unlike Charlotte’s Web, Bridge to Terabithia provides another type of parental figures and that shows more diversity. Leslie’s father and mother are writers who both earn money, and they share more equality. When Jesse helps Leslie’s family print their house, Leslie’s father and mother share the task and collaborate happily (Terabithia 49:26-50:12). Although Peterson shows more equal family gender roles in Leslie’s family, her mother still has less significance in this movie because her name is even unknown to the audience. 

Challenging gender stereotypes 

Challenge to gender stereotypes is another aspect shared in both Charlotte’s Web and Bridge to Terabithia, but it is more obvious in Bridge to Terabithia. 

Motherhood is traditionally considered as a women’s characteristic, and it has been glorified and praised by society when it comes to the mothers’ role. However, in Charlotte’s Web, motherhood is unexpectedly shown in the male pig Wilber, suggesting that males are as capable of mothering as females (Rollin 1). After Charlotte passes away and gives the egg sac to Wilbur, “all winter Wilbur watched over Charlotte's egg sac as though he were guarding his own children” (White 175). To take care of them, Wilbur will lay to warm them by his breath (White 176). During the nurturing process, Wilbur shows great patience and love as mothers who takes the responsibility of looking after their children. Challenge to the gender stereotypes is also revealed in the female character Charlotte who has both feminine and masculine traits (Rollin 8). As Wilbur comments when he meets her for the first time, she is “fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty” (White, 41). As being at the top of the hierarchy of the barnyard animals, she shows leadership. Those are masculine traits, but at the same time, how she takes care of Wilbur shows her feminine trait of “peaceful nurturance” (Rollin 49). 

In Bridge to Terabithia, gender stereotypes are questioned and challenged more directly and obviously. In the conversation about jobs between Jesse and Leslie, the ideal genders assigned to different jobs are questioned. When Jesse notices how well Leslie does the woodwork, Jesse feels surprised, saying, “It's just that you're a good builder... for a girl” (Terabithia, 37:00-37:03). Leslie answers when Jesse is drawing, “Yeah, well, you're pretty good at art... for a boy!” (Terabithia, 37:08-37:10). Both Leslie and Jesse break the gender stereotypes because they are doing works that they are not supposed to be good at according to the gender norms. Another figure that breaks the gender stereotype is their music teacher Miss Edmunds who doesn’t meet the local gender expectations because she was the only female teacher wearing pants at school, and Jesse is intrigued by her (Ryan and Hermann-Wilmarth 164). The more direct reference to gender issue compared with Charlottes Web in Bridge to Terabithia can be partially explained by its historical context of the 1970s. As O’Neil points out, gender role was changed and reevaluated during the 1970s (204). Some common terminologies like sexism, sex role, and gender began to be used in different areas (204). In conclusion, Bridge to Terabithia indicates people’s realization of gender stereotypes during that time. 

To summarize, both Charlotte’s Web and Bridge to Terabithia reinforce traditional family gender roles of parental figures, and challenge gender stereotypes. However, rooted in different social contexts, the degrees of the reinforcement and challenge are different. Some people may criticize these works from the perspective of gender, but they should not be blamed because they are just reflections of the historical trend, and today readers should have a critical eye on them.

Works Cited

Bridge to Terabithia. Directed by Gábor Csupó, Disney, 2007.

Holt, Jennifer. The Ideal Woman. 2011, www.csustan.edu/sites/default/files/honors/documents/journals/soundings/Holt.pdf.

O’NEIL, JAMES M. “Patterns of Gender Role Conflict and Strain: Sexism and Fear of Femininity in Men’s Lives.” The Personnel and Guidance Journal, vol. 60, no. 4, Dec. 1981, pp. 203–10, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2164-4918.1981.tb00282.x.

Rollin, Lucy. “The Reproduction of Mothering in Charlotte’s Web.” Children’s Literature, vol. 18, no. 1, 1990, pp. 42–52, https://doi.org/10.1353/chl.0.0201.

Ryan, Caitlin L., and Jill M. Hermann-Wilmarth. “Already on the Shelf.” Journal of Literacy Research, vol. 45, no. 2, Mar. 2013, pp. 142–72, https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296x13479778.

Vinney, Cynthia. “What Is Gender Socialization?” ThoughtCo, 2019, www.thoughtco.com/gender-socialization-definition-examples-4582435.

White, E. B. Charlotte’s Web. Harper, An Imprint Of Harpercollins Publishers, 1952.