Source Card #1
Shakespeare, William, and William
Shakespeare. Macbeth and Related Readings. Evanston, IL: McDougal
Littell, 1997. Print.
Content Card
Topic: Characters and gender roles
Subtopic: Power and leadership
"Come, you spirits that tend on
mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me, from the crown to the
toe, top-full of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood; stop up the
access and the passage of remorse that no compunctious visiting of
nature shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between the effect and it!
Come to my women�s breast and take my milk for gall, you murd�ring
ministers" (Act 1 scene)
Note: Important because lady Macbeth is asking for the spirits to
"unsex" her. She no longer wants to be a women, she wants to
be as powerful as a man.
Content Card
Topic: Characters and gender roles
Subtopic: Power and control
"Glamis thou art, and shalt be
what thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full o�
the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way" (Act 1)
Notes: Important because Lady Macbeth knows that murder has to be
committed in order to get the power her and Macbeth are looking for.
Lady Macbeth has to manipulate her husband is order to commit the murder
Content Card
Topic: Characters and gender roles
Subtopic: Power and control
"The Prince of Cumberland! That
is a step on which I must fall down, or else o�erleap, for in my way
it lies. Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep
desires. The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, which the eye
fears, when it is done to see." (Act 1)
Note: Important because it signals to the reader early in the play
that he has �black and deep desires.� This foreshadows all of the
violence he acts upon to acquire power.
Content Card
Topic: Characters and gender
Subtopic: Power and control
"My thought, whose murder yet
is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man that function is
smother'd in surmise, and nothing is but what is not." (Act 1)
Note: This is important because Macbeth's first thought was
killing the king to get his power.
Content Card
Topic: Characters and gender
Subtopic: Power and control
"Besides, this Duncan hath borne
his faculties so meek, hath been so clear in his great office, that
his virtues will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against the deep
damnation of his taking-off;" (Act 1)
Note: this is important because even Macbeth admits that Duncan was
a good king. He sort of contradicts himself with "meek" but
he still admires King Duncan for his great rein.
Content Card
Topic: Characters and gender
Subtopic: Power and control
"Was the hope drunk wherein
you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look
so green and pale at what it did so freely? From this time such I
account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own
act and valor as thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that which
thou esteem's the ornament of life, and live a coward in thine own
esteem, letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"
Like the poor cat i' th' adage? I dare do all that may become a
man;" (Act 1)
Note: This is important because Lady Macbeth is comparing
Macbeth to a women. She is demising him with his weakness and telling
him he is being a girl.
Content Card
Topic: Characters and gender
Subtopic: Power and control
"Bring forth men-children only,
for thy undaunted mettle should compose nothing but males." (Act 1)
Note: Important because Macbeth is telling his wife that he only
wants boys is they ever have children. Also shows how people cared
more to have boys than girls is there time period.
Content Card
Topic: Characters and gender
Subtopic: Power and control
"O gentle lady, 'Tis not for
you to hear what I can speak. The repetition in a woman's ear Would
murder as it fell." (Act 2)
Important because Macduff is explaining how it is rare for a
women to hear about a murder plot but having one involved makes it were.
Content Card
Topic: Superstition
Subtopic: The witches
"I'll drain him dry as hay.
Sleep shall neither night nor day hang upon his penthouse lid.He
shall live a man forbid. Weary sev'nnights, nine times nine, shall he
dwindle, peak, and pine. Though his bark cannot be lost, yet it shall
be tempest-tossed. Look what I have." (Act1)
Note: The sailer's wife did not want to share with the sisters and
now they are going to take revenge by making the sailer is impotent
and infertile.
Content Card
Topic: Superstition
Subtopic: The witches
"There's comfort yet; they
are assailable. Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown his
cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons the shard-borne
beetle with his drowsy hums hate rung night's yawning peal, there
shall be done a deed of dreadful note." (Act 3)
Note: Macbeth begins to think of the murder of Banquo and
Fleance he begins to think of the witch sisters.
Content Card
Topic: Ambition
Subtopic: Power Hungry
"I have no spur to prick the sides
of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which overlaps itself And
falls on the other� (Act 1)
Note: Important because Macbeth is discussing with himself how he
realizes that he does not have a valid reason to kill Duncan. He's so
ambitious for power that he is willing to murder for it.
Content Card
Topic: Ambition
Subtopic: Power Hungry
"For mine own good all causes
shall give way. I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no
more, returning were as tedious as go o'er." (Act 3)
Note: Important because Macbeth is doing all these horrible
crimes for his own good and not for anybody else.
Content Card
Topic: Ambition
Subtopic: revenge
"Either thou, Macbeth, or else my
sword, with an unbuttered edge, I sheathe again unseeded. There thou
shouldest be; by this great clatter, one of greatest note seems
bruited. Let me find him, Fortune, and more I beg not." (Act 5)
Note: Important because Macduff has ambition to avenge his family
and his king but he does not have the motive to do it to gain power.
He juxtapositions Macbeth because Macbeth is murdering just to gain
power, while Macduff is avenging what Macbeth has caused and does not
to gain power. He is fine with what power he has.
Content Card
Topic: Fate
Subtopic: free will
"If chance will have me king,
why, chance may crown me, without my stir." (Act 1)
Note: Important because Macbeth is decides to let things fall
in their place instead of him forcing things and taking an extreme on
the situation.
Content Card
Topic: Fate
Subtopic: free will
"Prithee, peace: I dare do all
that may become a man; Who dares do more is none." (Act 1)
Note: Important because Macbeth had originally chosen not to murder
the king but Lady Macbeth convinced him that murdering Duncan was the
best decision in order to gain power. When he choses to murder him he
believes this is the ultimate action a real man can do.
Content Card
Topic: Fate
Subtopic: free will
"The Prince of Cumberland!
That is a step on which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, for in my
way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and
deep desires: The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,which the eye
fears, when it is done, to see." (Act 1)
Note: Important because Macbeth realizes that King Duncan is
the heir to the crown of Scotland, he is not pleased with that and
decides to take actions into his own hands, murdering him.
Content Card
Topic: Fate
Subtopic: free will
"I am settled and bend up
each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time
with fairest show.False face must hide what the false heart doth
know." (Act 1)
Note: Important because Macbeth has to fake many aspects of
what he has to do in his everyday life because of the crimes he has
committed. He is slowly getting the hang of faking that everything is okay.
Source Card #2
Fox, Levi. The Shakespeare
Handbook. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1987. Print.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Power
"It is ironic that Lady Macbeth
should echo her husband's apocalyptic child imagery, when she protects
her constancy through the perverted metaphor of the feeding baby
plucked from her breast and brained by its mother. The powerfully
mediated presence of youth and children underlines the extent to which
the future and natural order eluded the childless couple." (165)
Note:Important because this quotation is analyzing how Lady Macbeth
is her husbands echo, which is ironic because women in that time
period were in their husbands shadows not having much power or say in anything.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Power
"Not only is Macbeth equipped
with a unique and discriminating and vivid poetic imagination, but he
is a married man who dotes on his wife. Its is the androgyny of this
unholy couple which precipitates the murder of Duncan." (164)
Note: Important because this quotation is discussing how Macbeth
is talented in many aspects but he is a married man, to someone he
enjoys and relies on. This quote also states that this power couple
is the couple that killed King Duncan together.
Source Card #3
Alfar, Cristina Le�n. Fantasies of
Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean
Tragedy. Newark: U of Delaware, 2003. Print.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Power
"Thus questioning the concept
of evil as it is linked to a literary tradition vilifying strong
female characters (women who seek power and reject filial loyalty as
prior to self-loyalty and who pursue desire in all its
forms�romantic, adulterate, authoritarian, and even violent) is
essential to a feminist poststructuralist project.20 Thus far,
however, the question of General's, Regan's, and Lady Macbeth's
�evil� reifies ideological constructions of action as definitive of
masculinity, so that evil is ascribed to women who aspire to
self-determination and thereby disrupt their designated
sociopolitical function as obedient daughters and wives." (19)
Note: Important because gender roles begin to be questioned when
one is at loss of power or the gain of power. Lady Macbeth�s thirst
for power evolved into her gaining masculine characteristics.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Power
"My study assumes, however,
that Shakespeare's subjects of tragedy are also female. It also
assumes that Shakespeare's tragedies are important because of their
particular (rather than universal) perspectives on early modern
notions of gender and power. In this regard, I argue that the
difference between male and female subjects in his tragedies is not
necessarily a reflection of the playwright's lack of interest in
female experience or psychic development, but a reflection of our own
investments in male subjects, in male experience and psychic
development. Our own ideological biases and investments in binaries
of active/passive and good/evil, reiterated in that of male/female,
are projected onto his plays." (20)
Notes: Important because it is seeing how Shakespeare portrays
the female characters in his plays. Both Genders are displayed
different to the audience in his tragic plays.
Content Card
Topic: Gender rolesSubtopic: Power
"Thus I argue that the
complexities scholars have identified in Shakespeare's representation
of power obtain in his representation of women in his tragedies as
well, not just in terms of legitimate monarchy (though such concerns
are important to my study), but also in regard to women's acts of
power in systems of domination run by and for the benefit of a
masculinist moral order. I offer a reading of Shakespeare accounting
for the dynamics of gender and power staged in these tragedies that
does not shrink at the violence with which women take power." (21)
Notes: Important because this quotation talks about how
Shakespeare represents women in tragedies and they are given male
characteristics. The women are given violent roles and do gain powers
throughout his tragic plays.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Power
"Shakespeare's women unsettle the
vision of a feminized chaotic depravity because they are women in
positions of power traditionally reserved for and natural to
men." (21)
Note: Important because it discusses how women are traditionally
looked at as a women that cannot do much without their husband, but
shakespeare women that he includes in certain plays do not follow the
normal characteristics of a woman.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Power
"By tracing in Shakespeare's
plays a process by which women become evil, it becomes clear that
when women fail to perform their femininity through appropriate
behaviors such as submission and obedience, they are accused of
monstrosity and manliness, attributes that are posed as betrayals of
fathers, husbands, and lovers. These betrayals are also seen by male
characters as transgressions against a patrilineal moral order
invested in a passive and obedient female nature. Rather than
assuming that the plays' assumptions about female characters are
transmitted through the eyes of these men, I argue that the process
by which women become evil is exposed in Shakespeare's plays as a
construct, a strategy deployed both for the preservation of
masculinist power and as a way to mask the patrilineal structure's
own ruthlessness and violence."
Notes: Important because this quotation is describing that women
turn evil because of the masculine characters in these plays. The
masculine power overshadows them and too much overshadowing can drive
a woman crazy.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Power
"The brimming flesh of sin
belongs, of course, to both sexes; but its root and basic
representation is nothing other than feminine temptation.�35
Kristeva's critique points to the bodily excess, the ungraspable and
therefore fearsome materiality of the feminine. She also clarifies
what is bothersome about �evil� women in postmodern culture. General,
Regan, and Lady Macbeth, as women whose seemingly ruthless desire for
power coincides with a chaotic sexual and blood lust, represent for
contemporary critics, who accept male characters' views, all that is
abject." (25)
Notes: Important because she talks about how Lady Macbeth were
so power hungry that they were willing to do some things that are
considered extreme.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Power
"Thus, the evil of which these
women are accused is a fantasy, a moralized and naturalized fiction
intended to stabilize patrilineal forms of power through scapegoating
women. Because the plays are grounded in political and domestic
competitions for power, the actions of their female characters become
responses to specific marital and monarchical pressures rather than
evidence of their fundamental and innate evil." (26)
Notes: Important because this quotation argues that women is
shakespeare plays are scapegoated to being "evil" when they
are out of there character or place with power.
Source Card #4
Bamber, Linda. "Four Macbeth
and Coriolanus." Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender
and Genre in Shakespeare. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1982. N.
pag. Print.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: masculinity
"In Macbeth and Coriolanus,
the two most important representatives of the feminine are even more
committed than the heroes to a code of manliness that emphasizes
power, honor, war, and revenge. They both prefer a bloody ambitious
sort of honor over traditionally feminine values in general and
womanly love in particular� And in the violence of her ambition Lady
Macbeth renounces womanly love for the spirit of murder: � Come, you
spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here... Come to my
woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall� (I.v.40-41, 47-48) Both
women value the world of men above everything else; at various points
in these plays each urges the hero beyond the limits of decency in his
struggle for power in that world. Both Volumnia and Lady Macbeth are
the opposite of the Jungian feminine." (91)
Notes: Important because it is discussing Lady Macbeth's
ambition to gain any power she could. Also she is being considered to
have masculine characters due to the fact that she has a strong characteristic.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Masculinity
"Instead of connecting us to
natural fertility, family love, or a sense of the body, they represent
fanaticism according to the dogma of "man- honor-fight. " In
Shakespearean tragedy, as we have seen, the feminine is not
necessarily congruent with the Jungian feminine; the dialectic is not
necessarily between the world of men and the world of Woman. But in
tragedies like Hamlet, Othello, and Antony and Cleopatra the feminine
is always other to the male Self, if not thematically then
circumstantially. Women characters in these plays have their own
purposes, whether or not these are notably or necessarily
"feminine" purposes." (91)
Notes: Important because Lady Macbeth is not like an average
women in other Shakespeare plays. Lady Macbeth has her own purpose in
the play, not compared to other plays where the women is dependent of
her husband.
Content Card
Topic: Gender roles
Subtopic: Masculinity
"In Macbeth and Coriolanus,
Lady Macbeth and Volumnia are the heroes' collaborators or stage
managers rather than independent centers of self-interest. There is
no dialectic between the masculine Self and the feminine other in
these plays because the primary representatives of the feminine are
not other to the hero. They are identified with the
masculine-historical project in general and the heroes' own careers
in particular. They do not present him with the challenge of the
other but merely repeat the demands these heroes make upon
themselves.� (92)
Notes: Important because it describes how Lady Macbeth was
Macbeth's assistant in this play. They are not characters who does
not only worry for herself. She worries for her husband and the power
he contains.
Source Cards #5
Shakespeare, William, and John
Crowther. No Fear Shakespeare: Hamlet. New York: SparkNotes,
2003. Print.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics
Subtopic: Hamlet
�How all occasions do inform
against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief
good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no
more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before
and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in
us unused. Now whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event -- A thought which, quartered,
hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward -- I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do', Sith I have cause, and
will, and strength, and means, To do't.� (Act 4)
Notes: Important because Hamlet is frustrated that he has not
been able to take revenge on behalf on his fathers murder, due ro the
fact that he keeps om holding himself back.
Content Card
Topic: CharacteristicsSubtopic: Hamlet
"How strange or odd some'er I
bear myself (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an
antic disposition on) (Act 1)
Notes: Important because when Hamlet was aware that his father
was murdered he began to think of vengeance. He warned his friends
that he will begin to act like a madman so they should not be concerned.
Content Card
Topic: CharacteristicsSubtopic: Claudius
"Oh, my offence is rank it
smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, A brother's
murder. Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will: My
stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; And, like a man to double
business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both
neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with
brother's blood, Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To
wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy But to confront the
visage of offence? (Act 3)
Notes: Important because Claudius does feel guilty for murdering
his own brother but he prefers to have his power instead of having
forgiveness from God or anybody.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics
Subtopic: Claudius
"And what's in prayer but
this two-fold force, To be forestalled ere we come to fall, Or
pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up; My fault is past. But, O,
what form of prayer Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Of those effects for which
I did the murder, My crown, mine own ambition and my queen. May one
be pardon'd and retain the offense? (Act 3)
Note: Important because Claudius is praying for forgiveness but
he does not know how because he finds it weird for asking forgiveness
for "murdering." He is is confused because it seems foul to
ask for forgiveness for such horrible sin.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics
Subtopic: Claudius
"Though yet of Hamlet our dear
brother's death the memory be green, and that it us befitted to bear
our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one
brow of woe, Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature That we
with wisest sorrow think on him Together with remembrance of
ourselves.(Act 1)
Note: Important because Claudius is remembering Older Hamlet's
death by saying that it was the most beneficial thing that could have
happened to the kingdom. He also states that the wisest thing for the
kingdom was to move on quickly from his death.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics
Subtopic: Gertrude
"�Did he receive you
well?" �Did you assay him?� �To any pastime?� (Act 3)
Notes: Important because this does display that Gertrude is a
caring mother and even though her son is not fond of her at the
moment she is looking out for his best interests.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics
Subtopic: Gertrude
"Ophelia, I do wish that your
good beauties be the happy cause of Hamlet�s wildness. So shall I
hope your virtues will bring him to his way again, to both your
honors.� (Act 3)
Notes: Important because Gertrude knows that Ophelia is the only
person that could bring some joy to Hamlet in the depressing
environment and she wants her to make sure he is in an okay state of mind.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"Marry, I�ll teach yourself a
baby that you have ta�en these tenders for true pay, which are not
sterling. Tender yourself more dearly, or-not to crack the wind of
poor phrase, running it thus- you�ll tender me fool.� (Act 1)
Notes: Important because Polonius, Ophelia�s father, is warning
her about how she should not be foolish and fall for Hamlet�s
�affectionate� actions. He calls her a baby for being manipulated to
believe these actions. He implies that she is not respecting herself
at all by believing him and that if people know that she is being
foolish, people will take him as a joke.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"Tis sweet and commendable in
your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father.
[�] but to persever In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious
stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief. It shows a will most incorrect to
heaven, A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, An understanding simple
and unschooled" (Act 1)
Notes: important because Hamlet's ways of grieving over his
fathers death is looked upon as unmanly. A man is not supposed to
show any types of weakness even over a death so tragic as that.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"That it should come to this:
But two months dead�nay, not so much, not two. So excellent a king,
that was, to this Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother That he
might not better the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly.
Heaven and Earth. Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him As if
increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on. And yet, within a
month." (Act 1)
Notes: Important because Hamlet is discussing how he is
disgusted by his mothers actions for her sexual appetite and ends
with all women because he believes that all women are the same and
will commit the same actions.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"I shall the effect of this
good lesson keep As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do
not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way
to heaven, Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the
primrose path of dalliance treads And rocks not his own rede. (Act 1)
Notes: Important because after Ophelia's brother had told her
about purity and that she should stay pure from Hamlet, she decides
to respond back with her telling her brother that purity for men is
just as important as it is for women.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"Why, what an ass am I! This
is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murdered, Prompted to
my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart
with word, And fall a-cursing, like a very drab, A stallion! (Act 2)
Notes: Important because Hamlet is beginning to see himself
weak due to the fact that he has not avenged him father's death yet.
He believes he is so weak he is as weak as a women and he is not
truly a man.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"If thou dost marry, I'll
give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as
pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery,
farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men
know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,
and quickly too. Farewell. (Act 3)
Notes: Important because Hamlet claims to Ophelia that wives
make their husbands turn into horrible house. He also says that
Ophelia has been messing around with other men when he tells her to
go to a nunnery.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"I have heard of your
paintings too, well enough. God has given you one face, and you make
yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp; and nickname
God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll
no more on 't. It hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more
marriages. Those that are married already, all but one, shall live.
The rest shall keep as they are. (Act 3)
Notes: Important because Hamlet is comparing a painting to a
painting and how they are easily deceived.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"Too much of water hast thou,
poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet It is our
trick; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will. When
these are gone, The woman will be out.�Adieu, my lord. I have a
speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly drowns it.
(Act 4)
Notes: Important because when Laertes finds out about Ophelia's
death he believes that he has cried too much and that grieving is not
looked upon as manly.
Source Card #6
Bamber, Linda. "Three-
Hamlet." Comic Women, Tragic Men: A Study of Gender and Genre
in Shakespeare. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1982. N. pag. Print.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"The first phase has ended
with the death of Hamlet's father, two months prior to time present.
That death has ended the old world, comfortably centered on the
masculine Self and based on an identity of interests between father
and son. In the new world the presence of the other destroys the
hero's sense of centrality. Misogyny is a version of the anger the
hero directs toward the other for destroying his old, self-centered
world. Hamlet, like the other heroes, rages against women when he
loses his place in the sun. Of course, it was not Hamlet who was
central to the old world; it was his father. But in the old world, as
we have seen in the history plays, the father and son share power
with one another. (72)
Note: Important because this quotation is explaining how a
Hamlet's fathers death had a huge impact into him maturing into a man.
Content Card
Topic: Themes
Subtopic: Gender roles
"In the new world the
continuum is broken: Claudius does not share power and position with
Hamlet, as the late king had done. Hamlet's loss is perhaps more
grave than even Lear's or Antony's; he loses what he has never
actually had. But only the second phase of the tragic fable is
defined by the hero's rage at his losses. In the third and final
phase the hero is beyond his anger. And it is notable that after a
certain moment in Hamlet the sex nausea simply vanishes. After Act
IV, scene IV, Hamlet's last scene before going to England, we hear no
more about the frailty of women." (72)
Note: important because this quotation talk about how Hamlet did
not get much power to rule and women throughout the play were looked
upon as bad but they did not.
Source Card #7
Price, Leah. The Anthology and the
Rise of the Novel: From Richardson to George Eliot. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2000. Print.
Content Card
Topic: ThemesSubtopic: Gender roles
"This scapegoating also allows
Hamlet to exercise his jealously and envy--jealousy that his mother is
in a happy, satisfying relationship, and that he isn't; envy of the
happiness and pleasure she has that is forbidden him by his father's
world--by transforming his jealousy and envy into moral superiority,
and by reducing her happiness to rank and detestable crimes he can
sadistically punish. Furthermore, this moral superiority and the
sadism it necessitates gives Hamlet something heroic to do (he thinks)
in the face of not being able to figure out how to deal with Claudius,
or how to have a viable relationship with Ophelia. Having no kingdom
to rule, and no lover to embrace, "scourge and minister"
become two of the many hopeless roles with which he chooses to fill up
the nothing that, at present, has become his life. (87)
Note: Important because Hamlet has so much anger that his mom
has happiness t6hat he believes talking away her joy would be ruined.
Content Card
Topic: ThemesSubtopic: Gender roles
"Furthermore, this moral
superiority and the sadism it necessitates gives Hamlet something
heroic to do (he thinks) in the face of not being able to figure out
how to deal with Claudius, or how to have a viable relationship with
Ophelia. Having no kingdom to rule, and no lover to embrace,
"scourge and minister" become two of the many hopeless roles
with which he chooses to fill up the nothing that, at present, has
become his life." (87)
Notes: Important because this explains how Hamlet has been
losing the things and people he likes most.
Source Card #8
Corum, Richard. "8- Gertrude,
Thy Name Is Woman." Understanding Hamlet: A Student Casebook
to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT:
Greenwood, 1998. N. pag. Print.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Gender roles/ Gertrude
"Gertrude is the most unjustly
treated character in Hamlet. An angry ghost slanders her.
Hamlet "will speak daggers to her, but use none" (3.2.366).
In the ghost and closet scenes, Gertrude, put on trial, is told she is
what is rotten in Denmark. And at the end she is abandoned and killed.
These judgments are extremely problematic, however, since virtually
none of them are true." (183)
Note: Important because this quote is describing how Gertrude
was not portrayed to her best abilities in this play because she was
a loving mother to her son, but she was portrayed as a women who was
cold hearted and did not know how to deal with her husbands passing.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Gender roles/ Gertrude
"In the face of these charges,
then, what proof to the contrary? The first two charges are easily
dismissed since there is no evidence in the text to support them.
Though Hamlet's words frequently are taken as proof of adultery,
neither the ghost nor Hamlet accuses Gertrude of sleeping with
Claudius while Hamlet Sr. was alive, and no other evidence supports
such a conclusion. Thus, this allegation is without merit, though left
open are any number of other ways the prosecution may think Gertrude
guilty of making her "marriage vows / As false as dicers'
oaths." (184)
Note: Important because Gertrude is accused of many things
throughout the play or it is implied that she might have committed
some things, but in reality she hardly ever committed a crime.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Gender roles/ Gertrude
"Moreover, in light of the way
Gertrude responds in the closet scene (3.4), Hamlet relinquishes his
belief that Gertrude is complicit in his father's death or knows she
is living with the man who murdered her first husband.In short, the
first two charges are hasty, unfounded fabrications based solely on
the legendary source. (185)
Notes: Important because at the end of the day Gertrude Cares
more for her son than her marriage with her brother in-law. She might
be portrayed as an awful person but she has a heart that yearns to
fulfill her son with endless amounts of joy.
Source Card #9
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath.
New York: Penguin, 1976. Print.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Ma Joad
�She seemed to know, to accept, to
welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that
could not be taken. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they
looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up
laughter out of inadequate materials from position as healer, her
hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter
she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. (ch. 8)
Notes: Important because Ma Joes is first described as someone
who was the leader of the family and has a strong persona because she
is a strong woman who is in charge of the family.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Ma Joad
"She seemed to know that if she
swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or
despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be
gone.� (ch. 8)
Notes: Important because the narrator is describing how if Ma
Joad starts to feel weak it would affect the whole family and they
would not be able to function without her.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Ma Joad
""I never had my house
pushed over," she said. "I never had my fambly stuck out on
the road. I never had to sell � everything � Here they come
now." (ch. 8)
Notes: Important because since Ma Joad is at a point in her life
where she is not faced with certain road block in the road and she has
leave her house that is a huge disappointment. Ma Joad is sad about it
but she will not show her weakness in front of anyone.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Ma Joad
"Her hazel eyes seemed to
have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and
suffering like steps into a high calm and a superhuman
understanding. (ch. 8)
Notes: Important because her eyes have experienced so much
tragedy and good times that she can amount to anything that gets
thrown at her. She has experienced so much that she has grown more
and more and a better version of herself every time.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Tom Joad
"Now look-a-here, fella. You got
that eye wide open. An' ya dirty, ya stink. Ya jus' askin' for it. Ya
like it. Lets ya feel sorry for yaself. 'Course ya can't get no woman
with that empty eye flappin' aroun'. Put somepin over it an' wash ya
face. You ain't hitting' nobody with no pipe wrench." (ch. 16)
Notes: Important because Tom tells a man with one eye to get his
life together because the man with one eye blames everyone else for
his own problems.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Tom Joad
"Maybe all men got one big soul
everybody's a part of." (ch. 4)
Notes: Important because Tom is wondering if all men were created
equally because somehow each and every one of us are somehow connected
to one another.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Tom Joad
"'Course you get goddamn good
an' sick a-doin' the same thing day after day for four years. If you
done somepin you was ashamed of, you might think about that. But,
hell, if I seen Herb Turnbull coming' for me with a knife right now,
I'd squash him down with a shovel again." (ch. 6)
Notes: Important because if Tome is not fond of someone he will
assure that he is caring himself with honor.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Tom Joad
"Tom, looking down towards the
Joad lent, saw his mother heavy and slow with weariness =, build a
little trash fire and put the cooking pots over the flame." (ch. 20)
Note: Important because Tom is admiring his mom do the smallest
things around the campo sight because he probably sees how important
his mom after he was in prison.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Jim Casy
"If he needs a million acres to
make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor
inside hisself, and if he's poor in hisself, there ain't no million
acres gonna make him feel rich." (ch. 18)
Notes: Important because Casy understands that being rich does not
mean one thing if your heart is not rich. He may be poor and have
nothing but he puts it in the perspective that he would rather be poor
and content with his life rather than him being rich with much wealth
and luxuries that is miserable with life.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Jim Casy
" Just Jim Casy now. Ain't got
the call no more. Got a lot of sinful ideas � but they seem kinda
sensible." (ch. 4)
Notes: Important because Casy realizes that his sinful ways were
stopping him from fulfilling his job in being a preacher. He chooses
to leave preaching because he knew he could not keep on going any
longer deceiving himself.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Jim Casy
"Maybe I can preach again. Folks
out lonely on the rush, folks with no Ian', no home to go. They got to
shave some land of home."
Notes: Important because Casy wants to be constantly helping
others but his downfall for women are what contradicts himself.
Content Card
Topic: Characteristics Subtopic: Jim Casy
"i aim'y sayin' I'm like
Jesus... but i got tired like him, an' I got mixed up like him, an' I
went into the wilderness like him. Without no compin' stuff...
sometimes I'd pray like I always done. (ch. 8)
Notes: Important because Casy is explaining how even though he is
not holy anymore, he still has suffered the same things just like
Jesus has gone through.
Content Card
Topic: family Subtopic: reliability
"Women and children knew deep in
themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if then men were
hole. (ch. 1)
Notes: Important because women and children believe that no
situation is too hard if the men are calm about it.
Content Card
Topic: Power Subtopic: Land
"They came in closed case, as
they felt the dry earth with their fingers, and sometimes they drove
big earth augers into the ground for soil tests. The tenants, from
their sun-beaten door yards watched, uneasy when the closed cars
drove along the fields." (ch. 5)
Notes: Important because it displays the importance of keeping up
with farming aspect of, soil, makes or breaks wether the family can
stay or leave the rented land.
Content Card
Topic: Land Subtopic: Money
"a bank or a company can't do
that, because those creatures don't breathe profits; they eat the
interest of money." (ch. 5)
Notes: Important because it explains how the people renting these
places may want to borrow money from a bank. The bank does not care
how they make profits, making them an easy target to get money robbed
from them.
Content Card
Topic: Land Subtopic: Money
"The bank- the monster has to
have profits all the time. It can't waiT, it'll die, no taxes go on.
When the monster stops growing, it dies. It cant stay on size. (ch. 5)
Notes: Important because the senate is desperate to keep its
rented land and believes that in a year the cotton fields will
prosper. The land renters tell the tenants that they cannot wait
around for a year. The tenant explains how the bank is the monster here.
Content Card
Topic: tradition Subtopic: starting over
"Fella gets use' to a place,
it's hard to go," said Casy. "Fella gets use to it a way of
thinkin' it's hard to leave." (ch. 6)
Notes: Important because this passage informs us that the Joad's
have lived in this house for generations and all of a sudden they have
to start all over.
Content Card
Topic: deceivementSubtopic: Robbing of Money
"Salesmen, neat, deadly, small
intent eyes watched for weakness." (ch. 7)
Notes: Important because the salesmen are looking for any reason
to sell these cars for an unreasonable price so they make a profit.
Content Card
Topic: deceivementSubtopic: Robbing of Money
"Guarantee? We guarantee it to
be an automobile. We didn't guarantee to wet nurse it." (ch.7)
Notes: Important because the salesmen do not guarantee for the
automobile to work at its best conditions but it will at least be an automobile.
Content Card
Topic: deceivementSubtopic: Robbing of Money
"Spattering roar of ancient
engines." (ch. 7)
Notes: Important because when a car roars majority of people
expect for the engine to sound smoothly, but the salesmen are selling
engines that are not just old but ancient.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women roles
"The women went into the houses
to their work, and the children began to play, but cautiously at
first. (ch.1)
Notes: Women are in charge of keeping the house running smoothly.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: men roles
"The men sat in the doorways of
their houses; their hands were busy with sticks and little rocks. The
men sat still � thinking � figuring." (ch. 1)
Notes: Important because the men are the ones to think about the
problem,s and find a solution in the family.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: men roles
"The men were ruthless because
the past had been spoiled, but the women knew how the past would cry
to them in the coming days." (ch. 9)
Notes: Important because the men are taking it out one the women
because there past traditions and accomplishments have been ruined but
the women know that the past is always going to be a memory.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: men roles
"And [Ma Joad's] hands were
crusted with salt, pink with fluid from the fresh pork. "It's
women's work," she said finally." (ch. 10)
Notes: Important because ma joad has done a job that only a man
would do, but dir went on and did it anyways.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: men and women roles
"Men sang the words, and women
hummed the tunes." (ch. 17)
Notes: Important because the men can change the lyrics to the song
and the women can change the tone of the humming, changing the emotion
of everything.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: men roles
""Besides, us folks takes a
pride holdin' in. My pa used to say, 'Anybody can break down. It takes
a man not to.' We always try to hold in." (ch. 13)
Notes: Important because the men in this novel believe that
breaking down is not a manly thing to do no matter what circumstances.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women roles
�She seemed to know, to accept, to
welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that
could not be taken. And since, when a joyful thing happened, they
looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up
laughter out of inadequate materials from position as healer, her
hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter
she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She
seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever
really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family
will to function would be gone.� (ch.8)
Notes: Important because Ma Joad has been through so much and she
still manages to keep the whole family intact even in tough times they
go through.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women roles
"She walked for the family and
held her head straight for the family." (ch. 13)
Notes: Important because Ma Joad is the one who the the family
backbone, without her this family would becomes immensely weak. No one
can compare to the support she gives to everyone in their family.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: men roles
"The family became a unit [�] Pa
was the head of the family now." (ch. 13)
Notes: Important because even though Pa Joad just made himself the
leader of the family, the reader defiantly knows who calls the shots
in the family, Ma Joad.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women roles
"[Ma Joad:] "Use' ta be the
family was fust. It ain't so now. It's anybody." (ch. 30)
Notes: Important because Ma Joad is realizing how her family
values and morals towards the family throughout this whole journey.
At the beginning of the novel, the family was united as a unit but
little by little they began to discover other things and they aren't
as united as before.
Source Card #10
Bloom, Harold. John Steinbeck.
New York: Chelsea House, 1987. Print.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women characteristics
"Most writers of the first half of
this century concentrated on characterizations of men and the problems
and motivations of men. Perhaps that is because most writers of
anything other than romantic novels or popular magazine stories are
men. Two notable exceptions to the patters were John Steinbeck and
D.H. Lawrence, who tried to release women from the pasteboard, shadowy
role she generally assumed in fiction. Today, Lawrence�s portraits of
aggressive and often neurotic women have come under attack by certain
feminist critics, while Steinbeck�s contributions to American
literature in any sense are ignored or dismissed." (143)
Notes: Important because writers in the 20th century would
characterize women as weak with no powers but Steinbeck did not
characterize women like that he gave women power that complemented
men's power.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women characteristics
"True, Ma Joad and Rosasharon
are unforgettable women, but both clearly fall under �earth- mother
category which is a stereotype, however flattering.� (147)
Notes: Important because these are the characteristics that the
main women roles in the novel are given.
Source Card #10
Gale, Robert L. Barron's Simplified
Approach to The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck. Woodbury, NY:
Barron's Educational Series, 1966. Print.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women characteristics
�She is a kind of pagan earth mother,
kind to her father-in-law and her mother-in-law, anxious to let her
husband Pa lead the family but quickly assuming the reins when he lets
them slip through weakness and lack of understanding, firm but
sympathetic with her children, friendly with deserving strangers (for
example, the Wilsons and then the Wainwrights) but fierce when her
family is threatened (for example, by religious zealots). Her actions
reveal that she feels the truth of Jim Casy's philosophical
pronouncements about the universal holiness and decency of life." (87)
Notes: Important because Ma Joad is characterized as someone who
has th power to lead her family with wisdom and try her best to not
let them down.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women characteristics
"Ma holds her family together far
longer than anyone else in the group could have done. She suffers
intensely when she sees Grandpa die, then Noah disappear, then Granma
die, and then Tom obliged to hide and then go away. But she almost
never reveals the degree of her misery. She knows that while she
holds, the unit will hold -- unless man's inhumanity to man and
nature's indifference put pressure upon her, which simply cannot be
endured. She goads Pa into near frenzy, knowing that it will make him
stronger. She threatens to slap Rose of Sharon at times, but when the
poor, pregnant, abandoned girl needs comfort, Ma is there with it in
full measure." (87)
Notes: Important because Ma Joad has to be the one that experiences
grandma dying on her and has to hide her pain from her family because
she does not want to show any signs of weakness.
Source Card #10
Heavilin, Barbara A. The Critical
Response to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. N.p.: n.p.,
n.d. Print.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women characteristics
�That moving description of man and
woman by Ma Joad, however, also underlies the displacement of
authority in the novel from thinking man to spiritual woman, from a
rational life jerked apart to a life led by the heart that bends and
flows like the river. To demonstrate this, Steinbeck parallels Ma's
rise to authority with Pa's displacement from, and the destruction of,
the squatter's circle." (123)
Notes: Important because it emphasizes how a women in this novel has
the authority, they keep men sane spiritually.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: men characteristics
"In the novel Steinbeck depicts
the traditional physical posture for decision-making among the male
leaders of the family as squatting on the haunches in a circle. It
represents a high formality among the migrant men and functions in the
novel as a testament to rational order and male authority.� (132)
Notes: Important because the novel questions the mens roles in the
family and their leadership skills. They do have majority rule but
they do not always have that title.
Content Card
Topic: gender roles Subtopic: women characteristics
"She knows that she can rely on
Tom, not Al. She lets Uncle John have money for one quick drunken
spree, knowing that without it he might crack. She rarely speaks much,
but she once expresses the great comprehensive moral of the novel.� (127)
Notes: Important because Ma Joad knows everyones limits and she
understands that s]certain people in her family require certain needs
that others. She helps accommodate to everyone in the family.