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In what ways might language be used as an instrument of oppression?
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Fri Nov 14 2003
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In what ways might language be used as an instrument of oppression? The idea that language can be used as an instrument of oppression is one that is held by many critics of varying focus who stress the fact that language is both an instrument of social constraint and a means of resisting that constraint. It is an issue deeply embedded in the literary theory of gender and sexuality, race and nationality, and even social class. In this essay I hope to consider these issues in relation to three main literary texts that I have studied across this year: Jonathon Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. A good place to start is with the ideas of feminist criticism, where language is identified as one of the means through which patriarchal values are both maintained and resisted. Feminists are concerned with...
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