The burden of social standards on women in Lauren Weisberber's the devil wears prada (2003) and Christina Chiu's beauty(2020)
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Date
2022
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi –Ouzou
Abstract
This research is a comparative study of Lauren Weisberger's novel The Devil Wears Prada
(2003) and Christina Chiu's Beauty (2020). The study has focused on how society puts too much
pressure on women to fit the ‘beauty myth’ which is to be physically attractive, good mothers,
and perfect housewives. The main concern of the work has been to demonstrate how women
are affected by this ‘beauty myth’ in two diffrent societies the American and the Asian. In order
to achieve our aim which is how Images of Beauty are used against women in two different
societies; the American and the Asian, we have adopted Naomi Wolf's theory of the beauty myth
as exposed in her eponymous book The Beauty Myth (1991), a feminist literary theory that
focuses on how societies control women and maintain patriarchy by demeaning them and
setting expectations for how they should behave and what they should look like. The study is
divided into two chapters. The first one deals with the social pressure on women while the
second treats the effects of this pressure on women and their reaction to it. It has been revealed
that women in both novels are denied the right to live and choose what is appropriate for them
and instead, have to live the way society wants them. It has also been shown that some women
finally break the myth that is set by society and decide to follow their inner voice and build
strong identities independent of social conventions of the patriarchal system. Since people's
opinions of beauty change throughout time, it has been discovered that the concept of beauty
does as well.
Description
55p. ; 30cm. (+CD-Rom)
Keywords
Social standards, Beauty, Perfection, Women, The beauty myth
Citation
Literature and Interdisciplinary Approaches.