The Darling | The Submissive Wife Stereotype in Anton Chekhov's The Darling
In the following essay, Bayuk defines Olenka within the stereotype of the "Submissive Wife,'' but praises Olenka's adaptability, maintaining she is a "True Survivor.''
‘‘The female nature is afflicted with natural defectiveness’’ stated Aristotle the father of logic and truth; ‘‘women are deficient’’ proclaimed St. Thomas Aquinas; ‘‘frailty, thy name is woman’’ asserted Shakespeare; ‘‘woman was made to yield to man and put up with his injustice’’ proclaimed Jean Jacques Rousseau, the fighter for social justice, and Sigmund Freud summed it all up in a pseudoscientific manner by ascribing to women an evergrowing envy of that particular male organ that we were...
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