With Time Comes Agency: The Evolving Role of Women over Time as Seen in Much Ado About Nothing, "Of Beren and Làºthien," and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Abstract

In his first-year essay “With Time Comes Agency: The Evolving Role of Women Over Time as Seen in Much Ado about Nothing, ‘Of Beren and Làºthien,‘ and Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Danny Tetlock analyzes not only the way that the role of women has changed over time, but the way that the tropes and conventions writers use to portray women have changed. Drawing on conventional images of women ranging from Scandinavian medieval valkyries to early-twentieth-century suffragettes to popular television heroines such as Xena, Danny focusses on the ways in which William Shakespeare, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Joss Whedon not only reflect the changing images of women across times, but also participate in the change. In the end he argues that art does not merely reflect reality, but that works of fiction can actively change the way society envisions women.

Dr. Kathy Cawsey