https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1389045
https://doi.org/10.60056/Lit.2025.35.106–126
Margarita Ivailova Staneva
The article examines the portrayal of the female fate within the framework of the patriarchal reality established by the institution of marriage, as depicted in Elin Pelin’s short story The Bride Nena and Vasily Pukirev’s painting An Unequal Marriage. The comparison of the two works is made through the lens of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. The main ideas explored in relation to these works are the formation of woman as a social construct, the definition of her essence through “marriage,” and her role as the “Other” in relation to man.
Keywords: femininity, objectification of women, subordination, feminism, literature and painting
About the author: Margarita Iv. Staneva is a PhD student at the Department of Bulgarian Literature. Her academic interests focus on the manifestations of various ideological currents in works of fiction from the period following the Liberation to the First World War. She has published articles in several scholarly collections and two reviews in previous issues of The Literature.
