I am trying to marry the idea of the phrase "Know your place" to two creative works in the arts category. I am currently exploring the idea of...

If I were you, I would look specifically at visual art. There are a myriad of paintings and sculptures that would help you expand on your thesis.

For this topic, you might want to start with the portraits of British Royal Academy artists, such as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. Their work is very status conscious. Consider, for example, Reynolds's painting "The Ladies Waldegrave." Here, you have three young sisters from an upper-class family engaged...

If I were you, I would look specifically at visual art. There are a myriad of paintings and sculptures that would help you expand on your thesis.

For this topic, you might want to start with the portraits of British Royal Academy artists, such as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. Their work is very status conscious. Consider, for example, Reynolds's painting "The Ladies Waldegrave." Here, you have three young sisters from an upper-class family engaged in leisure activities in sumptuous surroundings. Their skin is very white, which is a sign of their coddled lifestyle (they never need to go out to do anything), and they are clustered around a small table in what may be a drawing room. Reynolds's understanding of the place of these women may have informed his choice to organize the figures as he did in the painting.

Another genre to consider is American art of the 19th- and 20th-centuries. For the 19th-century, I think that the work of Winslow Homer is very helpful. Consider his 1876 work, "A Visit from the Old Mistress." This painting very well illustrates "knowing one's place," or status, in a clearly stratified society.

Another work, "At the Window" is a consideration of a woman's place in 19th-century society. A young woman sits alone in a chair in a shadowy room. Her only company are two small plants on the windowsill. Framed in the window, just beyond her, is a lush landscape. She turns away from that landscape and looks instead within the house. The conclusion one may draw: her place is in the home.

If you would like to use the work of an artist who answers this question from a more satirical perspective, I would strongly consider the work of Kara Walker. Her collection "Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love" contains many examples with which you can work -- if you are willing to deal with her violent and lurid images.