In "The Storm" a woman gets caught in a time of desperation. Societies opinion of women is that they need a man to feel protected and safe. And in this story the woman, Calixta, ends up in the situation where a man stays at her house through a scary storm. Calixa is a housewife who was too busy to even realize that a storm was coming and finally when it did she was caught off guard. Then when a man comes in they both end up get close to each other. They created a stereotypical scenario when she got close to him in the rough moment of the storm. The consequences of those actions went deeper when they were so close neither of them could resist one another. Even though they were both wrong with their actions, typically the woman is the one to be blamed. These descriptions show how feminism takes place in this particular story.
In another story portraying feminism I read "Night Waitress". An image includes a woman who is working late at night with men all around her. "They look as if they never had mothers" proves that the linguists of feminism is true through the fact that some men can be pigs, which is also patriarchal view. The girl wishes she could be somewhere else, but the fact that she doesn't have a choice at that moment makes her feel like she just has to deal with the annoying men, Her words saying, "I would not stop him if he touched me" makes her seem as if she has given up. It makes the societal view of how woman should be below men come to life. This woman is represented through men as just another ass to grab and she lets it happen because men are stereotypical like that.
I thought that your analysis of the story “The Storm” was well done. I had similar opinion of the implied idea that women need a man to feel safe. I thought it was interesting that you noticed the woman had no time to notice the storm approaching because she was too busy doing house work. I skimmed over this story and this was one of many things that I probably didn't pick up on. The part of the story where the two grow close during the rough part of the storm was stereotypical and predictable, but I think that was the point. I haven't read “Night Waitress” but your analysis definitely perked my interest. It seems like a great work for feminist criticism and one that I might enjoy reading. A great post, very insightful, I got a lot out of it.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with your analysis about the part where they both get close to each other which results in them getting together. You said that typically women are seen as being more responsible for these types of situations and therefore this is portraying women as promiscuous and weak; I think this is an equal critique of both men and woman here, so since both the man and the woman are being equally critiqued for the same action it does not make sense to say that it is an attack on women.
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