I analyzed “Pagan Night” with feminist criticism for
the story that we already read. I felt that author used the ditzy mad women in
the attic, and Cinderella archetype to portray Sonny. She is a the ditzy mad
women in the attic because she is portrayed as stupid and weak, for she allows
herself and her baby to be abused. Sonny is completely reliant on her husband
and because of that he can treat her anyway he wants and she and incapable of
freeing herself from the situation. She is completely submissive throughout the
whole story. He just takes her stuff and sells it. Him not having to ask her
and just taking it from her portrays her as not an equal. He orders her around and
treats her like badly, and she just takes it. Because of this domination of a
woman by a man, it appears as though women are not equal to men. Instead, the
story portrays women as though they are servants to men.
The woman in “The Storm” is portrayed as the angel
in the house archetype. She is portrayed as a weak and helpless woman throwing
herself into the arms of a strong man for comfort. The author describes her with
words like “she cried” and “she would not compose herself” which portrays her
as a weak and emotional women which conversely socially conditions us to think
that all women are weak and emotional. While the woman is painted as frantic
and stupid, the man is described as being logical, calm, cool, and collective
under pressure; this conversely socially conditions us to think that men are
the voices of reason in society. The words describing what she is doing are
words like “cushion”, and the words used to describe what the man is doing are
things like “hammer”; this is symbolic of the authors belief that men are
strong and women are weak. The men control the story, and even the ending is
ultimately pans out as a product of the men’s decision. This is symbolic of how
men control women and how women’s decisions are limited; this suggests women’s lives
are largely at the mercy of the men that are around them that control them.
“Little Red Cap” portrays women as stupid, conniving,
weak, and in need of men to save them. When little red cap is on her way to her
grandmothers she encounters a wolf who is a male that easily tricks her into
giving him information and to sidetrack her. This portrays men as being superior
to women in intellect. She is this stupid helpless girl at the mercy of any
male figure that she comes by that means to do her harm that can easily trick
her. The wolf goes to the grandmothers house where he goes in and eats her with
no resistance. This further portrays women as being stupid, helpless and weak
The grandmother was stupid not to lock her door and the wolf just walking in
and eating her no problem suggests that the grandmother, partly because she is
old, but mainly because she is a woman, is so weak she did not stand a chance
against a male wolf. Little red cap also gets eaten when she gets there, but a
male hunter passing by found the wolf, shot him, and then cut the two women out
of the wolf. This portray the man as the strong hero who rescues the helpless
women from the wolf. This is an archetype of the two damsel in distresses. By
portraying the man as the strong hero and the women as the weak helpless figure
in needing to be saved by a man, woman are portrayed as inferior to men. The
next time a wolf comes the women succeed in killing the wolf but not through
superior strength, instead, they achieve that by tricking the wolf. This
portrays women as conniving creatures that only can only triumph over men
through trickery.
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