Men are
represented as naturally dominant and active. The narrator, who is unnamed but
shown to be male, is the dominant person within his family. While Annie, his
wife, does speak up about her discontent with his actions. ‘I’ll have to spend the afternoon keeping
things hot while you make a beast of yourself!’, the Narrator’s inner
monologue, and how he behaves shows that he is naturally dominant (and slightly
abusive), ‘I’m generally late. She never
asks me to come home early.’ … ‘I want to hurt her, and I’m pretty good at it’.
The text doesn’t
question traditional gender roles and social structures, but rather
demonstrates them. Annie is the stay-at-home housewife, who cooks, cleans,
moved across the country based on her husband’s fortunes, and raises her son by
herself, while she acts like a ‘restaurant waitress’, tending to her husband’s
needs. She does this while her husband, the Narrator, works, indulges in his
alcoholic tendencies, and fantasises about abusing his wife.
Women are
portrayed as submissive and passive. Even though Annie does show her distaste
of her husband’s way of life, she doesn’t ask him to change it or seek to
change it herself. She just holds a grudge and lets him do his thing, ‘She never asks me to come home early, always
tightening her lips and sort of shooting the question through them’.
Annie, the main
female character, accepts her place within the family and society. She accepts the
role of mother and housewife, and she doesn’t protest. On rare occasions, she
does voice her irritations, but she continues to play into those social roles.
The text gives
voice predominantly to the experiences of men, and silences the voices of
women. The story is narrated by a man, and tells his story and experiences. The
only times the readers are given any insight into Annie’s point of view is when
she makes a comment, or the Narrator speculates what she is thinking, and what
she wants. The text only shows assumptions made my men of the female
experience.
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