Getting Foxy with the Supernatural

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Recommended: Traditional role of women in a society

In Kij Johnson’s, “Fox Magic”, the writer depicts a world where magic exist and foxes posess deceiving powers that can mislead mortals. Within many fantasy stories though there are situations that should concern modern time readers. In this story, it would seem that the concern would be both sexes have different ways of controlling and taking advantage of the opposite sex. The mythical characters chosen for this story are foxes that possess supernatural powers. This is estranged for this modern day world and really pulls the reader in by catching their attention. Throughout the story you see what different roles each sex plays such as, how dependent women are on men, how men feel superior to women, and how from another species perspective being a human woman means to suffer. These are issues that contemporary American readers should be concerned about because they happen in modern day life.
The first concern seen in “Fox Magic” was when the woman fox says,
“There were times, even, when they stayed out all night, and returned just before dawn with a foreign scent clinging to his clothes and a strange woman’s fan or comb in his hand. It was his right, and his responsibility, to live a man’s life- I understand that.”
This is an example of how the husband uses his power and intimidation to get away with cheating on his wife. It is sad that the fox feels that this is normal action a husband does and is considered as man-like activity. This should worry contemporary American readers because it’s becoming a usual occurrence in most relationships that one of the two will cheat on that significant other with someone else. It does not however prove that that person is a better person; it just makes that person look as i...

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... people like Yoshifuji want to “have their cake and eat it to” and it just can’t work like that and that is what the readers should recognize.
Overall, the author did a very sufficient job of portraying different conflicts and concerns within the story that had readers relating these issues to themselves. The amount of problems within the two relationships Yoshifuji has formed is unbelievable. Contemporary American readers should realize that this is how seriously society treats relationships at this time. In this society, children are the lady foxes who are raised to believe that relationships are full of lies, distrust and unfaithfulness. Kij Johnson was merely portraying relationships and giving the readers a different perspective to look from. It seems as though Johnson’s solution to these concerns is to sit back and allow karma to do its thing.

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