Both John and Mary’s characters suffer a development. He is an insensitive male that uses Mary for her body. “He fucks her and after that he falls asleep” and he “uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind” (Margaret Atwood 331) shows a more descriptive sex life that the previous story A. The diction is considered vulgar and taboo topic for a traditional middle-class woman, implicates the male dominance in a marriage. “A rat, a pig, a dog” (Margaret Atwood 331) are the terms used to describe John by Mary’s friends, which implies that he is not good enough for her and although deep inside her, she already knows that, she is not ready to believe that yet, “she can’t believe yet” (Margaret Atwood 331). Through the …show more content…
The vision “she does the dishes” (Margaret Atwood 331) is not a fact that will interest the reader, but through this vision, we find out her reasoning “so he won’t think she is untidy” (Margaret Atwood 331). We learn a bit more about Mary’s character and her motivation that in the first story A. “Inside John, she thinks, is another John, who is much nicer” (Margaret Atwood 331) is a statement that helps us to understand the depth of Mary’s hope and delusion. By using second person tone, the author prompts the story with her own comments, attracting the attention on certain …show more content…
John has a “charming house” and “stimulating and challenging” (Margaret Atwood 332) hobbies with Madge, but seems to be the reason to push him to cheat her. Even though, John “falls in love” (Margaret Atwood 331) with Mary and he tells her how important she is for him, he also states that “he can’t leave his wife because a commitment is a commitment” (Margaret Atwood 332). This once more illustrates that the man dominance was very powerful at that time, a man can have affairs, but women are supposed to stay home, be docile and keep the house clean. In this story, Madge is a substitute for Mary, and through the fact that the author gives us the same description as story A, we can only see that both characters can substitute any woman in the middle-class
Margaret Atwood is famous for many things. She is a poet, novelist, story writer, essayist, and an environmental activist. Her books are usually bestsellers and have received high praises in the United States, Europe, and her native country, Canada. She has also received many Literary awards, like the Booker Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the two Governor General’s Awards (“Margaret Atwood” Poetry). Through her books, she has written about what she sees in society towards women. She discusses how gender equality was corrupted in the past, but still is far from being reached, and women’s roles in society (“Spotty-handed”). Atwood also takes events in her life; like the Great Depression, Communism, and World War II; and applies it to her works. Margaret Atwood's works, including her novel The Handmaid's Tale, reflects women’s fight in equality, how society determines
Mary is still in deep love with John, conversely John only uses Mary for selfish pleasure. In here, Atwood breaks away from the telling of stories from third person to sentences of second. “He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner, you’ll notice that he doesn’t even consider her worth the price of a dinner out…” (96). This interruption is to revert back to the main idea of Atwood talking directly to the audience and informing them of how the character John treats and views Mary, which is complete turnaround from the previous Story A which went into no detail into either character’s thoughts or actions whatsoever. Another form of specific detail gets used through similes.
John is a loving husband. He proves that by telling Elizabeth, “It is well seasoned” (p. 48) in reference to the rabbit she cooked, in which he had to add salt to. He likes to make her happy, which shows he loves her, and so he asks, “Would that please you?” (p.48) He is asking in reference to buying a heifer for her if the crops are good. He assures her he will “fall like an ocean on that court” by which he shows his love in caring for her freedom (p.73). To the court he admits he has “known her” he is talking about Abigail and their affair (p.102). He is showing his love towards his wife by throwing away his freedom, life, honor, dignity, and pride to prove Elizabeth’s innocence and have her freedom. He tells Elizabeth to “show honor now” as he is to be hanged in the gallows (p. 133). He is showing his love for her by letting her know he cares about her enough to want her to be strong even though he is to die.
Works Cited “Margaret Atwood.” (2014). Wikipedia. Web. The Web.
The style is often understood as the distinctive and recognizable way an author uses language to create a work of literature. In this story, the readers could easily see the diction is used by both the narrator and the characters showing how social norm affect their behavior and action. In a literary work, diction often refers to the writer choice of language, including words, phrases, and sentence structure. In the story, the readers witness how John repeatedly calls the narrator a “little girl or darling”; John addresses the narrator as something powerless and nonharmful, though she is an adult (Gilman 82,83). Even though John loves the narrator; he unconsciously treats her like an object just like other men in the society. John does what he thinks is right for the narrator regardless of her opinions. John treats his woman just like how society expects him to. He makes all the decision for her life which is emphasized by how undoubtedly he agrees with the narrator’s brother and Weir Mitchell regard of the narrator’s sickness (Gilman 80,81,82). Therefore, out of all the love John has for the narrator, he unconsciously sees the narrator as an object that he has to take care of where he feels “much easier” about the narrator when she eats and sleeps like he wants her too (Gilman 81). In the sexist society, most women are expected to please and worship
He tells the narrator time and time again that she is sick. He can be viewed as a very controlling man in which everything must happen his way or not at all. John was a metaphor for the type of society in the 19th century. He is the image of a male-dominated culture where every woman and child had to follow the rules without complaint. The narrator is like a child taking orders from the male doctors in her life, even going on to say, “personally, I disagree with their ideas.”
...ssion and intrusiveness. John’s lack of having an open mind to his wife’s thoughts and opinions and his constant childish like treatment of his wife somehow emphasizes this point, although, this may not have been his intention. The narrator felt strongly that her thoughts and feelings were being disregarded and ignored as stated by the narrator “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (Gilman 115), and she shows her despise of her husband giving extra care to what he considers more important cases over his wife’s case with a sarcastic notion “I am glad my case is not serious!” (Gilman 115). It is very doubtful that John is the villain of the story, his good intentions towards doing everything practical and possible to help his wife gain her strength and wellbeing is clear throughout the story.
Pirnajmuddin, Hossein, and Omid Amani. "Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing as a Critique of the Enlightenment Reason." CSCanada. CSCanada, Oct. 2011. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
Bouson, J. Brooks. Margaret Atwood the robber bride, the blind assassin, Oryx and Crake. London: Continuum, 2010. Print.
As the story begins, the narrator's compliance with her role as a submissive woman is easily seen. She states, "John laughs at me, but one expects that in marriage" (Gilman 577). These words clearly illustrate the male's position of power in a marriage t...
The narrator is trying to get better from her illness but her husband “He laughs at me so about this wallpaper” (515). He puts her down and her insecurities do not make it any better. She is treated like a child. John says to his wife “What is it little girl” (518)? Since he is taking care of her she must obey him “There comes John, and I must put this away, he hates to have me write a word”. The narrator thinks John is the reason why she cannot get better because he wants her to stay in a room instead of communicating with the world and working outside the house.
First, the 1900’s is a time where women are trying to put away the homemaker image and obtain work. This causes many hardships between husbands and wives. Jane is on the verge of beginning to leave her homemaker image and begin a career in writing. “I am sitting by the window now, up in the atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing much as I please, save lack of strength” (Gilman, 1599). Jane is starting to recognize that she is loosing her feminism. John recognizes this and tries to do everything he can to stop Jane. John knows that Jane is putting aside her role as being a wife, homemaker and mother. In these times, husbands’ do not believe that women could balance both home and work responsibilities. Jane decides to oppose the homemaker life and branch out into writing. The feminist role is “The concept of "The New Woman," for example, began to circulate in the 1890s-1910s as women are pushing for broader roles outside the home-roles that could draw on women's intelligence and non-domestic skills and talents” (http:/...
Near the middle of the story we see Mary exhibit her bad sinister character; her personality and feelings suddenly change when she murders her own husband by hitting him at the back of the head with a frozen lamb leg. After denying all of Mary’s helpful deeds, Patrick told her to sit down so that he can tell her something serious; the story doesn’t tell us what he says to her but Mary suddenly changes after he tells her something, her “instinct was not to believe any of it” (Dahl 2). She just responded with “I’ll get the supper” (Dahl 2) and felt nothing of her body except for nausea and a desire to vomit. She went down the cellar, opened the freezer, grabbed a frozen leg of lamb, went back upstairs, came behind Patrick, and swung the big leg of lamb as hard as she could to the back of his head killing him. This act of sudden violence shows how much she has gone ...
This expectation that Mary grabs within her deep heart only makes “Mary [is] hurt” (Atwood 18), but there is nothing that she can do about it because her personality is simply too hopeless, helpless, and submissive, just like her attitude towards her days with John. The short sentences used by the writer such as “…John complains about the food” (Atwood 18) and “Mary is hurt” (Atwood 18) are usually characterizing John’s thoughtless and careless actions, which spears Mary’s tender heart like a bullet. The contrast between his painful actions and words (short sentences) with his infinite selfish actions (long sentences) showcases the cruelty of version B’s John and the helplessness of Mary. Similarly, as the author explains the stories with a similar phrase at the end, “…everything continues as in A”. Atwood does this to show that “happy endings” happen no matter what the process is.
Callaway, A. A. (2008). Women Disunited: Margaret Atwood's The handmaid's tale as a critique of feminism. SJSU ScholarWorks , 48-58.