Friday, March 18, 2011
Weak and Wicked Women
Our book club met this week, and what a great discussion. I'm pretty sure it went well, because we talked nonstop for two hours and could have gone on longer if time and biology had allowed. Everyone brought excellent questions to the table and seemed comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. The cookies were delicious works of art. At first glance the stories we selected were a mix of style and genre: science fiction by Isaac Asimov, a Grimm fairy tale, a Neil Gaiman fable, a Christmas love story and a morality mystery. But by the time the session was over I realized we had a theme after all: images of women in short fiction. With the exception of the sci fi story which neutered women entirely--it was, after all, about the recreation of Man--the stories featured disturbingly unflattering images of women in almost every disfunctional female role imaginable: the girlwife emotional wreck comforted by her sensible husband in The Gift of the Magi; the jealous, shallow princess in The Lady and the Tiger willing (I think) to send her honest lover to his death rather than see him marry another; the shrewish old aunt and the personality zero girlchild Cinnamon brought to life (and maturity) by an overtly masculine tiger, and the vacuous Goose Girl with long blond hair betrayed by her wicked lady in waiting. Not a grown-up, clever female in the lot. To be fair, the men are no prizes either unless you have a fondness for strangely oversexed tigers, but they at least represent admirable qualities like power, intelligence, justice, and trust. Yes, the stories were all written by men. But Neil Gaiman, et tu?
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Yeah, I didn't find too many great characters from either gender really. The king and the lover in the lady or the tiger were... Well, yeah, totally ridiculous, as was pretty much everyone in Cinnamon. The one where I guess there was some sort of redeeming male char was the Goose Girl. But hey, there was a powerful female in that, even though she was also conniving and backstabbing. Lol, oh well.
ReplyDeleteGlad you guys enjoyed yourselves. I was delighted to see the book clubs be so well-received!
ReplyDeleteGosh, you're right, Susan. (Though, considering how frustrated I was with several of the women in the stories, I should have put the theme together on my own). Interesting point!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great summary and analysis!
ReplyDeleteWow, I didn't put that idea about the theme together either, which is ironic considering how loud I got a couple of times about weak-willed lady characters. Way to synthesize, Susan! :)
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