I have never experienced much disabilities being a women; the
society I live in has never been overly advantageous to men. However these two
short stories that also talk about women have some sticking features of society
that used to think of women as merely a trophy or an object.
Jeannie is raped by a man and she is heart-broken because the man
seemed to hate her. Instead of taking aggressive action on the man, she tries
to hide from her issues such as moving away from town. Also, her compulsion that
she should be loved by all of society is the main reason of her stress. Jeannie
symbolizes the portraits of women of those days when women don’t create their
own value but is valued by others as merely an object. Just like a dollhouse,
Jeannie doesn’t consider herself as a person who has a right to be shameful or
angry of the rape accident but a doll that is not loved by someone, a failure.
Another absurdity comes when all the fault
of being raped comes to Jeannie herself. When Jeannie defends herself that she
was just taking a walk, Mrs. Thompson scrutinizes, saying,
"In
high heels? With a purse on your arm, and a hat on your head? You don't go
taking a walk in the bush that way. There's no place to walk to. Where'd you
think you were going? I could smell Evening in Paris a quarter mile away.”
…
"You
could have cleaned up your home a bit. There was always that to do."
The criticism about Jeannie’s clothes provokes
some thoughts on KMLA rules too. The reason why KMLA doesn’t allow short pants
or even ordinary skirts for girls even in stifling summer days come from the
reason that we are living with boys too and it disturbs the study-atmosphere,
causing distraction to fellow students and staff. To be girly, fancy and pretty
is a desire of ordinary women that is not aimed to seduce other men, but this
desire is trampled because it seemingly disturbs men. Doesn’t this rule also
mean that we are putting men’s problem in front of women’s ordinary desire? Instead
of wearing burka, shouldn’t we just teach men that there are nothing in
correlation between “I want sex” and skirts? There was a campaign about
women-rape months ago with a phrase
“You
raped her because her clothes provoked you? I should break your face because
your stupidity provokes me.”
“My
short skirt is not an invitation/a provocation/an indication/ that I want it or
that I give it… my short skirt, believe it or not, has nothing do with you.”
The actions of these two women provoke the thoughts of the readers that
somehow, they are not human being but a doll that should be loved by all, that
does not hold any value themselves but should be price-tagged.
In
contrast, Prue deals with her quotidian problem in other way: passiveness. She has
some similarities with the above two women characters that she views herself as
minor character of her life. From the main story-line of how Gordon meets with
the woman waiting at the door, she only hears the crash and the female voice;
she is the sideline of the main story, the audience of an absurd act (From lemonhound). She is merely an
ornament of Gordon, the safety net and nearly worthless when Gordon’s in love
with other woman. However different from the above two characters: Jeannie and
Mrs. Thompson, she is well-aware of her and Gordon’s absurdity and passes it
away dismissively.
“I
think he was afraid I was going to laugh. He doesn’t know why people laugh or
throw their overnight bags at him, but he’s noticed they do”
From the eye of Prue, we clearly see how she is the least important
of Gordon’s life, (even crème brulee is more important than her) but she passes
it away. The passiveness can also be seen in how she treats the tobacco tin.
She puts the object that is the reminder of the nonsense of it all and forgets
it. Chris Gilmore from lemonhound stated that this is exactly how Gordon treats
Prue: he objectifies, dismisses, and forgets Prue. However, I think this action
takes greater meaning in how Prue treats her quotidian events. She has all the
reason to be angry, regretful or pitiful of the events yet she stays away from
the events as if she’s the audience of her life, dismisses it and forgets about
it.
