The narrator in touching bottom strongly experiences feminist awakening. She experiences this from a very young age, always trying to prove herself to a male figure, even if it may be her father. The author displays many examples of feminism and stereotypes throughout the short story. She makes it to be that a male figure had authority in this world and the women must follow his lead.
The narrator walks into a marriage where she feels lonely and afraid. Why would she want to take part in a marriage that would leave her feeling this way? To me this displays that a women feels the need to be married by a certain age. Has the society put pressure on creating a family? and is there a certain age where this has to happen?
It seems that the narrator has a stronger relationship with her step son then her husband, I believe this could be because she does not feel the pressure to fill the needs to be his mother or wife, he already has a mother who has made it clear that she can not be replaced, and he is simply a young boy.
A great example from this short story is when the son and narrator are drowning. The husband is too occupied to notice that his "loved" ones are desperately struggling. He instead his observing a stereotypical blonde beach volleyball player. Men are grouped in many different stereotypical groups some as protectors and others as pigs. The narrator had doubts about her marriage in the first place, why did she have to experience this before she knew she was better off without him, and she didn't need a man's protection to save her life.
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Hey Rachel. I really like how you touched on the narrator's relationship with each of the men in the story (Father, Husband, Step-Son) as they are all relevant to the feminist awakening. I also fully agree with the stereotypes you noted, and the extremes of portraying men as protectors or pigs.
ReplyDelete***(Just watch a couple of capitalization / grammatical errors. Very minor, but somewhat distracting when reading.)