Gender Roles and Women in Carol Emshwiller's 'Abominable'
Christine Anderson
Dr. Brown
English 1102
24 March 2013
Abominable
Carol Emshwiller didn’t start her writing until she was thirty, a mother, and married. Emshwiller, “was just learning the lessons of feminism on the front lines of domestic lines” (539). In Carol Emshwiller’s short story during the 1980’s “Abominable”, Emshwiller shows how men, in their sexual confusion, ethnic inexperience, and self-disasters, are not capable of understanding women and their needs, anger, and bitterness. The unnamed and self-styled man in the story shows his stereotypical, phallocentric attitudes to understand women becomes more humorous, rather than angry. From transforming the battle of sexes into the man’s search for an misleading species akin to the Yeti, to the story that reveals a feminism point of view. It shows the writers sexist viewpoint of women throughout the story. The story is revealed in a hidden domestic underground life of female society imagined by men (540). The commander in the story has met one of the women in the mountains named Grace several months ago, and wants all of the other to meet them and get a feeling of how it is too have a woman adapt to their lifestyle. They all are dressed up as Marines, but only one is an actual Marine. Wanting to know more about these women, because of they have a picture of the woman the commander had met several months ago, started their project to find the women at the top of the mountain. Through the diverse, complex views that men and women have on each other, Emshwiller creates a diverse, complex view on the different gender roles men and women play in society. The dialogue used in the story helps create how the outlooks of men and women are different. The story starts out with the unnamed narrator’s story of how the commander of them met a woman several months ago, and all they have left is the picture of her in their wallet. The commander tells the men to visualize the way women are, with their outsize hips,
Dr. Brown
English 1102
24 March 2013
Abominable
Carol Emshwiller didn’t start her writing until she was thirty, a mother, and married. Emshwiller, “was just learning the lessons of feminism on the front lines of domestic lines” (539). In Carol Emshwiller’s short story during the 1980’s “Abominable”, Emshwiller shows how men, in their sexual confusion, ethnic inexperience, and self-disasters, are not capable of understanding women and their needs, anger, and bitterness. The unnamed and self-styled man in the story shows his stereotypical, phallocentric attitudes to understand women becomes more humorous, rather than angry. From transforming the battle of sexes into the man’s search for an misleading species akin to the Yeti, to the story that reveals a feminism point of view. It shows the writers sexist viewpoint of women throughout the story. The story is revealed in a hidden domestic underground life of female society imagined by men (540). The commander in the story has met one of the women in the mountains named Grace several months ago, and wants all of the other to meet them and get a feeling of how it is too have a woman adapt to their lifestyle. They all are dressed up as Marines, but only one is an actual Marine. Wanting to know more about these women, because of they have a picture of the woman the commander had met several months ago, started their project to find the women at the top of the mountain. Through the diverse, complex views that men and women have on each other, Emshwiller creates a diverse, complex view on the different gender roles men and women play in society. The dialogue used in the story helps create how the outlooks of men and women are different. The story starts out with the unnamed narrator’s story of how the commander of them met a woman several months ago, and all they have left is the picture of her in their wallet. The commander tells the men to visualize the way women are, with their outsize hips,