Do the Right Thing:
Seniors: In class today, you did some research into how the stories and the novel we've read together represent male and female characters. Tonight, write a commentary in the comments section of this blog post that responds to one of the following questions that came up in class or addresses one of the unit's EQ's.
Remember that you are writing for an audience and while your tone need not be as formal as it is for a paper, you should still use appropriate language.
Questions brought up in class:
-In Flight, are moral dilemmas presented as male dilemmas? Why doesn't Zits ever inhabit a female character?
-In "Until Gwen," does Denis Lehane criticize or perpetuate violence against women?
In your post,discuss the implications of our research today. Does it matter how authors' represent male and female characters? What are the implications of your research?
*ALERT! Make sure to draft your commentary beforehand on a google doc or word document in case it doesn't post. If you are having issues, email it to me and I'll make sure it is published.
Juniors: Read all of the instructions for the seniors, but instead of posting, draft a commentary in your notebook. It should be about a page long.
AP Language and Composition: Reread "Sixty-Nine Cents," noting and commenting on:
1.) Imagery
2.) Diction
3.) Juxtaposition: where does Shteyngart compare and contrast imagery/characters/settings?
4.) Tone: what is the author's tone in various parts of the essay and where, exactly, does it shift?
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In "Until Gwen" Lehane demonstrates many stereotypical gender roles in the secondary and tertiary characters, while making the primary characters stereotypes more subtle. It seems to me that the narrator in the only nuanced character. The Father depicts the male gender role of brutality, violence, and indifference, while most of the female characters depict the female gander role of innocence, submission, and the idea that they are there to be used by men.
ReplyDelete(continued) While the primary character does slip from the stereotypes presented in the father, specifically indifference, he is given more subtle stereotypes. This is uncovered primarily at the end, when he mourns his inability to protect Gwen, as if it was his duty as a "man" to protect her, and when we find out that he used her to hide the diamond.
DeleteIn Escape From Spiderhead, the author represents the male characters as males who can control each other and the females, they have the role of superiority, provider, money and wealth, brutality, and being business-focused. The author represents the females as people who are dumb and can be controlled, they have the role of submissive, sex object, beauty, sexually driven, and being controllable. The males got these roles because of the warden and his assistant controlling the inmates for their drugs that they present for money, they can kill any inmate at anytime with just a button, and they provide the inmates food and a place to stay at while they are jailed . And the females got their roles because the warden controlled them using drugs to make the test subjects see the other person and then the warden makes them have sex in front of him to see if the drug works.
ReplyDeleteWhat stuck out to me was how Sherman Alexie explores the stereotypical definition of masculinity and femininity. And in a way, Alexie illustrates realistic portrayals of idealistic people that have characteristics of masculinity or femininity. We see this in “Flight” when Zits inhabits Hank as a body and is described as someone with a great physique and handsome features that make him look “tough” or more aggressive. In addition, Hank’s partner Art also embodies the characteristics of being masculine from the way he acts such as known as a leader who would take risks and one who’s impassive. The characterization of these two characters seem to reflect upon the society’s norms of what masculine means which is someone who seems to express no emotions or have a great physique, etc. As for femininity, we see this towards the end of the last chapter in “Flight” when Mary escorts Zits to the bathroom where she holds all her body treatment and as she presents them to Zits, the reader gets a sense of how femininity is defined in “Flight” by someone who seems to know a lot about make-up and takes care of her body well as well as being organized. And through the illustration of Mary, Alexie seems to suggest that someone who’s feminine is one who associates herself with body care treatment.
ReplyDeleteIn Dennis Lehane’s Until Gwen, Lehane perpetuates violence against women by conveying the belief that men look at women more like sexual objects and less like people. Lehane demonstrates this idea through the characterization of Mandy. When the Narrator is having sex with Mandy he says “you send Mandy home after she twice interrupts the sex to pontificate on the merits of Michael Bay films.”(2) The word “interrupts” suggests that Mandy is bothering the narrator during their sexual encounter. The actions demonstrated by the narrator convey the idea that he does not want to get to know Mandy and that he only wants to use her for her body. Therefore Lehane conveys the belief that men look at women more like sexual objects and less like people. Thus Lehane is perpetuating violence against women by dehumanizing Mandy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with David's perspective and I want to add onto his idea about the stereotype of gender role from another text. In "flight", Alexie suggests that men are the perpetrators of evil acts, while women are usually the victims. This is evident in the relationship between Zits' father and mother, as well as Jimmy and Linda. Zits' father abandons them before Zits was born, this is the cause of the agony that Zits' mother undergoes. Eventually, the mother dies from breast cancer and Zits becomes cynical about family and his own identity. It's clear that the father is the perpetrator of all of these tragedies. Despite the mother is victimized, she raises up Zits all on her own and nurtures him shows to me that women have maternal instinct. In addition, the portrayal of Jimmy suggests that men have lack of self-control and it is usually the reason that leads them to do evil acts. For example, When Jimmy is having affair with another woman, he does not realize the consequence as if Linda were to find out. According to the scene when Linda points the pistol at Jimmy connotes to me that nothing hurts a woman more than the betrayal of her loved ones. Indeed, Linda is reluctant to shoot Jimmy because she is soft-hearted and tolerating. I think that women's tolerance is usually the weakness of theirs' and that's what allows men to take advantages on them over and over. The fact that women are often victimized is because of their morals, while guys are selfish and only do whatever they think its the best and neglect the pain on women.
ReplyDeleteSomething that stuck out to me in Sherman Alexie’s Flight that I hadn’t noticed before was the fact that Zits never inhabits the body of a woman during his body hopping spree over the course of the novel. Could it be that simply Zits, as a male character, is relating to other male characters, or does it raise implications to how Alexie portrays the moral dilemma and the search for morality as a male issue? In defense of the latter, Alexie’s female characters in Flight are no where near as developed as his male characters are. Alexie portrays his female characters as defenders of morality, defenders of what is right and wrong, whereas his male characters are trying to discern between what is right and wrong and are unsure of where they morally stand. This is something we see with the conflict between the pilot who Zits inhabits towards the end of the book, Jimmy and his wife, Linda; Linda calls Jimmy out for his adultery while Jimmy struggles to come to terms with the fact he not only got caught cheating by his wife, he also indirectly had a hand in the attack that Abbad committed by crashing his plane into a building, as he was the one who taught Abbad how to fly it in the first place. Linda is able to immediately recognize Jimmy’s actions as wrong, while Jimmy has a hard time understanding the consequences of his wrongdoings. Ultimately, it’s Alexie’s portrayal of women as being inherently moral and knowing the difference between right and wrong, and of men as the ones who have to struggle to learn what is right and what is wrong that implies that the search for morality is a male issue.
ReplyDeleteIn Escape From Spiderhead, George Saunders criticizes that society over-sexualize people despite their genders. For example, through out the story Jeff, Rogan, Heather, and Rachel were all being drugged by Abnesti, most of their actions are sexual. Yet they actually don't feel anything towards each other but it's the drug that kind of dehumanizes them and makes them go against their will to do certain things, like to have sex.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kevin and want to add onto his argument. We see the definition of masculinity in Zits when he is in Gus' body. He injures himself when he falls off his horse. When he knows he can't continue, he tells Small Saint to "Save the kid!" and reassures Small Saint that he'll get away safely because Zits will "hold them off and buy them some time." (pg 102). This illustrates the stereotype that men will never quit and that they will sacrifice themselves to make sure the mission will be done. We see the societal definition of femininity when Zits first meets Mary, Zits' last foster mom. He describes her as "wearing a nurses uniform. She's really tall and has long brown hair and brown eyes. She has big cheekbones, too... She's smells pretty great, too." (pg. 175) This alludes to society's definition of "sexy" because when most people think of "sexy", they use those features: Long hair, Tall and slim, beautiful eyes, and a great smell.
ReplyDeleteIn “Until Gwen”, I feel as if Dennis Lehane perpetuates violence against women through the characterization of Bobby’s father. I felt as if in the story the women had been easily dismissed, all of them having been killed by accident or just to keep them shut. Bobby’s father forgot Mandy’s name referring her to the whore as well as Gwen. It seems as if the women of the story are minor characters but they have such an impact on the men of the story, specifically Bobby. It’s important how authors represent male and females because it sometimes demonstrates how they view the world. Books are reflections of an author’s thoughts and they sometimes challenge our beliefs or they don’t.
ReplyDeleteIn "Flight", ShermanAlexie reinforces the strict gender roles that have been indoctrinated into our society. It was rare to see this author challenge the women’s stereotypes, and in most cases Zits only acknowledged the physical state of women. When describing Hank’s wife he states, “She is beautiful with black hair, blue eyes, pale skin. She is maybe the most beautiful women I have ever seen.” (pg.58.) From this description, it is evident that the first thing he notices about her is attractiveness. Due to the physical recognition of his wife, it is implied that appearance is heavily valued in society, especially for women. Furthermore, It can implied the Alexie gave into very distinct gender roles perpetuated in today’s society, which for me, demolishes all empathy I had for the character Zits.
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't Zits ever inhabit a female character?
ReplyDeleteThrough out the text, Zits is found to be in a very crucial setting. These areas consist of places that involve a significant amount of violence and/or complex activity. Women are believed to be the more innocent and delicate gender. This gives off the idea that women are weak and incapable of committing difficult tasks. The facts that Zits never inhabits a female character indicates that author Sherman Alexie believes that a woman was not fit for any of the situations thats Zits was in. For example in the war zone setting, Zits was a male because having a female as someone who was going to commit violent acts did not seem appropriate or “right”. In other settings where Zits is a pilot and a cop, I believe he was not a woman because women are not taking as seriously as men in that work force. This story also raises the question, are moral dilemmas presented as male dilemmas? Throughout the text, the women who are poorly developed never face any dilemmas where they have to question their morals. However various times in the text, the men are deal with situations where the have to identify what is right and what is wrong. This leads me to believe that Sherman ALexie has a very sexist and stereotypical outlook on men and women. That the woman should already know right from wrong but a man must learn from his experiences what is moral and immoral.
Zits’ does not inhibit a female character because he can’t easily empathize them as well he can with men. It’s the same reason why certain men don’t understand feminism and the day-to-day obstacles women face on the basis of gender. Zits personally cannot relate to the experiences of women based on his gender. It’s hard to personally empathize with someone without that personal connection, which is exactly what Zits did in all of the male characters he inhibited. And that’s kind of why he became the more moral. All of them were confronted with a moral dilemma, that typically had to do violence- maybe because men are seen as the more ‘violent’ gender, I don’t know. For example, Zits had to accept Art’s cruel actions as being for the greater good, the voiceless Indian boy had to figure out if he should kill the white soldier, Zit’s had to contemplate changing his actions at the bank, etc.- which are all violent decisions. This could just be a lot less complicated than I made it out to be though. Maybe Alexie wanted to show that violence isn’t always the last resort with feelings of shame and alienation through Zits. So it logically makes sense that he would be placed in experiences of people committing acts of violence or witnessing them, and following the really bad stigma of men being the violent gender, Zits would transform into men.
ReplyDelete-Arta
From the way I understand it, Denis Lehane perpetuates violence against women. I think that the way she is thought of by bobby and his father is disgusting. For example when bobby send her home "sends her home after she twice interprets to pontificate the merits of Michael Bay films." This implies he can only see her as an object and that if she tries to propose her own ideas about a filmmaker then she is no longer worth being in his company because she is not fulfilling her own duty of "having sex." I find it funny too how Mandy the hooker appears to be the only character in the entirety of the novel who is actually smart and interesting and that's because she wants to be a screenplay writer while they just want to be killers and thieves. Even worse however, is when the father makes the sarcastic remark about bobby's mother "popping out from time to time, make us breakfast." This is sickening, the man is speaking about his own dead wife and all he can say is how she would be appear so she can make them breakfast. Not only is it cruel but talk about sexist. We would have liked to her "yea it would be nice if she was still around and could care and nurture you." Instead she is the classic house wife stereotype similar to the commercials we watched in school about the women and they way they feel powerful with their home cooking appliances. The violence against women is truly the way men and society reduce them to be nothing more then what men want them to be or what pleases the man. It's like when you hear about people decades ago who were self-hating because of their darker skin tone, it really must kill some of these people inside. It really makes you wonder how technology, modern science and etc. could really mean anything when the holocaust happened last century and women are still seen as objects. -Sam
ReplyDeleteIn Flight, the moral dilemmas presented in the text are mainly shown as male dilemmas. The dilemmas Zits is challenged by throughout the book are only seen as the kinds of dilemmas a man may face, such as cheating on his wife or where a father is morally challenged when he abandons his wife and child. These dilemmas are not seen at all from a woman's point of view, as a matter of fact they are distinctly seen from a mans point of view where he betrays women in different ways a Zits embodies other characters that do wrong by the women in their lives. For example, in one of the chapters Zits wakes up in a hospital bed as a pilot named Jimmy. Jimmy just so happened to be cheating on his wife with another woman, and is morally challenged when he decides to leave the woman he is having an affair with.
ReplyDeleteThe moral dilemmas in Flight are strictly seen from a male point of view and there are no examples in the text of a woman being morally challenged, only betrayed by the man in her life. Such as Zit's mother who was left alone by his father who never claimed his family to begin with.
-Kaylyn
In Flight, Zits mother and father both have an effect on who Zits is. But there effects are different, fitting the gender roles. Zits got more of his comfort and nurture from his mother and parts of him that are tough and strong from his dad. His dad abandoned him and so his effect was more manly, at such a young age it was just him and his mother. In his father’s effect Zits was forced to grow up on his own, men are strong and can take care of themselves. And since his mother died when he was so young he never had an actual father figure to look up to. I believe that the lack of a father figure in Zits life was what led him to be so troubled, therefore his father had a larger effect on him. Its not specifically gender roles but boys develop a lot of their characteristics from their dads, and girls from their moms. Zits does not inhabit a female character because the story is about how Zits lacks a father so he goes through these male experiences to help him grow as a man. If he was to inhabit a woman Flight wouldn’t be so much about lack of a father figure and his growth from boy to man. -Kira
ReplyDeleteIn “Escape from Spiderhead,” the author clearly embeds societal gender roles into the characters. It was interesting that Saunders gave the female characters such minimal dialogue and that the male characters seemed to control the situations. Since the female characters had such little dialogue and actions only regarding sex, Saunders demonstrates society’s (unfortunate) view; that women are supposed to be coy - to have this kind of shyness and innocence to be alluring/seductive. It was also interesting that the male characters in the text were the complete opposite. When on the drip, Jeff couldn’t control his actions and just began to have sexual intercourse with a complete stranger. I think that the ED556 effects on Jeff were used to illustrate men’s incapability to hide their sexual desires.
ReplyDeleteAlthough more authors should create characters that go against traditional values, I believe it’s reasonable for authors to portray their characters with gender roles. It challenges the reader to think beyond them and more importantly, to think for themselves rather than these values that are so deeply embedded in society.
In Flight, there is a clear advantage in the quantity of male characters compared to its female characters. As Zits goes through his time traveling journey, he never embodies a female character, Why is this? Is it because of the absence of his mother? There are female characters who portray present social stereotypes such as being weak and emotional. Linda was Jimmy’s wife who found out that he had been cheating on her after being married for 20 years. Her physical description is a typical married woman, old gray haired, and chubby. However, she portrayed a bravery and courage when pulling out a pistol on Jimmy, but was unable to kill him which still stereotypes women as weak and unable to do things that men can do. I believe because of Alexie’s history of a drunk father, he favored male characters and portrayed male dilemmas more than female dilemmas. Zits had a questionable identity, he knew he was half-Indian and a teenager who has bad acne but no more than that. Therefore, he goes on this time traveling journey to find himself. Each time he embodies a different character, he faces a new moral dilemma. Hank was to shoot a dead corpse, the Indian boy had to slash the throat of white soldier in means of vengeance, Gus had to lead an army of soldiers to ambush a village of his own people, and Jimmy had to face guilt and lived through a life of lies before ending it. ZIts learned what to do and what not to do, he learned what was moral and immoral. When Zits finally embodies his drunk father, he realizes what a shitty life he had. He lived through the terrors of his drunk father as well which gave him the conclusion to leave his son because he thought he couldn’t be a good enough father. Moral dilemmas in this novel are not just male dilemmas but normal social encounters that we live in everyday life.
ReplyDelete-Nick H.
In all the works we read, “Until Gwen”, “Escape From Spiderhead”, “The Lottery”, “The Veldt” and Flight show how the implications of the way women are portrayed in these works contribute to everyday sexism that women face today. Growing up women will always learn from a male perspective, only hearing their opinions and that their opinions are the only opinions that are worth hearing. The woman's opinions or thoughts will not be heard because in most books and movies men are the protagonists. Women are often portrayed only through their looks and in Flight this is most obvious. In the novel Flight one is able to see how Alexie really views women in the last chapter when Zits finally meets his new family. He describes the mother as hot and tells the reader what she is wearing. The mother makes breakfast for the family, helps Zits with his acne and by the story they were hugging and she was crying. This is how most women are portrayed in novels or short stories, with very little personality and being an extremely cliche character. In “Escape From Spiderhead”, another story with a male protagonist George Saunders uses women only for sex. In “Until Gwen” by Dennis Lehane both characters remember the stepmom flipping pancakes as if that was all she did, not a very memorable thing to remember someone by. These stories are only a few that depict women in a certain way that shows directly how the world values womens opinions and thoughts.
ReplyDeleteIn Flight by Sherman Alexie, besides the main social issues and themes presented in the book, there are other underlying themes about male and female stereotypes throughout the novel. I agree with Christina’s commentary on this novel, Zits is characterized as a typical teenage boy with certain stereotypes that are shown throughout the text. In the beginning of the story when we are first introduced to the character Zits, the first thing he notices about the foster mother is her height and weight, “Shes a short fat women” and goes on to say vulgar things about her that he could have no idea if its true or not, calling her a “loser who gorges on food like alcoholics drink booze. Before even knowing this woman, because of her appearance Zits has a extremely negative take on her as a human being. This relates to todays society of how men only care about appearance now and not what truly matters.
ReplyDeleteIn "Until Gwen" Denis Lehane serves to criticize violence against women. We see this through the actions of both Bobby and his father. As Bobby's father commits acts of violence against women, Bobby takes note of it and plots his revenge. He is first driven by his father to commit a crime which resulted in the death of George's mother. This then results in Bobby getting arrested, and his father hunting down and killing the love of his life. As Bobby serves time in jail, he has lots of time to plot and plan his revenge against his father. Finally, as though it is the tip of the iceberg, Bobby learns of the death of the escort that his father has bought for him. As Bobby beats his father to death, Denis Lehane shows the reader the consequences of committing violent acts against women through Bobby's actions.
ReplyDeletePatrick G.
Patrick G.
In Flight, Zits experiences male transformations because of a missing male figure in his life, such as his dad. The unknown presence of his father left Zits alone and made him into a cold person who constantly had an inner fire ready to burst at particular moments. This fire blocked him from feeling emotions and the ability to be compassionate. For him to experience more male transformations made up for the missing time he suffered from having a father. His father has similar resentments to Zits. Each of these identities he has encountered causes confusion about himself and what he is trying to find. Later on he realizes that every person has inner conflicts and moments of confusion. Ultimately, what Zits realizes is that one's identity is defined more by one’s behavior than by race or wealth. Additionally, if he were to go through female transformations he wouldn't obtain the same perspective because females require a mother presence more than a father's presence which is why Zits needed these transformations through males to discover himself and recover from the damages he has initially suffered from the unawareness of his father.
ReplyDeleteLuka