Anita's Dance

Since the 20th century, feminism has brought on a perspective of interpreting literature which emphasizes equality for women. In Anita’s Dance by Marian Engel, the critical feminist perspective of the writing, in my opinion, shows the struggle of how women struggle to find the respect and therefore equality of males. Showalter's approaches: the French, the American, and the female sub-text of tragedy that answer the different questions to what men see the role of women being and how this restricts the advancements and evolution of females. Then there is the 3 stages of feminism which women utilize to find the long ignored equality between the genders. Anita’s Dance is a short story which depicts the struggle of a women to break free from the stereotypical and victorian definition for the ‘role of a women’. When this story is looked at through a feminist lens Anita’s situation shows the different approaches and how she employs the strategies in the 3 stages of feminism looking for the respect of men that …show more content…
This way of writing objectifies women as objects that are used to meet the expectations of men. In line 3 the narrator speaks of how Anita was content with her garden and her delphiniums, daisies, and poppies. Flowers are commonly tied to the idea of a women in respect to how flowers are valued because of their beauty (http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/13/3611.full). Much ike women are objectified for their beauty. For example, in line 55 Jack says,” Nita was nothing, all skin and bone. No wonder she never got married or nothing.” This is an example of how men value women, like flowers, for their beauty and since Anita doesn’t fit this she was bound to end up alone. The fact that Anita says she was happy having her garden and her flowers is her saying that she doesn't need beauty and the attention and objectification of a man to have