Charlotte Wood's novel, The Natural Way of Things provides a critique of its dystopic civilization as well as the wider society it developed from. The human condition includes a disconnect between internal thoughts and external behaviour when faced with challenging situations. Wood demonstrates this fallibility through her protagonists Verla and Yolanda, by exposing their internal reflections and external behaviour on sexuality, judgement and the importance of community. Wood's novel provides a complex examination of the dystopic removal of natural traits, through the civilization's fear of sexuality by the internal reflections and external behaviours of Verla and Yolanda. A fear that is reflected in Wood's personal context as a female author
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These internal reflections are contradicted by the external behaviours of the captive women and Boncer himself. "Rhiannon and Leandra agree that they wouldn't mind doing it with Teddy", shows the effect of sexual frustration on the women, …show more content…
This community provides a comfort to the women throughout the text, as they are locked in overnight in 'dogboxes'. "They sometimes call out to one another… passing from one dogbox to the next." the use of Zoomorphism to emphasize the dehumanization of the women is the cause of the growth of a community. This civilization continues to grow and flourish towards the end of the novel, "They stayed up all night… laughing, crying, chattering, enthralled", using cumulative detail to describe the communal emotion in response to their freedom. Wood reflects on the importance of relationships in times of trial, linking it to sanity. Wood show’s this through the character of Hetty, who is ostracized from the community and becomes a human sacrifice to the predatory Boncer, "Hetty comes to stand and watch at the outer edge of the ring of girls". The behavior of Hetty in this sentence, reflects the reality of her life in Wood's dystopia, leading to her eventual suicide in the resolution of the novel. It is the combination of the bonding community of the women in the dogboxes, and the consequences of a lack of such community for Hetty, that Wood shows the importance of community to survival in dystopias.
Charlotte Wood in The Natural Way of Things, uses her characters' Verla and Yolanda as vehicles for commentary and critique by contrasting their
These internal reflections are contradicted by the external behaviours of the captive women and Boncer himself. "Rhiannon and Leandra agree that they wouldn't mind doing it with Teddy", shows the effect of sexual frustration on the women, …show more content…
This community provides a comfort to the women throughout the text, as they are locked in overnight in 'dogboxes'. "They sometimes call out to one another… passing from one dogbox to the next." the use of Zoomorphism to emphasize the dehumanization of the women is the cause of the growth of a community. This civilization continues to grow and flourish towards the end of the novel, "They stayed up all night… laughing, crying, chattering, enthralled", using cumulative detail to describe the communal emotion in response to their freedom. Wood reflects on the importance of relationships in times of trial, linking it to sanity. Wood show’s this through the character of Hetty, who is ostracized from the community and becomes a human sacrifice to the predatory Boncer, "Hetty comes to stand and watch at the outer edge of the ring of girls". The behavior of Hetty in this sentence, reflects the reality of her life in Wood's dystopia, leading to her eventual suicide in the resolution of the novel. It is the combination of the bonding community of the women in the dogboxes, and the consequences of a lack of such community for Hetty, that Wood shows the importance of community to survival in dystopias.
Charlotte Wood in The Natural Way of Things, uses her characters' Verla and Yolanda as vehicles for commentary and critique by contrasting their