Gender War Through Writing
It is obvious that people have the tendency to favor the gender that they identify with over the other, and often put the two against each other. The common assumption is that children usually portray this bias behavior, and as they get older, they grow out of it. Although this is the stereotypical belief, this behavior does not always die off with childhood, instead sticking with some throughout their entire adulthood, leaving those to choose to act upon it, some through writing. The Bell Jar and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are two novels written with the theme of madness. The Bell Jar is written by Sylvia Plath, a woman with a female protagonist. Ken Kesey, a man, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with …show more content…
He portrays her as an evil manipulator, with only bad intentions for her patients. This is obvious for the readers and the patients who consist of all men. The narrator, Bromden, seems to have the best understanding of her, and her intentions, describing them saying, “What she dreams of there in the center of those wires is a world of precision efficiency and tidiness like a pocket watch with a glass back, a place where the schedule is unbreakable and all the patients who aren’t Outside, obedient under her beam, are wheelchair Chronics with catheter tubes run direct from every pant leg to the sewer under the floor,” (29). Bromden explains them as if her job wasn’t to care for the patients in the ward, but instead assert power of them. Her main method to gain this power is through manipulation, which tends to break down the patients of the ward. They live in constant fear of her, yet they realize what she is doing to them. One of the patients describes his personal experience to the protagonist, McMurphy, saying, “‘No. She doesn’t need to accuse. She has a genius for insinuation. Did you ever hear her, in the course of our discussion today, ever once hear her accuse me of anything? Yet it seems I have been accused of a multitude of things, of jealousy and paranoia, of not being man enough to satisfy my wife, of having relations with male friends of mine, of holding my cigarette in an affected manner, even- it seems to me- accused of having nothing between my legs but a patch of hair- and soft and downy and blond hair at that! Ball-cutter? Oh, you underestimate her!’” (64). Even though he only includes one main female character in his novel, Kesey still antagonizes women through his writing, describing them as manipulative and
It is obvious that people have the tendency to favor the gender that they identify with over the other, and often put the two against each other. The common assumption is that children usually portray this bias behavior, and as they get older, they grow out of it. Although this is the stereotypical belief, this behavior does not always die off with childhood, instead sticking with some throughout their entire adulthood, leaving those to choose to act upon it, some through writing. The Bell Jar and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest are two novels written with the theme of madness. The Bell Jar is written by Sylvia Plath, a woman with a female protagonist. Ken Kesey, a man, wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with …show more content…
He portrays her as an evil manipulator, with only bad intentions for her patients. This is obvious for the readers and the patients who consist of all men. The narrator, Bromden, seems to have the best understanding of her, and her intentions, describing them saying, “What she dreams of there in the center of those wires is a world of precision efficiency and tidiness like a pocket watch with a glass back, a place where the schedule is unbreakable and all the patients who aren’t Outside, obedient under her beam, are wheelchair Chronics with catheter tubes run direct from every pant leg to the sewer under the floor,” (29). Bromden explains them as if her job wasn’t to care for the patients in the ward, but instead assert power of them. Her main method to gain this power is through manipulation, which tends to break down the patients of the ward. They live in constant fear of her, yet they realize what she is doing to them. One of the patients describes his personal experience to the protagonist, McMurphy, saying, “‘No. She doesn’t need to accuse. She has a genius for insinuation. Did you ever hear her, in the course of our discussion today, ever once hear her accuse me of anything? Yet it seems I have been accused of a multitude of things, of jealousy and paranoia, of not being man enough to satisfy my wife, of having relations with male friends of mine, of holding my cigarette in an affected manner, even- it seems to me- accused of having nothing between my legs but a patch of hair- and soft and downy and blond hair at that! Ball-cutter? Oh, you underestimate her!’” (64). Even though he only includes one main female character in his novel, Kesey still antagonizes women through his writing, describing them as manipulative and