Saturday, March 24, 2012
Voyage in the Dark
One
thing I noticed in the book was how none of the men in the novel seem to
respect women. This was exemplified by
Vincent in his letter to Anna. In the
letter, Vincent referred to Anna as an ‘Infant.’ He capitalized the first letter of the word,
implying that he is using that as a name for her. This theme of infantilizing women and not
respecting women was a theme that carried on throughout the book. All of the men that Anna meets seem to refer
to Anna as being young, and therefore implying that she should be treated as a
child rather than as an adult. Because
they viewed Anna this way, they gave her the same amount of respect as they
would to a small child, which is next to none.
While all of the men seemed to comment about how young Anna was, Walter
made a comment about Germaine and how she was too old. Based on these comments, it made me wonder
whether there actually is any age in which men do respect women
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Kim you raise an interesting issue. I agree with you completely. I was also noticing the lack of respect that was given to Anna by men. Anna is taken advantage of and then is just dumped to the curb by Walter because she is an "infant". You also point to this other idea with Germaine. Germaine is considered too old and Anna too young for men to show respect. This is interesting but hints at the perfect age being the late twenties. I wonder if this lack of respect by men will continue throughout the remainder of the story.
ReplyDeleteI also sensed the lack of respect for women. Just having Vincent write the letter for Walter to me showed a lack of respect, and as you pointed out, the contents of the letter were belittling to Anna. I think it is interesting how you pointed out how she is constantly seen as a young girl. I also think it is important to notice even Hester shows a lack of respect.
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