Sorry it's taken so long, mala--this has been hell week...
>heather, what differences did you find in fear between male and female
>characters?
> mala
The differences between male and female-authored monsters were amazingly
distinct. Without fail, all the male-authored monsters represented some
aspect of traditional society that came under critique within the story.
Additionally, the authors used "typical" means of evoking a fear-response
from the reader: emphasis on non-human traits, and an "us-versus-them" type
of mentality. *None* of the female-authored monsters were intended to evoke
fear or disgust on the part of the reader (though they did on the part of
other characters). Also (and this is what blew my mind), they *all*
contained a pronounced male-female duality, a sort of bi-genderedness.
Aditionally, in 2 of the stories the female-authored monster was the
protagonist; in the 3rd, the object of love of the protagonist. In the
male-authored stories, the monster was never the protagonist.
I don't know if the women intended their bi-gendered monsters so that any
reader could identify with being a misfit or not--it's tempting, but
ultimately futile, to read it that way. But the bi-genderedness in a
non-fearful setting is an interesting means of reverting the figure of
monster to its original latin meaning, as a sign of wonder. It would be
indeed "wonder-ful" if men and women could meet in a single locus, discuss,
then go their separate ways (as one of the characters in a Canadian story
says, as well as Luce Irigaray, a French feminist critic...).
Heather
=)
hmaclean@kent.edu
http://kent.edu/~hmaclean/
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