Gender Roles
...oint is only furthered by the fact that the only woman present is such a fairy tale character. She is portrayed to us as all but a sorceress and it can be assumed she has taken on this persona in order to survive in a predominately male post in a totally male dominated environment. Even in our class it was evident that many readers were taken aback by the fact that Sachar chose to make his warden a female. And so it again can be seen that Sachar has imparted onto us a bias that a real woman could not function in this world so he had to invent a completely fictional and grandiose one. With all the other characters in the book appearing so human, it seems obvious he turned the warden into a beast because he felt he had to. In What Jamie Saw, by Carolyn Coman, gender bias shows itself in a new way. In this book masculinity and evil seem to go hand in hand. There is the character of Van, who is pretty much the same abusive man from every after school special and info-mercial we see during primetime, doing terrible things to a defenseless family. Then there is Jamie, who by my estimation is one of the meekest male characters I have encountered in a children’s book. Finally we have Earl, who is such a hollow character that I truly believe he is merely Coman’s “out” for this book and nothing more. He is the not threatening to Jamie and his family because he is not anything or anyone; he is simply the idea of a man. He is not developed as a character nor does he give any insight into the situation he encounters and therefore can be disregarded as a tertiary character either passive or emotionally absent from the world around him. Van and Jamie however, serve a much more prominent and functional purpose. Van strikes me much the same way the Warden does in Holes. Although he is presented in a slightly less fantastic light, one cannot help but see him as the embodiment of evil and destruction within Coman’s world. This not only demonstrates a stereotype of men as violent, but it also is a necessity to the book because it does not ever actually detail the violence occurring in the book other than the opening. By making Van the animal that he is, we as readers have an easier time believing he is capable of the horrors inherent within this book. He takes on almost a Neanderthal-ic feel as the book progresses and the lives of everyone involved become more complicated. I do not mean to suggest that power and masculinity always must go together, but Van most certainly is shown to us as the stereotypical dominant male from the start. Using his brawn to solve problems rather than his brain, Van is our worst nightmare of what a man is capable of becoming: a thoughtless, guiltless tornado of destruction. Coman uses these biases present in our minds to amplify her character and thereby increase the power of her story. The gender bias in Virginia Hamilton’s Cousins is very obvious and straightforward in the form of Patty Ann, who is described many times the way we would talk about a porcelain doll. Hamilton places on her character the two most common stereotypes women encounter: the image of perfection and an innate insecurity with themselves. She does this very blatantly, as is evident in her writing. This image of perfection can be seen in Cammy’s description of Patty Ann, “Patty Ann had her special expression again, the kind that made folks say she was the best. That made people not notice the rest of her was just skin and bones. Her face was just perfect…” (Hamilton 93). This image of fragile perfection is what has kept women (especially those of beauty) from being perceived as equal or intelligent. I was surprised to see this image so obviously presented until I realized it was necessary for the character to function properly within the story. However it is still obvious that one of the oldest female stereotypes exists in full force within the character on Patty Ann. In addition to this doll-like quality, Hamilton shows us the insecure underbelly of her character. Patty Ann shows throughout the book how much she fears what others think of her through her attitude. She has a tendency to be rather mean at times because of her insecurities and it serves to distance her from many people in her life. Hamilton uses Patty Ann to demonstrate the perceptions people may have of girls and then allows Cammy to digest Patty Ann’s short life in order to debunk them. The image of Patty Ann while she is alive and Cammy’s view of her after she is gone differ greatly, which serves to remove the validity from the very stereotypes Hamilton is presenting. Edward Bloor’s Tangerine presents us with a gender bias we encounter more commonly in TV sitcoms than in literature: that of the athletic, mean spirited, adolescent male. Erik’s tirades and terrors are well documented in the book, and though I will not rehash them I will say that they are tragic. Bloor’s character is menacing and torturous towards his little brother for his own amusement and spite. Erik’s ability to cover his tracks and allow everyone to believe he is a “normal” young man turns him into a conniving villain in this piece. Erik fits the jock/bully role perfectly and Bloor amplifies this by using Paul’s voice in his writing. Paul deems Erik’s goals as “The Erik Fisher Football Dream” and even comments on his love life. “I guess Paige and Tina want to date football players, so these two will do. Erik and Arthur want to date cheerleaders, so these two will do” (Bloor 39). Erik now is shown to us as a materialistic social climber with no regard for anyone but himself. The egotistical Adonis we now see serves as the villain to the sensitive and humble Paul. Bloor does this because to the modern reader the dominant male character is very easy to hate, what with his well-documented oppression of every other major group he encounters. Bloor further stereotypes the Fisher family, but for a very different reason than the other authors I have discussed. He is attempting to satirize ...