Rape Fantasies

Curtis 587012050Sally 586202051

Claire 587202644

-Margaret Atwood won 2000 National Booker Prize by writing （ The Blind Assassin ） 《盲眼刺客》

1 Literary Style2 Characters

3 Analysis4 Reference Books

Literary Style-Curtis

1. Dramatic Monologue  2. Setting

-Time

-Locale

-Point of View

3. Summary

A poem in which a single speaker who is not the poet utters the entire poem at a critical moment. The speaker has a listener within the poem, but we too are his/her listener, and we learn about the speaker's character from what the speaker says. In fact, the speaker may reveal unintentionally certain aspects of his/her character.

1.Dramatic Monologue

2. Setting1.time:Friday night

-before yesterday….(p.383)

2.locale: a bar in Toronto-it’s only Toronto (p.384)-the waiters all know me…. (p.389)

3.point of view: first person(narrator)Characters: 6 characters (including the silent listener)-Estelle spoke, “it’s different for a guy.”(p.387) -“you”= Estelle’s listener“what magazine you open,…”(p.383)“I hope you don’t mind me holding …” (p.387)

3.Summary At a bar in Friday night, there are 8 rape fantasies presents in the short fiction which are told by Estelle to a stranger who intends to rape her. Also, Estelle talks about not only her personal rape fantasies, but also her friends’.

Characters-Sally 1.Narrator – Estelle 2.You – a guy who tries to pick Est

elle up in a bar 3.Co-workers – Chrissy

Sondra

Darlene

Greta

Personality-1

Estelle is curious about other people. Paragraph 9: She’s the oldest, she’s forty-one though you would not know it and neither does she, but I looked it up in the employee’s file. Paragraph 12: She’s divorce, I read that in the file too, she never talks about it. It must been years ago anyway.

Personality-2 Estelle is far away from home. She is lonely. She

needs friends very much. She is very kind to all of her fancied rapist. Such as in paragraph 26: and I say to him, “You’re intending to rape me, right?” and he nods, so I open my purse to get the plastic lemon, and I can’t find it! My purse is full of all this junk, Kleenex and cigarettes and my change purse and my lipstick and my driver’s license, you know the kind of stuff; so I ask him to hold out his hands, like this, and I pile all this junk into them and down at the bottom there’s the plastic lemon, and I can’t get the top off. So I hand it to him and he’s very obliging, he twists the top off and hands it back to me, and I squirt him in the eyes.”

Personality-3 Estelle is outraged about men who raped

women they knew. Paragraph 41: But maybe it’s different for a guy. Last paragraph: How could a fellow do that to a person he’s just had a long conversation with, once you let them know you’re human, you have a life too, I don’t see how they could go ahead with it, right? I mean, I know it happens but I just don’t understand it, that’s the part I really don’t understand.

Personality-4

Estelle thinks that men have more freedom to meet people. Paragraph 35: I’m telling you, I was really lonely when I first came here; I thought it was going to be such a big adventure and all, but it’s a lot harder to meet people in a city. But I guess it’s different for a guy.

Personality-5 Paragraph 5: “Rape fantasies,” Chrissy said. “For Chrissake, I’m eating an egg sandwich,” I sai

d, “and I bid one club and Darlene passed.” Estelle is not interested in the topic. She seems

not popular in the group; for her jokes dose not make the others laugh. Paragraph 23: “Anyway you might get bubbles up your nose,” I said, “from the deep breathing,” and I swear all four of them looked at me like I was in bad taste.

  Estelle doest not think that going out at night is such a bad idea. Check the settings in her fantasies, but Darlene doesn’t think so. Paragraph 9: “I don’t think you should go out alone at night,” Darlene said,” you put yourself in a position,”

Personality-6

I think that there are two reasons that Estelle keeps a long conversation with a stranger at the bar. First, she wants to make friends with him. Secondly, she hopes that the man will not rape her.

Personality-7 Chrissy arouses the topic. She seems intere

sted in it and her fancy is very romantic. Her thoughts probably are effected by magazines, Hollywood movies and TV dramas. Paragraph 5: “Rape fantasies,” Chrissy said. She’s a receptionist and she looks like one; she’s pretty but cool as a cucumber, like she’s been painted all over with nail polish, if you know what I mean. Varnished. “It says here all women have rape fantasies.” Paragraph 11: “Well, do you?” Chrissy said. She was obviously trying to tell us about hers abut she wasn’t about to go first, she’s cautious, that one.

Personality-8 Sondra seems not clever. She didn’t know h

ow to cooperate with her bridge partner. Paragraph 7: “You mean like some guy jumping you in an alley or something,” Sondra said. She was eating her lunch, we all eat our lunches during the game, and she bit into a piece of that celery she always brings and started to chew away on it with this thoughtful expression in her eyes. Paragraph 25: Sondra was miffed too, by this time she’d finished her celery and she wanted to tell about hers, but she hadn’t got in fast enough. Paragraph 31: Sondra never did get a chance to tell about her rape fantasy.

Personality-9

Darlene is forty-one years old. She is divorced, but she never talks about it. She does not think a girl should go out alone at night and rape fancy is good. She protects herself strongly. Paragraph 21: “Don’t you scream or anything?” said Darlene. She’d come back with her cup of coffee, she was getting really interested. “ I’d scream like bloody murder.”

Personality-10

Greta must have experienced something really terrible in Detroit. She seems quite rational and logical. See paragraph 13.

Analysis-Claire 1. Eight Fantasies

– Greta’s

– Chrissy’s

– Estelle’s (6 fantasies)

2. Difference and Similarity Between Estelle’s Fantasies And Her Friends’

1. Eight Fantasies1. Greta’s Fantasy(p.384)

-”Just likeTarzan.”

2. Chrissy’s Fantasy(p.385)-”bathtub”,”bubbles”

3. Estelle’s Fantasies(6 fantasies)1) ”plastic lemon”(p.385)

2) ”Mr. Clean”(p.386)

3) “dermatologist”(p.386)

4)”St. Anne”(p.387)

5) “a Kung-Fu expert’(p.388)

6) “leukemia”(p.388)

2. Difference and Similarity Between Estelle’s Fantasies and Her Friends’

Estelle’s

Fantasies

Greta and Chrissy’s

Fantasies

Darlene’s response

Difference Reality Romance Reality

Similarity Desire for

Friendship

-lonely (p.387)

-kinship (victim and criminal)

Desire for Love (p.385)

Desire for

Safety

-women’s attitudes(p.384)

4. Reference Book Atwood, Margaret.“Rape Fantasies,”in Barnet, Sylvan. Morton, B

erman. & Burto, William. ed. An Introduction to Literature (11th edi.). Harper Collins, 1997:334-341.

Atwood, Margaret. Good Bones and Simple Murders. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1992.

Derrida, Jacques.“Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences.”In Macksey and Donato (1970): 247-65.

Friedman, Thomas B. & Hengen, Shannon. ed. Approaches to Teaching Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Other Works. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1996.

Hengen, Shannon. Margaret Atwood's Power. Toronto, ON: Second Story Press,1993.

Howell, Coral Ann. Modern Novelists: Margaret Atwood. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.

Keith, W. J. Canadian Literature in English. London, New York: Longman, 1985.

McCombs, Judith. Critical Essays on Margaret Atwood. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall & Co., 1988.

謝瑤玲東吳大學英文系副教授 , 『瑪格麗特‧艾伍德之〈強暴幻想〉與〈女體〉的教學意含』

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