Notesale: Turn your study into money

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The Theme of Male Dominance in
Margaret Atwood 's Bluebeard's Egg
The Bluebeard’s Egg by Margaret Atwood is a short story set in the late
50’s with a medical motif, describing the life of Sally and her husband Ed
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Although Sally has an excellent
position in her career, she spends most of her time at home, making sure
everything in the household is in the right place and order
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Sally’s lack of power is evident in her dialog with Ed and others
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At first, she claims
that Ed is stupid, but she is only trying to convince herself of it, as acknowledging
his intelligence would be highly painful for her
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“What she sees is her own heart, in black and white,
beating with that insubstantial moth-like flutter, a ghostly heart, torn out of her
and floating in space, an animated valentine with no color
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Aware of his position, Ed consciously uses Sally for his own
pleasure, treating her almost as if she were a pet, rather than a human being with
a soul and feelings
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Sally herself acknowledges
this fact, as well as the amount of power he has over her, when she states that
“he [seems] so distant” and that her heart “was beating over there all by itself,
detached from her, exposed and under his control
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Marylynn, Sally’s close




friend, states it extremely clearly, that “divorce was one of the best things that
ever happened to her,” and that she was “just a nothing” before she got the
divorce
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At one point, Sally also worries that she might be in
a position Marylynn was, but she puts that idea aside, afraid that it might be true
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Sadly, men did not feel the
importance of expressing their feelings to women, or even valuing women
equally, and rather focused on strengthening their position in the family and
society in general
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This,
however, resulted in a low self-esteem and frustration on the women’s side, and
set a scene for the following decades, in which women were treated differently
than men, and had to undergo a long path of proving themselves equal to obtain
the same rights men have

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