Wolfe: Misogynist Or Realist?

Daniel D Jones · 20 Oct 2006, 21:56 · from 2006-October.txt.gz

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From: ddjones at riddlemaster.org (Daniel D Jones)
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:56:00 -0400
Subject: (urth) Wolfe: Misogynist Or Realist?
In-Reply-To: <20061020183800.75720.qmail at web39507.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20061020183800.75720.qmail at web39507.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200610201756.00556.ddjones at riddlemaster.org>

On Friday 20 October 2006 14:38, timothy fletcher wrote:
> Well, that post was meant to be mostly humorous, hence the "Yellow
> Wallpaper" comment, but I would say there is some validity to it. Moral
> context is truly important, but if you constantly write about rape and
> mistreatment of women over and over again, then there would seem to be some
> kind of over-infatuation going on. Goodkind really does that more than
> Martin. I haven't read him since high school, but I remember some kind of
> violence (usually sexual in nature) against women at least 5 or 6 times in
> a book, probably varying from book to book. That could just be my own
> memory. I think the argument with Wolfe is similar. He could and does write
> about other characters being mistreated or lacking depth, but he nearly
> consistently does so with women, with only a couple of exceptions. I think
> that's pretty much what the argument is, and I've seen little regarding
> moral context, since only a couple of people have pointed to actual
> examples (most of the ones I think people have mentioned are exceptions.
> That's not a slight against you at all, just an observation of the entire
> discussion).

For what it's worth, it could also mean that Wolfe finds violence against 
women particularly horrifying.  An author's purpose is to impact and move the 
reader.  As such, it's natural that they choose powerful, emotional scenes to 
do that.  If Wolfe finds women in dire straits to be particularly powerful, 
he may assume that his reader does as well and intentionally include such 
scenes because he finds them repulsive rather than attractive.

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