'King Rat' and the abuse of women in Gene Wolfe's stories

Thomas Bitterman · 09 Mar 2011, 02:57 · from 2011-March.txt.gz

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From: tom at bitterman.net (Thomas Bitterman)
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2011 21:57:07 -0500
Subject: (urth) 'King Rat' and the abuse of women in Gene Wolfe's stories
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References: <AANLkTintGhqJg0f1EoiEyXxgRLLu2iuMztFoYf2HUkrX at mail.gmail.com>
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On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 5:39 PM, Daniel Petersen <
danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:

> On a wholly different note, have you all read the latest Silk for Calde
> blog post on Wolfe?  A really well reasoned article on this issue of
> misogyny in Wolfe:
>
>
> http://silk4calde.blogspot.com/2011/03/king-rat-and-abuse-of-women-in-gene.html
>

A couple of flaws stand out from the others.

First, the author of the essay writes: "Wolfe generally avoids using his
protagonists or narrators to proclaim his own beliefs".  If this is true it
is incumbent on the essayist to find other means of defending Wolfe from
these charges of misogyny.  He does not, but picks a single character (Silk)
in a single scene to make his point.  The essayist provides inadequate
reasons to accept his initial point (after all, there are plenty of good
novelists that use their protagonist to proclaim the author's beliefs) and
no reasons to accept his example as an exception in Wolfe.

To further muddy the water, in regards to the story under question (King
Rat), the essayist provides an excellent example of where the actions in the
story are both misogynist and rewarding.  The moral of the story would seem
to be "misogyny pays", regardless of any (nonexistent in this case)
protestations to the contrary by the protagonist (whom, after all, we cannot
trust to reflect the author's intentions).

And second, the essayist writes: "We are *meant* to be horrified by the
sordid nature of this man...".  No contextual evidence is provided to
support this reading.  This despite an earlier section titled "DEPICTING THE
ABUSE OF WOMEN: TEXT AND CONTEXT".

DOJP
>
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