A Study Guide for Margaret Atwood's "Rape Fantasies" (Short Stories for Students)

Product Information

Problema noastră, mi se părea mie, era că nici în lumea din jur și nici în viitorul care se întindea în fața noastră nu exista o imagine a ceea ce am fi putut ajunge. Eram prizonieri în prezent ca într-un vagon de metrou blocat, altfel gol, iar în această izolare ne agățam ursuzi fiecare de umbra celuilalt." Su madre aprovechó para decir que el problema con las personas de otra cultura era que nunca sabía si estaban locos o no, porque sus pautas de comportamiento eran muy distintas.

Las mujeres siempre se sienten impulsadas a apaciguar a los hombres que tratan de ligárselas, al rechazarlos. She considers rape, how rape has recently been treated like a new scourge, and how essays and tips on rape prevention have become something of an institution themselves. Estelle recalls a conversation during a recent bridge game, where “rape fantasies” was the topic and her lunchmates each offered a feeling about it, from disgust to confusion to admitted interest in elaborate, particular fantasies. Kui kunagi arvasin, et mulle ei meeldi lühijutte lugeda, siis pean oma arvamust korrigeerima. Tegelikult naudin lühijutte ja novelle väga - enne magamajäämist paras üks lugemisamps võtta. :) Barajo mi juego de impertinencias y saco una: haces el amor como un cowboy violando a una oveja. Llevo tiempo queriendo decírselo, pero acaso la paz sea más importante.Betty Almost a coming of age tale, with the adolescent narrator who doesn’t quite understand the world of the grown-ups that she observes. Betty is part of “Betty and Fred” the couple who live next door at the cottages where her family is spending the summer, and the girl and her sister are a bit taken with Fred, but it is Betty who makes them welcomed and treats them well. Fred seems so ideal to their young minds. About half way through the tale, our narrator observes, “I began to think that I might not want to be married to Fred after all. He unrolled from Betty’s mouth like a long ribbon of soggy newspaper printed from end to end with nothing but the weather.” That simile said all. Polarities" is intriguing. Again taking place on a college campus, it concerns an adjunct professor and his friendship with an eccentric female graduate student who gets more agitated and strange as the story progresses. She begins to think that the city's electricity is getting out of control, and needs to be re-routed on an east-west axis, with human agents acting as resistors to push it in the right direction.

In his masterful ‘Guests of the Nation’, Frank O’Connor employs a carefully drawn Irish soldier and his unforgettable grief at the horror of war. The story was published in 1931, but never grows dated. So too ‘Rape Fantasies’, first published in Atwood’s 1977 collection Dancing Girls. Using a lonely, lively, and sometimes foolish woman as a lens, Atwood shines a brilliant, lasting beam on another incomprehensible aspect of human existence – and we are all the better for it. En aquella época de mi vida, el amor no correspondido era la única clase de amor que yo parecía capaz de sentir. Esto me causaba un gran dolor. Pero, con mi actual perspectiva, comprendo que tenía sus ventajas. Proporcionaba todos los sobresaltos emocionales de la otra clase de amor, sin implicar ninguno de sus riesgos. By calmly listening to her rapists or starting a conversation with them, she attempts to assert herself. She can relate to and give advice to her rapists. They can even watch the late show together. Truly, Estelle’s rapists are as unrealistically obliging and polite as her coworkers’ rapists were romantically accommodating. These fantasy men are definite failures at raping Estelle, but they are more successful at having a relationship with a woman than the “successful” rapists. Ironically, the men even leave her feeling sorry for their unsuccessful attempts at rape. There are two religious references made by Estelle, and both mention the Virgin Mary. This possibly expresses two things about Estelle’s personality and an overall idea found in the story. First, and most obvious, is just the fact that she has had a religious upbringing. Second is the paradoxical situation that one finds in the ‘virgin birth’ and in the ‘satisfying rape. ’ These references introduce into the story the surreal nature of rape fantasies as presented by the magazines and TV that Estelle tells of in the beginning of the story. Incluso quienes jamás irían a los lugares que ella describía, quienes no podrían permitírselo, no querían oír hablar de peligros, ni siquiera de incomodidades; era como si desearan creer que quedaba un lugar en el mundo donde todo iba bien, donde no ocurría nada desagradable.

The only thing that saves this from the one-star category is the fact that I can imaging my creative writing professors at Rochester assigning these sorts of short stories, because they are right in line with all of the ones I read for class. I would read and become a bit excited near the end of the first third of the story, hoping with a bit of anticipation that now, after this confusion and meandering, everything will add up and lead to something beautiful or horrendous or at least meaningful. But after finishing the second third of the story, I finally realize that no, the first third was exactly what was going to happen throughout, and I would be destined to finish the story without finding any purpose to it at all, but I would finish it anyway, because I had already invested time and energy in the first two-thirds, and darn it, if there was some surprise at the end that made everything make sense, I didn't want to be such a lazy reader that I would miss it. Questa raccolta di racconti mi lascia un'impressione duplice: da un lato è veramente bella, i temi, lo stile, le riflessioni infinite dei protagonisti, le ansie e le fantasie.