Amelia's post

 My first blog post:

While all of today’s assigned readings captured my attention and deeply fascinated me, there were three that I found particularly interesting when placed side-by-side for comparison. A constant that I noticed after having read The Ice Man by Haruki Murakami, Straw Husband by Yukiko Motoya, and Aoko Matsuda’s Smartening Up, is the way each short story explores the expectations and pressures placed on women in society, particularly within relationships and marriage. Through the lens of surrealism, each author uses intriguing symbolism to convey the aspect of relationships where women are expected to behave and present themselves in a way that is convenient for everyone except themselves. The difference lies in how each story approaches this concept.

In The Ice Man, the narrator’s husband is a man made of ice. He is cold, strange, and detached, and yet she finds herself deeply in love with him. Over time, her love for him slowly separates her from the life and identity she once knew. She loses connection with her family because they disapprove of this marriage, she stops having friends, hobbies, and wholly stops leaving the house as her relationship progresses, and in the end, a trip to the South Pole leaves her just as cold and isolated as her frozen husband. This story suggests that a relationship or marriage can cause one to lose their sense of identity as time progresses with that person, which is unfortunately not completely uncommon.

With The Straw Man, the subplot and supernatural elements differ from The Ice Man, but the theme explored is one that I feel tends to coincide with the isolation and loss of identity that was explored in the first story. In Motoya’s work, the main character is also a woman, who also describes herself as in love and in a happy relationship with her husband. Suddenly, a small incident causes her husband to complain and critique her. So much so, that his complaints start to emerge from his straw body in the form of tiny instruments. While Tomoko momentarily entertains the idea of setting him aflame, she ultimately refills his straw with the instruments and the story ends with another ‘happy’ run. Here, a story portrays a woman who is responsible for managing and regulating her husband’s emotions for him. Unfortunately, this is not completely uncommon for women to experience either, being made to carry their husband’s emotional baggage to keep the relationship and the peace. 

Overall, I’ve been thinking about how a huge expectation that society places on women is to endure, in many senses, and it is a major theme I noticed across these three stories. Although, Smartening Up takes a turn that separates the story from the first two, one that is refreshingly about empowerment rather than endurance. Here, the narrator, a woman, is in a relationship with the belief that she must change herself to become desirable. When her ghostly aunt visits her and criticizes her attempt to erase part of herself for others, she experiences enough empowerment to release her emotions, and grow thick, powerful hair that turns her into what society would deem a monster. This alternative ending, compared to the first two stories, rejects the patriarchal and oppressive expectations placed on women in society and shows what empowerment and self-love can do for women struggling with these societal expectations.