The readings this week were particularly interesting, with all of them being tied in some way to relationships or love. Specifically the effects of different, yet all flawed, relationship dynamics on a woman. In the Ice Man, I found the husband to be quite ironic. For someone who encapsulates the pasts, he pushes his wife to focus on the future and not to be ensnared by the past. Despite his warning, he falls prey to the past himself, resigning himself, and his wife, to a cold life in the South Pole, where they’re surrounded by the past. The Straw Man is also interesting, in that he embodies fragility, and a sort of toxic masculinity. His new BMW, which I take as a material manifestation of that masculinity, gets a small scratch on him, and that’s all it takes for him to fall apart at the seams.
Dojoji was also extremely interesting, despite it being a simpler story than the rest. Since I was doing a presentation on Noh Theatre, it was interesting to see a Noh drama’s script, and how all my research that I’ve done relates to it. I found it interesting how the priest tells the story of the serpent dancer, just for another serpent dancer to reappear just after. To me it symbolized the unfortunately recurring resentment within women that arise as a result of the whims of patriarchy.
The Greengrocer’s Daughter and Smartening Up seem really related to Dojoji to me as well, where they were both about how far a woman could go for love. The dancer in Dojoji turned into a serpent to pursue her “promised” one, Oshichi died for her love, and the women in Smartening Up turned into a hair monster over love as well.
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