Empowerment, Female Independence, and Feminism Theme Analysis

FEFU: My husband married me to have a constant reminder of how loathsome women are.

CINDY: What?

FEFU: Yup.

CINDY: That’s just awful.

[…]

FEFU: Don’t be offended. I don’t take enough care to be tactful. I know I don’t. But don’t be offended. Cindy is not offended. She pretends to be, but she isn’t really. She understands what I mean.

CINDY: I do not.

FEFU: Yes, you do.—I like exciting ideas. They give me energy.

CHRISTINA: And how is women being loathsome an exciting idea?

FEFU: (With mischief.) It revolts me.

FEFU: That’s all right. I scare myself too, sometimes. But there’s nothing wrong with being scared . . . it makes you stronger.—It does me.—He won’t put real bullets in the guns.—It suits our relationship . . . the game, I mean. If I didn’t shoot him with blanks, I might shoot him for real. Do you see the sense of it?

FEFU: […] I still like men better than women.—I envy them. I like being like a man. Thinking like a man. Feeling like a man.—They are well together. Women are not. Look at them. They are checking the new grass mower. . . . Out in the fresh air and the sun, while we sit here in the dark. . . . Men have natural strength. Women have to find their strength, and when they do find it, it comes forth with bitterness and it’s erratic. . . . Women are restless with each other. They are like live wires . . . either chattering to keep themselves from making contact, or else, if they don’t chatter, they avert their eyes . . . […]—Have I offended you again?

CHRISTINA: No. I too have wished for that trust men have for each other. The faith the world puts in them and they in turn put in the world. I know I don’t have it.

([…] Julia goes to the gun, takes it and smells the mouth of the barrel. She looks at Cindy.)

CINDY: It’s a blank.

(Julia takes the remaining slug out of the gun. She lets it fall on the floor.)

JULIA: She’s hurting herself. (Julia looks blank and is motionless. Cindy picks up the slug. She notices Julia’s condition.)

CINDY: Julia. (To Christina.) She’s absent.

CHRISTINA: What do we do?

CINDY: Nothing, she’ll be all right in a moment. (She takes the gun from Julia. Julia comes to.)

JULIA: It’s a blank . . .

CINDY: It is.

JULIA: She’s hurting herself. (Julia lets out a strange whimper. She goes to the coffee table, takes a piece of chocolate, puts it in her mouth and goes toward her room. After she crosses the threshold, she stops.) I must lie down.

CHRISTINA: […] I think she is an adventurer in a way. Her mind is adventurous. I don’t know if there is dishonesty in that. But in adventure there is taking chances and risks, and then one has to, somehow, have less regard or respect for things as they are. That is, regard for a kind of convention, I suppose. I am probably ultimately a conformist, I think. And I suppose I do hold back for fear for being disrespectful or destroying something—and I admire those who are not. But I also feel they are dangerous to me. I don’t think they are dangerous to the world; they are more useful than I am, more important, but I feel some of my life is endangered by their way of thinking.

JULIA: […] Why do you have to kill Fefu, for she’s only a joker? (With a gravelly voice.) “Not kill, cure. Cure her.” Will it hurt?

(She whimpers.)

Oh, dear, dear, my dear, they want your light. Your light my dear. Your precious light. Oh dear, my dear.

The human being is of the masculine gender. The human being is a boy as a child and a grown up he is a man. Everything on earth is for the human being, which is man. To nourish him. […] Woman is not a human being. She is: 1—A mystery. 2—Another species. 3—As yet undefined. 4—Unpredictable; therefore wicked and gentle and evil and good which is evil.

PAULA: I felt small in your presence . . . I haven’t done all that I could have. All I wanted to do. Our lives have gone in such different directions I cannot help but review what those years have been for me. I gave up, almost gave up. I have missed you in my life. . . . I became lazy. I lost the drive. You abandoned me and I kept going. But after a while I didn’t know how to. I didn’t know how to go on. I knew why when I was with you. To give you pleasure. So we could laugh together. So we could rejoice together. To bring beauty to the world. . . . Now we look at each other like strangers. We are guarded. I speak and you don’t understand my words. I remember every day.

EMMA: After a few visits the psychiatrist said: Don’t you think you know me well enough now that you can tell me the truth about the paper? He almost drove her crazy. They just couldn’t believe she was so smart.