Another aspect, which may interest feminist readers, is the embroidery, which is constructed by one of the women. It pictures the perfect household, equipped with a ‘a green field, brown road,’ and embroidered ‘pink house.’ There is also a male character sewn into the embroidery that is described to have something ‘wrong with his face.’ This male character is the imperfection in the scene, destroying its simple and childlike preservation. “I’ll just have to rip the whole pattern, practically, to fix it right.” The man is ripped out entirely from the scene, rather then just having his face corrected. This could signify women’s everlasting struggle with men, and also on a more gender equality related issue, how these women are in control of the men in their lives, choosing not to have them at all, implying that men are an almost annoyance to women and they would much rather have them out of their lives then have them as they are. These women seem to be living fine as they are however their situation is hardly the scene pictured in the embroidery.
A feminist reader may dislike this story because firstly, the women in the story could be though of as stereotypical. The embroidery itself serves as an activity commonly associated with women and I think that a feminist reader would rather dismiss these stereotypes. Also, the story has a political agenda behind it as well as being fictional. It was written during the arms race of the fifties between the US and Russia when an atomic bomb hitting either one of these countries was highly viable. As mentioned earlier, a man with an imperfect face is ripped from the embroidery. This man cannot only represent the male gender as a whole but also the politicians, which drove the countries of America and Russia during the fifties who were mostly male. This is how I think a feminist reader would interpret the text, although a person unfamiliar with history would not be able to make sense of the ending, and so not fully understand it. A modern reader or feminist would not instantly associate this story with the cold war and so find it hard to interpret the ending, however a feminist reader would be more interested in the gender related issues which are explored throughout the story. Another point which a feminist reader may dislike is that the women in the story are used as political pawns used merely to help a political agenda. The women, old and maybe widowed, would be seen quite sympathetically when the bomb is dropped, heightening the impact the story has on the reader.
Another point which a feminist reader may find interesting is how the women are portrayed in the text, being a short story written in a time when women were fighting for equality in the workplace and otherwise. The male author, Ray Bradbury does not look down upon women but rather commends them for their daily work of ‘shelling peas’ and preparing dinner.
The moral critical position is another, which would find this short story interesting. It is one, which mainly looks at the morality and uplifting ness of the piece whereas a feminist reader would look at masculine and feminine ideas portrayed throughout the story and gender issues. These two critical positions are quite different in most ways however a feminist reader might find morality in certain aspects concerning gender issues. An example of this would be the female characters and how they keep their moral up throughout the story, carrying on making the dinner, shelling the peas and carrying on with their embroideries even though they know that their lives are soon going to be riddled with destruction and chaos ultimately leading to death.
This short story seems to be a complete contrast to what a moral reader would be looking for in a story. Firstly A moral reader I think, like feminist readers find it interesting how the female elderly women keep their spirits up even thought the know they are going to die. A moral reader would dislike the story however find it interesting how demoralizing the stories’ ending is. The story, about three elderly women ending in tragedy, with all of them being destroyed by an atomic bomb. This ending is by no stretch of the imagination uplifting, however, the text does have a theme to it and a moral purpose. The story deals with the dropping of an atomic bomb. This is not too apparent when first read but when you understand the context behind the story then it is made clear. The author maybe shifting the blame to the human race, saying that making is evil and flawed. This is another interpretation of the line “the man standing on the road had something wrong with his face.” Here the author instead of meaning the male gender could be generally accusing mankind. This moral theme is not all that clear or accessible and so maybe disliked by a reader in a moral critical position. Another moral topic which is touched upon lightly throughout the story is the question of technology rapid progress and whether or not it is an overall benefit to mankind or if it is leading us to our doom.
Overall, I think that a feminist reader would be able to appreciate this text more due to the implied extent of the feminine and gender issues raised. For a moral reader this text would be quite disheartening because the critical position of a moral reader is describes all good literature as moral and uplifting and this text hardly seems uplifting.
