Discussion of Margaret Atwood's Rape Fantasies

Discussion of Margaret Atwood's Rape Fantasies

The author of the short story Rape Fantasies is Margaret Atwood - She is a renowned Canadian writer of poetry and fiction, she is best known for her novel The Handmaids Tail. The short story that I chose Rape Fantasies comes from Atwood?s first collection of short stories called Dancing girls and Other Stories.

?Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent?

Eleanor Roosevelt

The story Rape Fantasies is about a bunch of females who are sitting around the lunch room during their lunch hour talking about fantasies that they consider to be called ?Rape Fantasies?. The story came about because society has made rape a big issue and is being viewed everywhere, like the movies, radio, T.V., and magazines. in this story the narrator that is called Estelle in the story claims that the ideas that the other women in at their table are considering rape fantasies isn?t rape at all, but a fantasy that they have about having sex with a complete stranger. She continues to prove them wrong and decides to tell them her stories, rape fantasies that she has had.

The basis of the story is rape. Rape, as defined in the Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, is an act of power and dominance; although 15% to40% of American women are victims of rape or attempted rape, there is also the chance that a man is assaulted also. It is said that women are more than likely going to get raped by someone they know. More than half of the nation?s rape assaults have been placed in the victim?s home. Many rape assaults are continued or completed because the victim didn?t use verbal or physical force as resistance. For more than 3 decades and now till this day, feminist organizations have been fighting successfully to change the publics? attitude toward rape as well as how society treats rape victims.

The themes of this story are the quotes that are displayed through the paper and the definition of rape, why it?s taking lightly and how is the issue getting solved.

The story brings out the inner feeling of the characters on how they feel about the subject of rape and how they look at it.

The reader is placed in an office lunchroom with a group of adult women, playing bridge, reading magazines and talking about each other. One of the women named Chrissy, whose readi...

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...astic lemon ?something just like mace- realizing that she cant find it she asked the prep to hold her bag while she looks for it. She finds it and then sprays him with the plastic lemon.

Her next story begins the same way as the first. This time she describes the rapist. She makes you believe that all rapists are lonely depressed guys who feel that their last resort in getting ?some? is to rape a female. So being the kind hearted victim that she is she advised him that he got a makeover he wouldn?t have to go around raping everyone.

All of Estelle?s stories end with her helping out the rapist or getting out of being raped.

To me that is what a rape fantasy should be. It starts off as a unpleasant scenario but plays out to be a good ending. Fantasies are desires and wants no one wants to be raped and in a fantasy. In a rape fantasy the out come is that you don?t get raped.

I liked the story because it made you think about whether you believe in what a fantasy is and whether a fantasy like rape fantasies can have bad endings. I related more to Estelle in the story because I am an optimist and I believe that you shouldn?t dwell on the bad the bad things of a situation.