Rape_Fantasies

Rape Fantasies Margaret Atwood's "Rape Fantasies" is an interesting account of how rape is perceived in out society and how women themselves make light of such a serious topic, perhaps to hide their true feelings about the issue when they themselves have been the victims of rape. Rape takes on two different meanings in this story: one being a light and humorous topic of conversation about fantasies in a lunch room filled with only women, the other a more serious and aggressive act by a man toward a woman, where the woman herself is a victim of aggression. Atwood clearly blurs the line between actual rape, and the fantasy of rape in this story. In this essay I plan to focus on how patriarchal attitudes and beliefs are engendered in "Rape Fantasies" and to what extent the fantasy of rape itself functions in the story to challenge or perpetuate patriarchal definitions of femininity and masculinity. I will attempt to prove in this essay how a feminist analysis of "Rape Fantasies" suggests that the narrator both complies to and resists traditional gender roles when faced with the issue of male dominance and aggression. "Rape Fantasies" is the story of rape, women, woman, story, fantasies, society, about, man, patriarchal, issue, something, raped, feminist, fantasy, fact, because, wrong, woman's, supporting, sorry, shoes, out, oppression, one, narrator, men, live, light, just, having, gender, even, estelle, essay, each