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Surfacing

the connection between both nature’s and women’s inability to resist domination from men.According to the narrator women are victims of man and culture. They hold little status in society and are expected to be inferior to men. This notion is obvious early in the novel when the narrator visits Paul and Madame. Irrelevantly Paul asks, is “Your husband here too?” “What he means,” in the narrator’s opinion, “is that a man should be handling this.” Although she is confident with her ability to handle the situation and look for her father, the general belief of the time is that women should let men do the grunt work. Throughout the novel she continues to develop this theme through Anna’s character, so that we obtain an exaggerated, but clear, vision of the role of women as created by society.David and Anna’s relationship is used to symbolize the inequality of the sexes and concurrently acts as indicator as to why the narrator is so psychologically tormented. David is overpowering and domineering, whereas Anna is weak and controlled. Anna feels as if she must paint her face in order to please David and she allows herself to be subordinate to his rules. Anna tells the narrator that David has “this little set of rules. If I break one of them I get punished, except that he keeps changing them so I’m never sure.” David also treats Anna as an object of sex instead of as equal counterpart. He constantly remarks about her body and even forces her to strip naked in order to provide footage for his film. He obviously has little respect for her, which becomes even more apparent when he cheats on her with the narrator. The narrator resents David because he devalues women like an “American” devalues nature, but subjects herself to him because she has not broken away from the grip of society and allowed herself to be purified. As the novel progresses the narrat...

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