Short Story Development and Analysis
“Stop whining like a woman”; this is my father’s response every time I expressed my dissatisfaction. I had been conditioned to believe that men do not complain about or disclose their problems; instead, they are strong enough to solve their problems. As a result, I grew up believing that men were entitled to everything in society, a notion that stuck in my brain for over ten years. I grew up in Centreville, Illinois, in a family of four, my father and two sisters; I was the second-born and knew my mother when I was about nineteen years. In the early 1990s, the majority of people in Centreville were in lower strata, economic class. It was a patriarchal society, where men dominated women in every aspect of society, and women were marginalized and rendered as inferior groups whose roles were to make men happy. Combining a large portion of poor folks, an ethnic hub, and negative stereotyping of men, Centreville was breathing of prejudice and remained a benchmarking site of inferior socially-constructed gender.
The worst thing about the town is that even the women had subscribed to the idea that men were superior to them. In our childhood, pretty girls would boast to their less attractive counterparts that they had a bright future. For a girl, the more she was physically appealing, the more the value she had. Women were more like commodities, which would take up more of their time in working on their external appearance than on their personal attributes. My elder sister, though only thirteen years, had already started to attract men because of her unquestionable beauty. I felt terrible, but I could do nothing to change the already messed up system. I was only nine years, and the only thing I needed badly was to feel like a man, the man that my father always reminded me to become. It was a bit hard to understand my father’sfather’sfather’s advice. At the age, I did not even know my father. I remember receiving two fire slaps after asking my father whether we were born from a surrogate mother.
My father was deeply rooted in the toxic system of society. He believed his decision was final regardless of how skewed it was; even I think it is the reason he decided we should not leave with my mother when they parted ways with my mother when my younger sister was only two years old. My parents had decided to part ways without involving any form of lawsuits. I needed to feel a sense of power like other men; after all, it was supported by society. I t was not hard since I came from a middle-income family, and this was a great way of attracting all kinds of females since the majority of the people in the town were below the poverty line. Thus, I also seeped deeply into the system. I, alongside my agemates, would play and act the way girls wanted to fall in our plans.
Brendan was my accomplice and friend in my teenage life, although older than me. What I did not know about Brendan is that he was seducing my younger sister, who was only twelve years at the time; it is her pregnancy that would compel her to name Brendan as responsible. I felt terrible about my sister, and I could do nothing to Brendan; the societal settings protected every man. Admittedly, while I enjoyed the power that the men had, I always felt it was unfair to the women, at least to my two sisters. I could not fathom a twelve-thirteen years teenager raising her kid.
The reality is we were living in an extreme society that required the right people to reverse the toxicity embedded in the community. While the manner in which the society was constructed was harmful to the women, it was also detrimental to men. I remember a time when Brendan almost died of candidiasis. He had some thrust in his penile region that he had acquired in his efforts to quench his insatiable appetite for women. The stereotyped and reproduced men’smen’smen’s masculinity could not allow him to report to his parents. He remained silent as the candida virus found their way into the bloodstream. I knew about his condition and could not say it; I would not risk becoming a woman. However, his abnormal movement resulting from the thrust overgrowth alarmed his mother that something was amiss. The treatment of the disease extended for eight months; this how dangerous the toxic masculinity can be to men. The painful truth is that reversing the toxic setting is hard because both men and women have unconsciously accepted that men are stronger than men.
Analysis
In writing the short story, I incorporated three elements of literature: point of view, conflict, and settings. The underlying theme in the short story is the impact of the contrary, social construction of gender. The story explores Centreville, a town in Illinois. I reflected on my childhood in the 1990s to explore the city and how it perpetuated the misconception that men were stronger than women. As a result, alienating women and using them as sexual tools.
The first element that was vital in the short story is the settings. Although even in the present-day Centreville is one of the unfortunate towns in the U.S, in the 1990s, the situation was worse and could be a reason for many disparities between men and women. The setting in the story is an essential element to convey the central idea of the story. In a patriarchal society, some factors interact together, leading to problems that are detrimental to some members or all members of the community. The society perpetuates unwelcoming norms that support men to perpetuate misogyny in society.
The second factor that proved vital in the short story is the point-of-view. I applied the first-person narrator in the memory of childhood; this is crucial since it helps to make correct observations in the period. Also, the first-person narrator aided in providing my personal experiences. The importance of the choice of the narrator is that the information provided is limited to my experience from who I interacted with, experienced, or how I behaved. As a result, the reader gets a sense of immediacy to the settings of the story as well as the connectedness to what I was thinking during my childhood. The choice of the first-person individual has its cons and pros. On the pro side, the first-person narrator speaks directly to the reader, allowing to share the most confidential information in the story. Also, one of the main interests of the story was to enable the reader to study the development of the mind of the narrator. For instance, at the age of nine years, I wanted to taste be the man like other men, but as time progressed, I could feel bad inside as others played with my sisters. At late adolescence, I could comprehend that I was living a false persona in an extreme society. On the con side, because the short story was limited to the first-person narrator’s experience and knowledge, behaviors, and experiences outside the narrator’s observations.
The third element is the conflict. The central conflict is between the narrator and the toxic society. It is an exciting conflict where the narrator has seeped into the toxicity of society. The dispute, however, is created when the very system that every man in the society seems to enjoy impacts negatively on the author. It dawns on the narrator that it is hard to change the beliefs in the society since all genders have accepted and used to the operation of the town.
The main con is the short story is character development. A story of less than a thousand words is too short for character development. The fact that I needed to unmask the ills of society, a toxic system of the society, and the negative stereotyping of women was hard to focus on one type of character. Instead, I focused on different characters that would help in conveying the underlying themes in the story. The issue of character development was, however, bridged by the first-person narrator. In the narration, I would continuously describe the actions of the characters; this helps the reader to understand the character in the story and even their feelings.
In conclusion, setting, point of view, and conflict were the main elements used to convey the themes in the short story. The overriding theme is the consequences of a toxic society that perpetuates that one gender is superior to the other. As a result, one gender is stereotyped as inferior in their roles in the society are weakened and mostly finds themselves as sexual objects. In the same vein, the group that is favored by the system also experiences excellent dangers in society. They are absorbed under toxic masculinity; as a result, having to deal with their problems.