hey professor harrison,
just incase u didnt get my email heres my final lit crit essay. hope you received my final annotated bibliography, email me if you didnt.
thanks-
elise hegnauer
In the opening line of this story, every man, woman, and child are suddenly gripped with the fear of death. Two men decide to start swinging their guns in the air, causing everyone around them to panic, realizing they are in a life or death situation. It is clear that both genders are on equal levels until a man walks in with a gun to threaten them. It is interesting to see that when the threat of death confronts people, no matter what their circumstance, males and females both forget about social standards.
At the story’s beginning, the boy is the one at the cash register and the by-stander, the one in the background, is, of course, a female. This sets the tone, portraying males as the dominant gender with the female standing in the background.
Moving on from there, we discover a frustration between Shannell (in the background) and Jason (in the front.) The writer gives the impression that females are looking down in a condescending way on the males because they are fragmented, never knowing quite what they are doing. It is as though the females should be the ones in control. We come to know through the story about a relationship between female and male, where the female admires the male, something typical in Western society. The female appreciates an attribute of the male, caused by his knowing full well what might attract a female to him. Eventually, a connection is established. As Jason, then, attempts to sacrifice his life to prevent the robbers from stealing the money, the shallow bond between males and females in the workplace is revealed (that is, unless there is sexual attraction.) Shannell’s outward appearance had been painted earlier, revealing that she was not sexually appealing. Yet, the male role, Jason, was also unappealing. Therefore the entire male/female relationship of this story is very much of a co-worker correlation.
Then, surprisingly, Shannell does not sit back and wait for Jason to get shot by the robbers and pours hot grease on them. Here the female role is dominant yet it moves on swiftly to where Jason becomes dominant in tying up the robbers. At the end of the story, the affiliation between the male and female, because of their team work, is rewarded. The male gets to keep his job, yet the female becomes a bank teller. This depicts another example of male dominance, that they are still more highly regarded then females. Yet once a female shows she is worth taking seriously, by standing her guard, she becomes intimidating to men.
In this short illustration there is a slight power struggle between the male and female. Jason, the positive male role, emerges as having the greatest amount of power, where the two negative male roles start from having the highest amount of power, then spiraling down to having none. The only female spoken about in this story ends up having power over males by taking a strong stand. Usually, females must prove that they play just as much of an equal role in society as men do.
Within the story, Shannell takes on certain traits, typical of the opposite gender when taking control over a situation. Shannell was standing in the kitchen, hiding away from the robbers with guns, yet once she saw that they would kill Jason for calling the police, she quickly rose up to the need of the hour and poured a hot pan full of grease over them. In today's Western culture and in some places even in Eastern culture (the Middle East, for example) it is becoming more acceptable for a woman to take control over a situation normally dominated by males. Then, when a woman shows herself to be unafraid of a male-dominated situation, men are then often, in turn, intimidated by her. This is shown at the end of the story where, "Shannell works as a bank teller, because no robber dares to cross her."
According to Lucia Giudice, “Sexism is perpetuated by systems of patriarchy where male-dominated structures and social arrangements elaborate the oppression of women. Patriarchy almost by definition also exhibits androcentrism, meaning male centered. Coupled with patriarchy, androcentrism assumes that male norms operate through out all social institutions and become the standard to which all persons adhere.”
This quote helps us to understand that there truly is patriarchy within this work. Burger King, in this example, was a male-dominated structure. It began with males attempting to dominate over Burger King, yet another male stands up against them.
Jason is attempting to dominate Burger King, yet the robbers are trying to do the same, while Shannell is under them.
The oppression of women can be seen in this story. Shannell is described as being in the background of everything. She must also wear clothes much larger then she is, because they were made for a man. This work also gives the impression that all persons look to Jason, as the dominating male because of the brilliant job he does at Burger King. There is no sisterhood within the patriarchy of Burger King as to which is being resisted yet Shannell takes up the courage to save Jason from being shot.
In Western culture, masculinity has traditionally been portrayed with attributes such as decisiveness, competitiveness, strength, and rationality. Within this story, the robbers and Jason all exemplify these.
According to Janet Saltzman Chafetz there are seven areas qualities of masculinity. First is the physical, which means they are athletic, strong, and brave. Jason is described this way in rescuing Burger King. Yet the robbers are described as strong and brave in more of a negative connotation. The second quality is that they are functional. As the breadwinner, they are the provider for the family. This is definitely accentuated in Jason for his function is vital to the rest of Burger King. This can be seen in Shannell’s train of thought, showing how important his role is in the workplace.
The third attribute of masculinity is that they are sexual, meaning sexually aggressive and experienced. This aspect of masculinity was not explored in this work, yet both the males and female were aggressive.
Another characteristic of being masculine is being unemotional. The robbers in this story are a perfect example of this. If they reveal any emotion other than anger they loose control over the situation. Jason also is revealed as not thinking with his heart. Instead, he thinks with his logic. His understanding almost fails him until Shannell rescues him from being shot.
Being masculine also means that one must be intellectual which includes traits of being logical, intellectual, rational, objective, and practical.
Jason actually thinks he is logical in expecting he can save Burger King by getting shot. Shannell sees that as ridiculous, fears losing him, and uses her logic to save him.
The last perspective of masculinity is the interpersonal one of being a leader: dominating, being a disciplinarian, being independent, free, individualistic, and demanding. Jason is the leader of the pack at Burger King and Shannell is typically shown as a follower, yet as throughout the writing, has masculine traits. The robbers take the place of leaders of the situation which is what makes the work fascinating. Tension is created in one’s wanting to see who is going to gain dominance.
Jason is also revealed as being very disciplined in his job to the point where he works well with his employees, customers, and has the best timing for completing the orders. On the other hand, the robbers are the perfect embodiment of being demanding, in that they are demanding something from every single person in the entire story.
What makes the story interesting is the underlying question of whether or not the people in Burger King, whether those who are eating, trying to get a meal, or the employees) will give into their demands. It is fascinating to see that, as one person standing up under someone else’s demands, Jason will lead other people to do the same. Once the demands are threatened, one sees in this work place how nervous the robbers become. This is totally unexpected and they react violently when their demands are diminished, once the police catch them.
According to Janet Chafetz'es theory all of the characters in the story are embody masculinity, yet one can see that Jason is the epitome of that.
Now that we have explored how the relationship between of how men and women are portrayed, what the power relationships are between men and women, what the work reveals about the operations of patriarchy, what constitutes masculinity, and how the characters do or do not embody these traits in the entirety of this work, we can see that this feministic perspective is inescapable! According to the research, it has been proven to be true in this work.