Paper Example on Interpretation of Pamela Sargent's Fears Short Story

Introduction

Pamela Sargent was an accomplished author who used her literature to address issues affecting women in the society. The majority of her published literary works agitate for equality and fair treatment of the feminine gender in a world where men seem to have a say in every facet of life. This line of thinking is no different from the issues that the author highlights in her short story 'Fears' that looks at the complicated perspective with which men look at women. This literary essay will give an analytical interpretation of this short story whose context is a science fiction where, as usual, men have a priority in everything. In essence, the focus of interpreting this short story will be the dystopian view of extreme male chauvinistic tendencies towards women in a society with less girls who are subjected to unequal and inferior treatment.

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Among her other numerous works of literature, the 'Fears' short story gave Pamela Sargent the ideal platform to author thought-provoking content that most of the male science fiction writers could not dare to write. The story is set in the foreseeable future where people in the society have the option to select the preferred gender for their children before they have been born. True to male chauvinism towards the female gender, this freedom to choose leads to a drastic reduction in the number of women in the population due to the preference of male children over female babies before birth. The number of girls and women in this society is so few that they have become highly-prized personal possessions like a collection of antiques or priceless pieces of art. It is a sad state of affairs that women are seen as collectibles instead of being treated as normal human beings equal to their male counterparts. Sargent ironically uses a female narrator to give the account of events as they unfold in the short story where she is cleverly disguised as a male to paint a vivid mental image in the minds of the readers. The female narrator resides outside of the mainstream society and the short story tells of one of her visits to a neighboring town for food supplies and her subsequent dialogue she holds with a bodyguard that she has hired for personal protection. Living outside of the society is a clear depiction of the ostracized reality that women find themselves in this all-male society just like the need for a personal bodyguard which reveals the insecurities and lack of safety that women face.

The short story commences with the narrator on her way to Sam's when some boys confronted her while trying to run her off the road by mildly grudging her fender before speeding off to look for another target. The opening is a description of the kind of society in which the narrator exists. The scene depicts the bullying nature where an all-male society pushes it way around with no room for women. Bullying their way to dominance is a tactic that the chauvinist men in the short story is adept to because no sooner had they tried running the narrator off the road that they moved on to find the next person to intimidate. The author also insinuates that even on long journeys, you are likely to meet with a group of the preferred gender of boys and not girls.

The narrator says, 'The car's harness held me; its dashboard lights flickered. As I waited for it to steer me back onto the roads, the engine hummed, choked, and died. I switched over to manual; the engine was silent.' This shows her determination to do normal activities that would be considered manly. It is a real struggle for the narrator as she tries to fit in the man's world that she lives in as a disguised man to avoid the perils that come with being a woman along her long journey. She says that she had worked to perfect the disguise and also '....had cut my hair recently, my chest was still flat as a boy's, and the slightly padded shoulders of my suit imparted a bit of extra bulk. I had always been taken for a man before....' She even speaks in a husky voice while talking to the mechanic at a garage. Her biggest fear in this journey is the fear of the highway patrol police as they have picked stray women before for a hefty reward and they also grope at the groins of the stray women.

She lies to her bodyguard that she does not need his protection as much as a companion to talk to throughout her journey. This is to mask her fear of the wrath of the male-dominated society The scarcity of female children in this society becomes clear when the most popular newscaster was an 'aged, wrinkled face' of Rene Swanson. Her mere presence on the holo made all the men sat around silently worshiping yearn for the other part of themselves, a woman. This scene shows the hypocritical nature of the all-male society that secretly longs to be with the opposite yet on the outside they acted all hard and might in their collective despise for the feminine gender.

Conclusion

The chauvinist society is harsh towards women and that is why the narrator had to take cautious steps to conceal her true identity and, obviously, gender. Besides her disguise, she has adopted a male name - Joe - to help her move around. She has to check back while returning to Sam's to ensure that she is not being followed by anyone and that her car's number plate has been changed. She even has a decoy home in the form of a cabin that even Sam believes is her house. The male chauvinism which renders the men to be violence-prone towards women creates genuine fear in the narrator. The preference for male children is depicted in Sam's tone of pride when he fondly refers to 'Joe' as son during their conversation. The narrator seeks to explore Sam's advanced age by asking him how things between the genders were before the complete demise of girls. Sam casually retorts that 'it wasn't all that different. A little softer around the edges, maybe, quieter, not as mean, but it wasn't all that different. Men always ran everything. Some say they didn't, but they had all the power-sometimes they'd dole a little of it out to the girls, that's all. Now we don't have to anymore.' This phrase shows that theirs has been a chauvinist society only that things have worsened because they do not even have the girls to 'dole a little of it' to.