Gender Inequality explicitly

deals with social inequality

and domination which is

“enacted, reproduced and

resisted by text and talk.”

(van Dijk)

Traditional Gender

Roles:

Society said that girls did the “inside” house work

and prepared the food, and the men did the dirty

“outside” jobs and worked on the farm.

“Why weren’t you watching him?”

It is a complaint made by her parents. They scold her due to irresponsibility to

take care off her brother, while she herself is an immature girl.

Laird’s power as a

male child:

Girl is allowed to carry three-quarters full watering can , on the other hand, he used to fill his gardening can “too full.”

At the time of re-capturing Flora he is invited to join by his male members, while the “girl” must stay at home.

He is the part of his father’s bloody job in order to kill Flora which affirms his superior position in the society.

WORD CHOICES:

“Laird” means Lord which conforms him a man of superior sex and the “girl” has a secondary importance.

The father “raised” foxes keeping in a world surrounded by a “high guard fence, like a medieval town, with a gate that was padlocked at night.”

During his meeting with his wife, the father used to wear his "stiff

bloody apron on, and a pile of cut-up meat in

his hand."

The girl is "too used to seeing the death of

animals" and she "did not have any great

feelings of horror and opposition" like other

girls.

VERB PHRASES:

"I had never disobeyed my father before."

ALLUSIONS:

Robinson Crusoe is a favorite book of her father.

“Heroic Calendars” supplied by the Hudson’s Bay Company or the

Montreal Fur Traders hanging on the walls of the kitchen.

“King Billy” is another allusion which highlights

her interests in heroic wars and such dreams of male

heroism conforms her trust in male domain.

Use of Emotive

Language:

“A girl was not, as I supposed, simply what I was; it was that I had to

become.”

“I was on Flora side… I did not regret: why she came running at me and I

held the gate open, that was the only thing I could do.”