Men, so far

We started touching on this in class on Thursday, but I wanted to go a little deeper into the depiction of men in the two novels we have read so far and the beginning of The Handmaiden's Tale. I would have to agree that in The Bell Jar, and even in The Jest of God, men are portrayed as very one-dimensional characters. Both novels are told from the perspective of a woman, so perhaps a lack of understanding of the other gender is understandable, yet it is starting to bother me how most men are portrayed so far.

The Jest of God provides three marvelous shining examples of men with Rachel's father, Hector, and Nick. Hector is very predictable and is not a very layered character at all. What you see is what you get with Hector. Rachel's father hardly played a role in the book at all. Nick never wanted to have a relationship with Rachel, he only desired a temporary physical relationship.

The Bell Jar also provides one-dimensional men. Buddy of course is not a very deep character either. He is extremely conventional and is everything Esther doesn't really want from society. The Peruvian dude, Marco, doesn't help the overall appearance of men in the novel either with his violence and beliefs of women. Even Irwin is presented as a someone who is not particularly that special by his lack of caring and responsibility. 

All these men are particularly founded in their beliefs and don't have a lot of depth to their characters. Both novels are written by women and are written from the perspective of women. By no means am I trying to argue that both of these women hate men or are trying to make a statement about feminine superiority. I just hope The Handmaiden's Tale doesn't take us down this road even further. Let's pull it together here, fellas.