Gender Roles And Power In Margaret Atwood's Happy Ending

Power, power is something that everyone has, however more often than not there is a clear distinction between who has the power and who does not. This distinction is Gender roles, men are in the dominant role while women are the ones in the submissive role. The two works “Happy Ending” by Margaret Atwood and “The Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare demonstrate the gender roles and the effect they have on power. In having power only for it to be stripped away, to never having power in the first place. The idea that women have not had is supported by gender roles creating a power imbalance between men and women, the works "Happy Ending" and "The Taming of the Shrew" both highlight the impact of gender roles on power, and the notion that

This power dynamic is evident in works such as "The Taming of the Shrew" and "Happy Ending”. In “The Taming of the Shrew” all of the men hold power over the women, Baptisa for example, has complete control over what his daughters do up until they each get married. After that their husbands have complete control over them, such as seen with Katherine. Katherine is at first seen to be a fiery and outspoken woman, however by the end of the play, she is entirely obedient to Petruchio. To the point that she is willing to call a man a woman, and the moon the sun. Throughout the entirety of the play, women are constantly in or being forced into submissive

Featured in “The Taming of the Shrew” is Katherine's character arc and development. At the start of the play, she has enough power to avoid any possible suitors and be her person. But in the course of the play that power is stripped away slowly, at first with Petruchio forcing their marriage, then with Petruchio starving and depriving Katherine of sleep, and finally with her fully giving up all of the power she had when she kissed Petruchio’s feet. Katherine being a woman has a direct effect on the nature of how people viewed her acting with power. They saw it as unladylike and called her a shrew, which is an ill-tempered scolding woman. In contrast to that Petruchio was seen as almost a hero with Baptisa doubling the dowry because Katherine was “…another woman”(Shakespeare 35). Gender roles favor men being in dominant positions with all of the power, as seen in the reactions of the men it is generally accepted as normal for men to have power. In addition, it is in most cases much harder for women to gain power since they are commonly seen to be in submissive