How Is Perfect Peace A Theme Of Gender

Gender Roles in Perfect Peace

“ We’ve begun to raise daughters more like sons.. But few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters (Steinem). This quote ironically captures the central event of Daniel Black’s, 2011 novel Perfect Peace as the reader sees a large, rural southern family attempt to adjust and maneuver through life normally as they deal with their mother’s desperate decision to make her newborn son into the daughter she has never had. Perfect Peace tells the story of the Peace family and their journey to truly discover and question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality and love after the mother, Emma Jean, tells the seventh child, Perfect Peace “ I made you a girl. But that ain’t what you was supposed to be. So,

It’ll be a little strange at first, but you’ll get used to it, and this’ll be over after while” (cite this! Find the page where this quote was on citation should look like this (Black, page number). The novel covers many themes as discussed previously, however, the central theme in the novel that is emphasized is gender roles. Gender roles, also known as gender norms is defined as a set of societal and behavioral norms dictating what types of behaviors are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on their actual or perceived sex (cite this it’s just from wikipedia). Gender norms are demonstrated constantly throughout the novel and essentially drive the story of how the boys of the Peace family are raised. Perfect Peace discusses and emphasizes the way the introduction of gender roles in an individual’s adolescence affects them, as well as critiquing and examining how these societal made roles function in the novel and society.