How Does Carpentier Use Feminism In The Kingdom Of This World

The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier, helped me understand or rethink the contemporary world by how the novel depicted how government between the Haitian and European in the past, still relates to the modern world today. In the novel, the Europeans oppressed the Haitian people and used them for slaves. The mistreatment of the Haitian people eventually led to a major slave rebellion that overturned the current European power. At first glance, one would think that there would be a better change in the treatment of the Haitians’ if the Europeans were not in charge and one of their own people were the ones to lead them, but that was completely disproven in the book. The Kingdom of this World provided numerous examples of this through the

The women depicted in the novels we read are generally put into their regular gender roles or are used for sex. If they were to try to break out of these conventional gender roles, they are usually outed and punished in some way. An example of this is the character Mary Anne Bell in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Mary Anne initially was depicted as a pretty girl who followed her boyfriend, Mark Fossie, to the war. Fossie invited her there as a way for comfort and companionship, but the readers eventually learn that Mary Anne is a character that is more than just a pretty face. Mary Anne was a woman that fell for the Vietnamese culture, she thrived in the war environment by how she contributed to the camp as a medic and was a good shot with a gun. She was a character that didn’t fit into the regular gender norms at the time, but because of how she transformed from a regular pretty girl to a medic who wears a necklace of tongues, she lost her sense of innocence. Mary Ann was punished in the novel by how she can never come home and how she would never be accepted by others around her due to her drastic transformation. Another female character that didn’t fit into conventional gender role is Renfri in The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski. In this story the main character, Geralt, becomes involved in a feud between the wizard Stregobor and the princess Renfri. Renfri has a dark past, due to her being born under an eclipse known as the Black Sun. Her stepmother Aridea believing that she would eventually kill her and other people, sent Stregobor out to watch her. From his investigation, he concluded that she was dangerous and cursed due to her being born during the Black Sun. He reported this back to the queen and she hired a thug to