Mona Gardner The Dinner Party Analysis

The Dinner Party

Gender doesn’t define who you are and how you act. Men think they are invincible and it sometimes leads them on to say bold things. In “The Dinner Party”, by Mona Gardner the story takes place in India around the time period of 1940’s . During this time, society pushes the perspective of women in a negative way. Among the many guests there was a young girl and a high ranking colonel. The story opens with a spirited discussion between the two about their attitude that some men react better in a crisis. Mona Gardner uses the colonel, American, and Mrs. Wynnes to prove the thesis “Gender determine the amount of self control you may or may not have.” The Colonel is a rigid man that everyone looks up to, even the colonial official seems to take in what he says. Nobody challenges the colonel because of his appearance and his high ranking. He was confident and very presumptuous. He had the nerve to say, “‘ A woman’s unfailing reaction in any crisis’, the colonel says, ‘is to scream. And while a man may feel like it, he has that ounce more of nerve control than a woman has. And that last ounce more is what counts.” In other words, this just explains how arrogant the colonel actually is. The colonel stands for the women’s block to become independent, make a name for herself. When the young girl states women are over the housewife

Wynnes becomes a major character in the story. She tells the young native boy to get a bowl of milk, from this she is proving the colonel wrong, but the readers don 't know it yet. Mona uses her as a game piece, when the colonel jumps and screams, the American asked Mrs. Wynnes how she knew about the snake. Mrs. Wynnes character replied with, “ it was crawling across my foot”. This proves the colonel untrue because his whole argument was men has added self control in any crisis. Now that he was taken by surprise and acted the way he did, he can’t really take the words he already spoke