Gender Inequality explicitly deals with

social inequality and domination which

is “enacted, reproduced and resisted by

text and talk.” (van Dijk)

Traditional Gender

Roles:

Society said that girls did the “inside”house work and prepared the food, andthe men did the dirty “outside” jobs andworked on the farm.

US & THEM:

“Why weren’t you watching him?”

It is a complaint made by her parents. They

scold her due to irresponsibility to take care off her brother, while she herself is an immature girl.

Laird’s power as a male child:

WORD CHOICES:

• “Laird” means Lord- a name which conforms him asa man of superior sex while the “girl” has secondaryimportance.

• The father “raised” foxes keeping in a worldsurrounded by a “high guard fence, like a medievaltown, with a gate that was padlocked at night.”

• During his meeting with wife, the father used towear his "stiff bloody apron on, and a pile of cut-upmeat in his hand."

• “Heroic calendars”, “cold blue sky”, “treacherousrivers”, “magnificent savages”, “strong primitiveodour”, “penetrated”, “reassuringly seasonal”,“derisive eyes”, “faulty machinery”

Use of Adjectives:

• "I had never disobeyed my father before.“

• The girl is "too used to seeing the death of animals.”

• “I put down my fork.”

• “My father scraped away delicately the little clotted

webs of blood vessels, the bubbles of fat.”

ALLUSIONS:

• Robinson Crusoe is a favorite book of her father.

• “Heroic Calendars” supplied by the Hudson’s Bay Company or the Montreal Fur Traders and a picture of the Battle of Balaclava hang on the walls of the kitchen.

• “King Billy” is another allusion which highlights her interests in heroic wars and such dreams of male heroism conforms her trust in male domain.

Use of Emotive Language:

• “A girl was not, as I supposed, simply what I was; itwas that I had to become.”

• “I was on Flora’s side… I did not regret: why shecame running at me and I held the gate open, that wasthe only thing I could do.”