Bone Meat

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World War II began a sharp division between the role of men and women. During the war a woman’s duty was to her home and family, and a man’s was to fight. Then after the war a woman’s role remained on the home and a man’s was to now devote himself to his work entirely. The continuous aspect of this relationship is that always the man has control over whatever woman he chooses. This in turn also results that in a romantic relationship between the two; a woman was to be subservient and bow her head while the man took charge and fulfilled his role with complete control. In Taeko Kōno’s story, “Bone Meat”, she highlights how the passive nature of woman allows a man to gain the upper hand and have full control over a woman. In a typical relationship…show more content…
A woman also relinquishes her power when she bites her tongue and refuses to speak out against the actions and words of a man. In the story the woman and man are at the grocery shop and stop to look at the rotisserie chickens. The man dismisses any idea of getting chicken because the chickens are supposedly being pumped full of “female hormones”. The woman then recalls several occasions where not only she bought chicken but the man as well had gotten chicken to eat together (7). Despite her thought process, she never speaks a word to contradict what the man has spoken to her. She submissively agrees with him, even though his words are contradicting his own actions. Through this she gives up a chance to separate herself from him by disagreeing. She allows herself to be imposed upon and thus latches herself onto him more on an emotional level. The woman’s behavior lines up with how a woman is usually meek in a relationship while a man is domineering and self-imposing (Reischauer, 175). The woman does not take the chance to separate herself and speak out against the man. She follows along in his footsteps and allows him to become even more bigoted in his way of thinking. This then in turn gives him even more power and standing over her because now he knows that she will simply agree to whatever he says. He knows that she has no power over

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