Summary Of Reeling For The Empire By Karen Russell
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What if metamorphosis could cause a revolution? In her radical short story Karen Russell describes a world where women are seized of their identities and are converted into beings who cannot govern themselves, working for an empire. Russell places her focus toward the women presented in Reeling for the Empire and their own mutual conflicts of self identity, oppression, and free will. In Reeling for the Empire Russell uses the motif of metamorphosis to reveal the birth of feminism in society.
The transformation of the women’s bodies symbolizes female oppression in society. When the women of nowhere mill drink the tea their bodies begin to change into silkworms, they become less human and as such lose autonomy, “That tea he poured you back in