Essay Questions

What is the significance of the novel’s title?

The novel’s title is a reference to it’s central theme of sexual identity. The title is also intended to be specifically provocative as it prompts the readers to ask incisive, poignant questions especially pertaining to gender roles and and definitions such as: does a woman need to turn into a man to get respect and equality in the world, and can the word “man” be truly adequately used to refer to the length and breadth of humanity?

How is the theme of sexual identity tackled in the novel?

The novel takes an interesting multi-pronged approach towards discussing the theme of sexual identity as the issue of sexuality, gender roles, and the act of sex are often tightly interwoven into one another in the plot and the characters. In fact, many of the sexual trysts the characters find themselves in are used as plot devices to explain or show the reading audience what norms regarding sex are espoused in their social settings. Case in point, Janet comes from a time where a patriarchal society no longer exists and as such a woman occupying positions of power and engaging in sexual relations with another woman are not held in contempt. The characters Joanna and Laura on the other hand are the complete polar opposite, finding themselves under great duress to ignore and/or suppress their sexual attraction to other women as lesbian relationships are looked down upon with great contempt.

What do Janet and Jael symbolize in the novel?

Janet and Jael are symbolic of the two polarized views of the feminist movement. These characters are very different in their physical appearance and this is purposefully done as they are, in reality, actually caricatures of culture/popular media stereotypes of feminist women. Janet tall, blonde, beautiful, strong, charming, and free-spirited, an idealized female figure combining the strength of an amazon and the charm of the girl next door. Jael, conversely, is a complete monster dressed in black and surgically altered to have claws and fangs--a real hellcat--and she is the embodiment of the negative feminist media stereotype, a maniacal, castrating, man-hating, harridan who wants all men dead, but only after she’s bled them dry of their resources.