Rape Fantasies

Rape Fantasies

The author of the short story Rape Fantasies is Margaret Atwood-She is a renowned Canadian writer of poetry and fiction, she is best known for her novel The Handmaids Tail. The short story that I chose Rape Fantasies comes from Atwood's first collection of short stories called Dancing girls and Other Stories.

"Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent"

Eleanor Roosevelt

The story Rape Fantasies is about a bunch of females who are sitting around the lunch room during their lunch hour talking about fantasies that they consider to be called "Rape Fantasies". The story came about because society has made rape a big issue and is being viewed everywhere, like the movies, radio, T.V., and magazines. in this story the narrator that is called Estelle in the story claims that the ideas that the other women in at their table are considering rape fantasies isn't rape at all, but a fantasy that they have about having sex with a complete stranger. She continues to prove them wrong and decides to tell them her stories, rape fantasies that she has had.

The basis of the story is rape. Rape, as defined in the Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, is an act of power and dominance; although 15% to40% of American women are victims of rape or attempted rape, there is also the chance that a man is assaulted also. It is said that women are more than likely going to get raped by someone they know. More than half of the nation's rape assaults have been placed in the victim's home. Many rape assaults are continued or completed because the victim didn't use verbal or physical force as resistance. For more than 3 decades and now till this day, feminist organizations have been fighting successfully to change the publics' attitude toward rape as well as how society treats rape victims.

The themes of this story are the quotes that are displayed through the paper and the definition of rape, why it's taking lightly and how is the issue getting solved.

The story brings out the inner feeling of the characters on how they feel about the subject of rape and how they look at it.

The reader is placed in an office lunchroom with a group of adult women, playing bridge, reading magazines and talking about each other. One of the women named Chrissy, whose reading a magazine comes across an article about rape and it becomes the discussion for the week.

In the story the women reveal to the readers more about themselves than the narrator, Estelle, tells us.

We begin with Greta, a blonde with an attitude. She wants all of her peers to admire her. She believes that she is one of the best people at their job. Her fantasy begins in a place where most rape assaults happen, in the victim's home. Out of reality and back to fantasy she sees a man dressed as a burglar climb onto her balcony on the 18th floor, coming into her apartment and stealing her body. Like most rape cases she did use force of resistance so she allowed him to finish the act of trying to overpower someone. This gives me the assumption that rape to her takes place in a comfortable environment. Were you're helpless and feel that there is no importance to resisting. The thing that sticks out about rape to her is how the person gets to you. In the story she gave more details about that than the rape its self.

In this case her rapist was swinging from balcony to balcony raping the females in her building.

Then you have the other overly confident blonde. Her name is Chrissy. Through the story you will find that most people go by the facts of places were rape occurs because just like Greta, Chrissie's rape fantasy takes place in her home. Chrissy starts of in a particular room in the house , a room that you would think a person would have to really be looking for you to rape in order to go their , the bathroom. In her fantasy she sees herself getting raped in the bathtub. Not knowing how the person got into the house she didn't scream for help. She believes that there was no way for her to avoid the problem. That's why she cooperates with her rapist. Chrissy believes that where the rape takes place is important and that being a non-resistant victim is the best way not to get hurt. I don't think that Chrissy realizes that being raped you are getting hurt.

When analyzing these two characters you don't have to think hard about their outlook on rape. Like some people would say, they claim it's just a fantasy, but they probably would do that in