Touching Bottom Analysis

Touching Bottom by Kari Strutt – Feminist Criticism In Touching Bottom by Kari Strutt, the author completely flips male and female roles around. Usually, the main hero in literature is male. However, in this short story, the author challenges the concept of male dominance and destroys gender roles. The female protagonist learns to clutch onto the power she has over her life. At first, she lives her life in fear and to only please men such as her father and her so called husband. Later on, she learns to overcome it, thus gaining control over her own life. Living life just to please others is not something one should be living by, especially if it is to please men. From the very beginning, most of the narrator’s actions are to please men. Her father, for instance, has been a major influence on her. “You should learn to swim,” (Strutt 124), just one sentence and the narrator takes up swimming. She continues to do so

She is able to free herself from her terrible, unfaithful husband by leaving him after the whole incident at the beach. Her doing so severs the ties between her and her once called stepson. Since she has a strong bond with Ian, it is most likely the hardest for her in the divorce to leave Ian. A few long years past, she reunites with Ian as an adult and talks about their memories they had together. “He said nothing of his father I didn’t ask” (Strutt 131), the narrator says that his entire visit, he does not mention his Father at all, which does not bother her at all. Maybe because her ex-husband still lives his life the same way he did with her; unfaithful. The female in the story is shown as meek and easily taken advantage of, while her husband seems to be as unfaithful and objectifying. Overall the gender roles got switched around. The man is now viewed as the villain and the woman is viewed as the hero of the story. This gives the story its feminist