Curious Mrs. Hale The Characteristics of Female Characters
Related to the discussion about the characteristics of male and female characters, it is also clear that female characters can be defined as the inferior by
comparing female’s characteristics and male’s characteristics, in which male characteristics are closer to superiority. Glaspell creates male and female characters
as binary oppositions, superior vs. inferior. Here, female characters represent the inferior and male characters represent the superior, since the female characters are
featured with powerless attributes and the male characters are featured with powerful attributes.
Such a kind of thought “How male characters can be defined as superior if
there are no female characters as the inferior that undergo the male characters’
domination” is just like in the case of ‘smart’ and stupid. As in the binary opposition concept, the meaning of smart will be easily defined by understanding the meaning of
stupid. In this case, the understanding of stupid will find out the meaning of smart. Based on the concept of binary opposition, it can be concluded that male characters in
this play will not be portrayed as superior without female characters’ help as the
inferior , the characters that have to be dominated because of the male characters’
attitude which is dominating. In other words, by ana lyzing female’s characteristics
will help to find out m ale’s characteristics.
In previous subchapter, the characteristics both male and female characters are already analyzed. Based on that analysis, there are some characteristics of male and
female characters which are opposed one to each other as a binary opposition. Those characteristics are listed and compared, so that the binary opposition on the
characteristics of these two characters becomes clearly accessible and can be analyzed.
In this subchapter, the characteristic of each character represents the characteristic of their gender since their attitudes are only accepted by the other
characters with the same gender. For example, when Mr. Henderson is being intolerant toward female characters, the other male characters agree with his attitude
of being intolerant toward women. The other example is when Mrs. Hale is being sympathetic by showing her sympathy towards Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Peters as the other
female character agree with her attitude and showing the same feeling towards Mrs. Wright. So, we can say that the characteristic of a character in this play represents the
characteristic of their gender too.