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Article: "Morpho Eugenia": Problems with the Male Gaze.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction
- Article date:
- June 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In "Morpho Eugenia," the first novella of Angels and Insects, A. S. Byatt unravels the man-is-hero story by telling the story from a male protagonist's point of view. Byatt does this to illustrate the corrupted power he wields from his narrative vantage point of "the male gaze." William Adamson views the world as if he were subject, and all others are objects, gazed upon by him, observed by him. He represents the other characters through a masculine, unitary gaze, centering himself in the story while trying to create closure and unity all around him. Adamson not only sees everything in a binary opposition of white against black, beautiful against ugly; he names and labels ...