The first question from The Awakening socratic seminar questions is: Discuss the influence of one's gender have upon reading this novel. I thought that this was significant to both literature in general as well as in today's society. The gender of the reader affects how the reader views The Awakening becuase I think that if the reader is a female then they would naturally view the story from Edna's point of view and in a way sympathize with her. If the reader is a male I think that they would read it more from a distant or neutral point of view. I felt that the gender of the reader really would have changed how the reader viewed the story becuase each side would naturally have a different view or perspective on the issues presented such as marraige, kids, and family life.
In literature the issue of gender effecting the way people think about a novel is presented quite often. When reading works of literature I think the problem presents itself that different genders view novel from different points of view and that can effect how the reader interprets certain issues that are presented throughout any given novel. If the readers interpret the meanings to be something different then really the meanings of the novels could be different for each of the two genders. If we wanted to expand on it more generally we could say even things such as the race or ethnic background could also affect how the reader may interpret different meanings.
For me, I believe that being a female does effect how I think of certain characters or circumstances of a novel. Naturally I'm more emotional about things like death, marraige, or issues such as abuse like that presented in A Thousand Splendid Suns. I know, by my brother's reactions to the same novels, that he is not as emotional as I am and that he doesn't seem to be effected he read it more like a part of the story that has to happen for the story to continue. I would rather have story skip those or make the underdog come back on top, but that doesn't always happen and most of the time I just have to face the facts that the novel is as it is written and that is what is going to happen.
In my oppinion the issue that different genders view different matters in literary works depending on their gender is both a good and a bad thing. It is a bad things becuase, as i have already mentioned, male and female see things differently and will not always interpret things in the same way. This becomes a problem when the two genders interpret completely different meanings for one thing. This is a good thing becuase in discussions, such as our socratic seminars, it provides grounds for argument so that the two different sides are able to discuss what they believe is the correct interpretation of the literary work.
