writingwomen

Kim Staffons "The Wife's Lament"

Reading this story i was wondering if maybe the seperation between the lovers was symbollic of the seperation of the gender roles. I may be stretching a bit but i think that maybe Kim was going for the sea keeping the characters apart just like society and stuff keeps the gender roles apart. In Kim's time period it must have seemed like the gender roles were as fixed as the sea itself. Unmovable and unchangable. I think the lamenting is Saffron's desire to allow women to be educated and to write. From Saffrons perspective that would allow the two gender roles to meanfully communicate, and to co exist on equal ground instead of being seperated by the 'sea' of uneducation and gender constraints.