Women in Harry Crewss A Feast of Snakes Essay -- Literary Analysis

It is known by many that, in regards to literature coming out of the South, female characters traditionally do not receive as much attention or detail as their male counterparts. Harry Crews does not, as one might say, â€Å"stray far from the path† of male dominated prose. However, this is not to say that there are only few women present in his writing, in fact quite the contrary. Women are not only present in Crews’s work, they are vividly entwined with the experiences and fiery outcomes of his male protagonist’s journeys; and A Feast of Snakes is no different. In â€Å"Having a Hard Time of it: Women in the Novels of Harry Crews,† an essay written by Elise S. Lake, Lake examines that even though some may interpret Crews as using women strictly in disrespectful or obscene ways for the advancement of his male characters, that â€Å"sheer variety disputes the notion that Crews stereotypes women narrowly† (84). We see a multitude of angles and p ersonalities in A Feast of Snakes alone, including: Lottie Mae and Beeder acting as an empathy release valve; the abused wife, Elfie; the ultimate cheerleader/ catalyst, Berenice; and finally the vicious sexual icons Hard Candy and Susan Gender. Probably the two utmost, one dimensional characters in A Feast of Snakes are Hard Candy Sweet and Susan Gender. These two are present in the story solely to be viewed as sexual icons. In the essay â€Å"Crews’s Women,† by Patricia V. Beatty, Beatty examines that â€Å"they are empty and vacuous, like Barbie dolls run wild. The men in A Feast of Snakes do not really perceive them as threats, but only as convenient sexual objects† (119). Their ways of making love are aggressive and, in Hard Candy’s case, is compared to the roughness of playing football. Even within ... ...nd abused wife, Elfie, but in the adjacent corner we find empathy in Lottie Mae and Beeder making sure the story does not become too one sided. At the same time we see Hard Candy and Susan Gender keeping the Southern plot moving with sex and a little violence. Elise S. Lake explains in â€Å"Having a Hard Time of it: Women in the Novels of Harry Crews† that â€Å"for most of Crews’s characters, hopes are unrealized, goals are unattained. Success is illusory, and self-determination is elusive for both men and women† (93). Being a Southern writer himself, Crews’s work is inevitably going to have some questionable views regarding the opposite gender, race, and class. This is what Southern Masculinity is. And to be able to plunge head first into a not-so-obvious aspect of this kind of writing and somehow come out smelling like roses; it is no easy task to say the least.