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Response Paper 21

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RESPONSE PAPER 21 2

Response Paper 21

The story “Behind a mask: or, a woman’s power" does not announce itself as being

written by a woman. The opening statements are similar to all other stories, and this gives the

reader a road trip down the road of an exciting storyline with the hope of getting an impeccable

end. One would mistake the author to be a man because of the many female characters present in

the story. The many times where a man narrates a story prefers to use female characters because

they have different pleasant characteristics to display. For a women author, it is not really about

the preference of gender, but rather, the story behind the whole scene. Therefore, the story can

quickly be passed as being written by a male writer.

The story of “Behind a Mask" does not have a big difference with other stories written by

men like Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville. They are all moving towards the same direction of

having many female characters, and the message in these stories is not focused on gender

representation. Nonetheless, they do not put into consideration the gender of the writer, but the

quality of the story with a context and an impact. In the end, gender does not necessarily play a

role in how the story in question is perceived as all that matters is the content and the flow of the

story.

In summation, gender does not necessarily play a role in how I perceive the story because

the whole aspect of having an exciting story is all that matters. Gender representation should not

be considered when reading a story because it leads a reader to be biased and make judgments on

why the story was written.