Female Subordination and Resistance in Joan Barfoot’s Dancing in The Dark

Abstract

This thesis entitled “Female subordination and resistance in Joan Barfoot’s Dancing in the Dark" explores the relationship between patriarchy and orthodox society, and the marginalized and objectified status of women in Canadian Community. This project shows how and why women become object of exploitation under the influence of conservative society which compels women to follow the traditional roles and duties that excludes females from important day to day activities. It also focuses on the female's realization of their pathetic condition and the sense of resistance against such dominating ideology. The females in Canadian Society are compelled to be used according to their husband's desire. They are subjected to physical and mental abuse in society. The protagonist of the novel, Edna Cormick lives her twenty years of life with her husband as a submissive wife. She denies the outer world by devoting herself to the health and welfare of her husband and home. But when she finds her husband neglecting her and having extra marital affair, she could not tolerate series of betrayal of her husband and kills him as a slap on the face of patriarchy.