28 pages • 56 minutes read
Carmen Maria MachadoHer Body and Other Parties
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Oppression of Women
Her Body and Other Parties is primarily concerned with the psychology of women in contemporary society. The constant threat of bodily harm, and how this fear takes its toll, is manifested in the ongoing threat that “The Husband Stitch” protagonist’s husband posits to her livelihood. In “Inventory” Machado uses the blatant violence of a Marine who seeks to take advantage of the main character’s kindness to highlight the pervasiveness of male violence, even in the face of human crisis. In “Especially Heinous,” Stabler’s wife contends with the aftermath of rape. The ghost of femicide looms over the story collection’s female characters, including Detective Benson, who is literally haunted by dead teenagers whose murders have gone unsolved, and the main character in “Real Women Have Bodies,” who can see so-called “faded” women, who have lost their bodies in a strange epidemic, sewn into the dresses sold in the shop where she works.
The second part of the book focuses on the internalized oppression of women. “Real Women Have Bodies” touches upon the impossible standards of the fashion industry and its complacency in suppressing female agency. “Eight Bites” deconstructs the pressure upon women to maintain an unrealistic body weight. The character’s hatred of her heavier body illustrates the self-effacement that attempting to maintain these ideal body standards breeds. “The Resident” touches upon the gendered hypocrisies of the creative field; while men are praised for autobiographical writing, women are characterized as selfish and unoriginal, even by other women.
“Difficult at Parties” tells the story of a woman struggling with the aftermath of trauma on her social and sex life. Within this story, Machado again touches upon popular culture by pointing to the male-centric, dehumanizing tropes of mainstream heterosexual pornography as well as the effects of its male gaze on women. Most of Machado’s female protagonists do not have names, a choice that hints at the commonality of their experiences among all women.
Male Domination and Entitlement
All the characters in Her Body and Other Parties suffer the consequences of male domination and entitlement in some way. In “The Husband Stitch,” the thread of misogyny hangs over the head of the protagonist as she tries to rationalize her husband’s obsession with the green ribbon on which her life depends. The protagonist’s son’s interest in her ribbon in late childhood, and subsequent attempt at exerting his male power over her, alludes to the idea that male dominance and entitlement are learned or socially conditioned. The protagonist insists that her husband is “not a bad man” (30), though his increasing desire to touch what belongs to his wife leads to her head detaching from her body. Here, Machado uses allegory to address the pervasiveness of male entitlement, both in contemporary society and throughout history.
“Especially Heinous” uses the cyclical TV series structure to highlight both micro and macro aggression against women, from murder to gender discrimination in the workplace. Through the accumulation of sexist incidents and feminicide, Machado positions male domination and entitlement as causes of female oppression. Furthermore, Stabler’s insistence on finding out more information about his wife’s rape despite her own wishes for him not to implies that male entitlement can even co-opt female trauma.
The Threat of Dystopia
Her Body and Other Parties illustrates dystopia in many forms. The protagonist of “The Husband Stitch” must live in a world in which her livelihood is constantly under threat from her husband’s desire to touch her ribbon, her most precious possession. The story points to a psychological dystopia in which the protagonist constantly lives in fear of bodily harm. This fear of bodily harm that women face every day is also accentuated in the repetitive violence against women described by Machado’s short story “Especially Heinous.” “Especially Heinous” positions the prevalence of violence against women as a social dystopia that has been normalized by popular culture. The tone of the short story “Mothers” shifts between dystopia and utopia, implying that they are two sides of the same coin.
Through an emphasis on popular culture, Machado implies that female beauty standards produce a dystopic existence among women in which women are psychologically (and, as in “Real Women Have Bodies” and Eight Bites,” literally) detached from their bodies. “Real Women Have Bodies” uses allegory to criticize the ways in which women’s bodies are manipulated for the profit of the fashion industry. During a strange epidemic in which women’s bodies are literally fading, “faded” women begin to inhabit high-end dresses. The implication that women’s bodies are synonymous with how they are sold implies that women’s self-esteem and agency have been co-opted for profit. “Eight Bites” speaks to the implications of this co-opting, which leads to a rise in dangerous weight loss options such as gastric bypass surgery. The “Eight Bites” character’s post-op hatred of her former body alludes to the self-hatred borne of impossible beauty standards.
In addition to social or metaphorical dystopias, Her Body and Other Parties develops a number of dystopias that threaten to wipe out mankind. “Inventory” describes the onset of a deadly virus that spreads across the globe and forces the main character into isolation. In “Real Women Have Bodies,” women’s bodies are literally fading away without explanation.
