If on a Winter's Night a Traveler Lesson Plan

How do social forces shape the power dynamics and relationships within the novel?

One of the most obvious power dynamics is between women and men. Patriarchy may be a social force that keeps the female characters from being fully developed. Students may also argue that patriarchy is what prompted fickle Ludmilla, who enjoyed living alone, to agree to be married and live a life of domesticity. What the reader wants from women, he gets. Another power dynamic emerges in the final chapters: the government’s role in the search for truth. Censorship is a way states and police forces have limited the flow of information so as to portray a particular kind of truth. The Reader...