Feminism in Miss Temptation Anonymous 10th Grade

In his short story “Miss Temptation,” Kurt Vonnegut explores religious and social undertones through the contrast between women’s gender roles, using terse prose to allow the reader to unravel his many carefully placed controversial topics. Vonnegut connects ideas of gender equality and religious rectitude with each other, especially with his descriptions the most prominent character: Susanna. Through her character, he is also able to provide insight into how the role of women in society changed in the hundred or so years before this piece was written, making references to World War II and the Women’s Rights Movement in the latter half of the nineteenth century. As he wrote this seemingly simple short story, Kurt Vonnegut was able to open up a can of worms, revealing not only his view of female politics, but those which he had actually witnessed around him.

Susanna, an actress visiting the village for the summer, is a living and walking description of what many Christian, specifically Puritan, people of the 1950s would consider sin. She is a vision of temptation and bold character, with “chains with little bells” hanging off of her ankles, “hips… like a lyre,” and a bosom that “made men dream of peace and plenty for ever and...