Sex: A Study of Power Annie Haynes 12th Grade

Examples of women overcoming male supremacy and achieving power can be found in Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Yasunari Kawabata’s Thousand Cranes, both of which include strong women in a male dominated society. However, while Márquez’s Maria Alejandrina Cervantes derives her power from her sexuality, Kawabata’s Chikako Kurimoto achieves hers through her sexless nature.

Although Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is a woman, she is one of the most powerful, influential members of her town. Cervantes is captivating, almost casting a spell over the men of the community. Santiago describes her as enchanting and elegant and says men were dazzled by her (Márquez 64). This magical diction relates her to the idea of this mystical, hypnotic charm she seems to cast over her mates. A few lines later, Santiago states that Cervantes was “the most serviceable in bed, but she was also the strictest” (Márquez 64). After luring the men into her bed, she demands power and respect. The narrator describes this cycle with his fable-like statement: “A falcon that chases a warlike crane can only hope for a life of pain” (Márquez 65). The warlike...