So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men

The collected stories examine the dangerous implications of misogyny and patriarchal gender roles, particularly on the safety of women’s lives and bodies. All of the female characters in the collection are limited by their male counterparts—they thus represent the plight of women in patriarchal societies. Meanwhile, all the male characters are self-involved, sexist, and/or violent and thus act as embodiments of misogyny itself. Throughout the three stories, the conflicts between the female and male characters capture the emotional psychological, social, and cultural impact of antiquated, patriarchal gender roles that subjugate and pose a danger to women’s autonomy and safety.

In all three of the collected short stories, the female characters are burdened by their assigned gender roles and become victims of men’s selfishness, pride, and violence. In “So Late in the Day,” Sabine’s character directly addresses the dangers of misogyny in a recollected scene of dialogue with Cathal. Sabine argues that while “things may now be changing” (socially and politically in Ireland), “a good half of men” still want women “to shut up and give [them] what [they] want” (34). Sabine and Cathal’s relationship explicitly exemplifies this dynamic. Cathal reaps the benefits of his relationship with Sabine—she cooks for him and keeps him company—but he has no real interest in knowing or respecting her as a person. His frustration with her dinner dishes in the sink, her belongings when she moves in, and her expressing her opinion shows that he wants the idea of a woman (and thus a mate and caretaker) but that Sabine as an individual bothers him. This dynamic acts as a micro representation of imbalanced gender roles at large and the way many men have learned to engage with and regard women. A woman, the short story shows, is taught to be an appendage to a man’s life—she must aid the man’s well-being while forsaking her own. In abiding by this model, the woman loses her autonomy and identity.

In “The Long and Painful Death,” the German man’s presumptuous behaviors in his interactions with the woman offer another representation of misogyny. In this story, the man shows up at the Böll House unannounced and demands that the woman let him in. The house represents solitude and peace, and the man physically intrudes upon this space. He unsettles the woman’s state of mind, monopolizes her time, pushes through the rooms, scarfs down her cake, accuses her of being undeserving of the residency, and belittles how she spends her time. These behaviors all have misogynistic undertones and convey the man’s general contempt for women. The man’s actions and words also imply that he believes he’s due the woman’s attention and time. Social gender norms have imbued him with a sense of entitlement, and he expects the woman to submit to him.

While the woman in “The Long and Painful Death” fights against the German man’s insults via writing, the woman in “Antarctica” becomes a victim of misogynistic violence. This short story has the most extreme plot line and ending; it thus lays bare the true violence that patriarchal gender roles can wreak on women’s bodies and lives. In this story, the man ensnares the woman in her version of hell—chaining her to the bed and gagging her while she’s naked in a freezing cold room—to assert his power over her. The man also labels this arrangement as love. This shows that the man believes his violation of the woman is not only natural but a gift. Ultimately, the man’s “love” begets the woman’s death, which the story foreshadows as it ends.