Amanda Couture
Ms. Camargo
ENGL 2100
3/21/2013
Vengeance with a Gender Studies Analysis
The roles of a man and a woman are clearly defined within the short story Killings by
Andre Dubus. The author shows the ideas of what a man and a woman should be through the
dialogue between the husband and wife, the husband and his friend, and the thoughts that the
main character has about the world around him. These thoughts and actions shown by the
speaker reveal the age, time period, and gender of the writer which help to show why he held the
characters to specific gender roles.
The father in Killings, represents what a father-figure, the leader of the family and the
protector, looks like to Andre Dubus. Matt Fowler’s life changed the day his son, Frank, was
murdered by his girlfriend’s ex-husband, Richard. The murderer posted bail after being arrested,
and walked around town awaiting his trial. His wife Ruth could hardly stand to see him around
town. This puts into question the father’s masculinity because he could not protect his son from
being killed and now he cannot protect his wife from the hurt Richard caused her. This becomes
another driving force for Matt Fowler’s plan to murder Richard. He must become the idea of the
“man” in this situation. A father-figure described by Anjula Saraff and Harish Srivastava states
that, “fathers were to be the primary breadwinners and source of authority in the family, while
mothers were to fulfill the emotional needs of family members,” (page 3).
After Matt’s wife first saw her son’s murderer in town, Matt began to carry a gun. This
shows the first step that the husband took to make sure his wife felt protected and to embody his
masculinity. Matt talks to his friend Willis about the situation, “She knows I started carrying it
after the first time she saw him in town. She knows it’s in case I see him, and there’s some kind
of situation-.” Not only is Matt trying to seem like a “man” to his wife, he is also trying to prove
himself to his friend, to show he is no coward when it comes to Richard, he will stand up to him
if necessary. This is the type of ideal that Andre Dubus grew up in. He became a young adult in
the 1950s a time period known for stay at home mothers and masculine fathers. He reflects his
ideas of family in Killings, the mother becomes threatened, and the father steps into his role as
the protector of the family, just like Matt Fowler in the story.
After the death of Frank, his father faces a lot of conflict in his day to day life. There is a
conflict between him and his wife, town, and the murderer. His wife does not feel safe in their
own town so as a husband he has failed to protect her. The only one that will talk to him about
Richard is his friend Willis, the town no longer speaks to him because of the murder. The
murderer walks on the streets which influence Matt to feel like there has been an injustice
because his son has been murdered. The husband now feels pressure to do something in order to
relieve the tension within the town. Robert Orrange stated in The Emerging Mutable Self:
Gender Dynamics and Creative Adaptations in Defining Work, Family, and Future that, Basic
assumptions about roles within marriage and issues of equity or equality are crucial factors that
implicate how individuals, in an ongoing manner, define and then strive to actualize their life
plans, a process that involves engaging in multirelational synchronization,” (11). The speaker
says, “Each day he felt the same and when he was able to forget how he felt, when he was able to
force himself not to feel that way, the eyes of his clerks and customers defeated him,” (105).
This is the crucial factor that makes the change in his mind to kill his son’s murderer; he knew he
would never be looked at the same again.
Matt Fowler has the stereotypical role as the father, but his wife also plays a certain part
in the short story. Frank’s mother has found something wrong with Mary Ann to show that she is
not good enough for her son. In lines 56-57 and lines 62-63 the speaker says, “Ruth didn’t like it
because Mary Ann was in the process of divorce, because she had two children, because she was
four years older than Frank,” and “she had heard: that the marriage had gone bad early, and for
most of it Richard and Mary Ann had both played around.” Ruth has already begun to judge
Mary Ann before she has really gotten to know her. She also is first to believe in the rumors
about her because no girl is good enough for her son.
Typically, mothers that have jobs have completely different things to worry about than
the gossip pertaining to their child’s significant other. Lines 56-57 and 62-63 show that she is
most likely a stay at home mother. Matt also says on page 105, “And beneath his listless
wandering, every day in his soul he shot Richard Strout in the face; while Ruth, going about
town on errands, kept seeing him.” Ruth only sees him while out on the town, the author never
states going to town to work.
After the father returns from killing and burying Richard, he went into his bedroom with
his wife laying there, laid down and began to tell her the lie he told to Richard. As the mother
and wife, she played the role of care-giver to her husband. The narrator describes the scene from
lines 155-157, “He went down the hall to the bathroom and in the dark he washed his hands and
face. Then he went to her, lay on his back, and pulled the sheet up to his throat.” The husband
has just killed a man and in order to protect his wife, he lies. The wife then embodies the idea of
“ignorance is bliss.” While the wife might have known what actually occurred, the author does
not want to explore that idea because a woman is typically viewed as inferior and unable to make
judgments similar to this independently. Now, the wife caresses his head as he is laying with her
as if to say now, you are a man. After he comes home from the murder Ruth seems to want him
again because he has “taken action” on the situation. Her inability to infer what has happened or
what she refuses to infer shows her ignorance to the situation because she embraces him despite
the immoral actions that Matt decided to take into his own hands.
Born in 1936, Andre Dubus grew up in a time period where women stayed at home while
men “took care of business.” This time period has influenced the gender roles into being very
traditionalist, where the woman is seen ask weak minded and inferior compared to the man who
is the strong breadwinner. Matt became the protector after his masculinity came into question
and Ruth became even more weak-minded because she allowed him to kill a man who would
later pay for his murderous ways.
Works Cited
Dubus, Andre. “Killings.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer.
Beford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 100-112. Print.
Orrange, Robert. “The Emerging Mutable Self: Gender Dynamics and Creative Adaptations in
Defining Work, Family, and the Future.” Oxford University Press, 82. 1 (2003): n. pag.
Web. 20 March 2013.
Saraff, Anjula. Srivastava, Harish. “Envisioning Fatherhood: Indian Fathers’ Perceptions of an
Ideal Father” Population Review Publications, 47. 1 (2008): n. pag. Web. 18 March
2013.