A Retelling Of Noah's Ark

11 Pages 2734 Words

o displayed with his need to follow rules strictly (Pennee 33). He is not merciful when it comes to giving out punishment for those who fail to follow rules and remember their place. He proves this when Mrs Noyes attempts to clean God’s face when He falls out of the carriage. Noah says: “What ever punishment my Lord decrees, I shall be only too glad to administer twice over. If you would have her hand removed for having dared so much as to reach in my Lord’s direction, I shall remove not one, but both, myself.” (Findley 67-8). Noah is very willing to deform his wife in order to put her in her place. His need for power and a patriarchal world influences his actions, often making him a very destructive person. Indeed, Noah’s obsession with following rules and his horrible treatment of women display his exaggerated role of authority.
Exaggeration in the novel is also apparent through ideas involving supremacy. Supremacist thinking is at work in a great amount of Noah’s decrees and actions (Pennee 55). One supremacist idea that is overstated is the idea that men are better than women. Patriarchy, in the biblical tradition and in this novel, is always inclined to blame women (Pennee 59). This idea is demonstrated when apes come from Noah’s ancestry and yet is the fault of the women he has fertilized, as it will be Emma’s fault, if Noah’s son Japeth and her produce an ape too. Mrs Noyes explains to Emma Noah’s plot: “So-when a child is born-it will be yours-not Japeth’s. Your blood, not his: your ancestry…your blame…your fault…your responsibility.”(Findley165). Noah arranges Emma’s marriage to Japeth because she has an ape sister and knows most likely that they will produce an ape-child and she will receive the blame. Truly, Noah’s ignorance of his wife’s pleas to save the child, and his contemptuous plot to remove the blame of ape-children from his family unto Emma’s family displays the...