An Analysis Of Mary Irigarason's Removes

Irigaray’s theory of women as ur-commodity is that our culture’s foundation is built on the exchange of women. Simply, women are objects that are owned by men to be sold and consumed. In Mary Rowlandson’s “Removes”, she tells the story of her captivity by a Native American tribe. The title, “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” (Rowlandson, pg. 11), not ‘restoration of Mary’s freedom’, gives the impression that Mary, as an object, was restored to her husband, her rightful owner. The women in the story were treated as objects to barter with. Mary’s daughter, May, who was a prisoner of the Native Americans, was sold to another tribe for a gun (Ibid, pg. 17). In Irigaray’s theory: since women are objects to be exchanged, men continue to practice this exchange because of what she calls the “incest taboo”, a way for men to climb up the class hierarchy. For example, when the pregnant woman asked to be set free, she was humiliated then murdered. However, when Mary asked to be sold to her husband by the master, the master agreed (Ibid, pg. 38); hoping he could climb the social ladder (Ibid, pg. 27). Irigaray’s explains that since there is no known history of women’s objectification of men, there are no exchanges of men by women. Throughout the reading, women, children, and men were bought and exchanged by men.
19). Mary’s submission to her male God was telling of the ways in which scripture is used for the ideological manipulation of women by men. For example, her choice of scripture; “the Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord”, especially compared to her son’s choice of “the Lord has chastened me some, yet he hath not given me over to death” (Ibid, pg. 23). Mary’s choice of scripture is her accepting her disposability in the eyes of God, but Joseph’s choice shows his value under the eyes of