I felt like with this story, it was easy to see many of the things that Frye talked about in her piece "Oppression"... in the format of a story. The tool of oppression in Walker's piece is pornography.
On the first page, the woman recognizes that her concerns won't be taken seriously... her husband responds with "You are being silly/a prude and/ ridiculous. You know I love you." It made me think of when Frye talked about women's physical restraint. This is an example of verbal restraint- she's not going to say anything or push the issue because she'll just get mocked. It doesn't benefit her... it benefits him.
Throughout the whole piece, there are so many examples of where women are treated as things... white and black women, by white and black men. But especially horrible, to me and to Walker, is the treatment of black women by black men.
The first example is when the wife is standing a little ways behind her husband. She immediately gets questions about her "working"... is she for sale? Her husband struggles at first, but then gets his head around the idea that this is a compliment- his wife is good looking. The second example is related to the first- she's behind him a ways because she stopped to stare in disgust at 4 life size plastic dolls. Women are toys, for the man's pleasure.
Later in the piece, the husband begins to feel disgust for himself, because he realizes he's bought into all the things the porn industry has been telling him about women, and about himself. Women are things to be had; what's worse is that white women, while something to be had, is at least displayed as a human creature... black women are displayed as inhuman things. Furthermore, as he states, he is only as good as "the size, readiness and unselectivity of his cock", as a black man.
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