Women of "The Sparrow"

Paper Summary:

This paper shows that, although the author of "The Sparrow", Mary Doria Russel, has created believable and appealing female characters, she falls short of making them truly valuable and indeed goes so far as to make them all too human, which may be her novel's primary shortcoming.

From the Paper:

"In spite of these considerable skills and positive impact on the crew as a whole, the two women of the crew do not loom as large in the story as do the men. Russell seems to have decided, in an acknowledgment of her predominantly male audience perhaps, that it is the men who make the major contributions and the women who falter. In a key scene, as D.W. closes in on death, he tells Anne that he has chosen Jimmy to succeed him as leader of the Rakhat crew. D.W. first lists the reasons why the other men are not fit for the role, then, almost as an after thought says "Annie, you feel too much and Sofia thinks too damn quick for her own good. Jim's got a fine balance in him.""

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