In the fairy tale Sun
Moon and Talia women are presented as powerless. This is shown in the text
through the use of binary oppositions, in particular the gender representation
of male verse female. The king is rewarded ‘Of course he married Talia’. He is
able to punish the Queen for bad behaviour and she is powerless to stop him,
“you venomous, evil women… he command that the Queen should be the cast into
the fire”. The men in Sun Moon and Talia are shown to be heroic and not
getting punished. This is shown in the text ‘…they had to bring him an axe and
a pickaxe that he might hew the pigeon-house to pieces, but no one was inside
it.’ Men are shown to be able to do whatever they wish without punishment while
the women are punished. This is shown in the quote, ‘for their wickedness and
falsehood, they were punished with blindness as long as they lived’. Women
throughout Sun Moon and Talia are shown to be powerless through the
representation of women being punished for their actions and men being able to
do as they please in life.
