The Power of a Woman in the Cinematic Narrative : The Piano: "From a Polarized Gender Division to a More Equalitarian Gender Relation"

In this paper I explore the power of the female protagonist of the cinematic narrative The Piano, written and directed by the New Zealander Jane Campion. The film is set in nineteenth-century New Zealand, the English colony of the native Maoris. The heroine and the male protagonists have been raised in Victorian Britain -a highly hypocritical society which was concerned with maintaining the patriarchal stereotypes of gender- and have emigrated to these Pacific islands. Apart from showing people?s life in the colony and the relationship between English colonists and native Maoris, the film basically deals with the issue of gender relations. Not only in Victorian times, but all throughout history, women have been regarded as the weakest or a minor gender. And this idea has been reproduced in language, in everyday life, and even in films. Then, with the coming of the feminist movement, women started both to stand up for their rights, reassessing their own position and power in society; and to question men?s power. And this feminist view of gender has also been realized in discourse and films. So it appears that, when it comes to male-female relations, there is usually a tendency to divide, to set a difference or strike the balance towards the most powerful gender. But in The Piano tendencies are taken aside in an effort to join the genders -to present the possibility of a more equalitarian gender relation. The ultimate aim is that both men and women strive to get their souls together, to grow and develop in a reciprocal help, rather than striving to divide and prove who the most outstanding one is