Gender Issues in Bayonet Woods

Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods is a depressing book with breathtaking imagery. The author, Paula Bohince, clearly has a complex relationship with her home town. While she displays a fascination with nature and animals, she is obviously discontent.The poem “Spirits at the Edge of Bayonet Woods” was the first poem that really defined her feelings towards her “homestead”.In regards to a woman who committed suicide, she writes that the women in Bayonet woods “understood when she wrote, I cannot go on here, in this place…”

This poem also asks a question: “what was a woman’s purpose in those woods?” I found this question to be a present force throughout the novel. The women seem to be stuck there, trapped by alcoholic fathers and abusive husbands. It is a place for men and hunting and the women seem to be victims. This can be viewed through Paula’s personal plight or the struggles of the women she writes about. Paula’s book is largely driven by the men tying her to the woods. First there is her father, later in the second chapter it is the memory of her father, and in the third chapter, her husband. There are also characters, such as Grace who kills herself, and Marie, whose father raped her, that she empathizes with.

Overall, I think that Paula Bohince’s experiences in Bayonet Woods are colored by her experiences specifically as a woman.