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Symbols
Ike Mazzard’s drawings symbolize the stereotypical male fantasy of unrealistic, flawless women. Joanna is familiar with Ike’s work before she moves to Stepford, since he’s a well-known magazine illustrator famous for his drawings of beautiful women with perfect features and large breasts. When Ike comes to Joanna’s house with some of the other members of the Men’s Association, he starts drawing her without asking permission. This makes Joanna deeply uncomfortable, but he just tells her to relax, condescendingly looking back and forth at her and his notepad. In this way, he objectifies Joanna and makes her feel self-conscious—after all, he’s carefully scrutinizing her every feature. To make matters worse, she knows that he always draws overly sexualized women that satisfy a certain male fantasy about what women should look like. She therefore feels as if he’s comparing her to an unrealistic ideal of feminine beauty, and the drawing itself comes to represent just how willing the men in Stepford are to subject women to unrealistic expectations.
Ike Mazzard’s Drawings Quotes in The Stepford Wives
The The Stepford Wives quotes below all refer to the symbol of Ike Mazzard’s Drawings. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
“Hey,” she said, shifting uncomfortably and smiling, “I’m no Ike Mazzard girl.”
“Every girl’s an Ike Mazzard girl,” Mazzard said, and smiled at her and smiled at his pecking.
She looked to Walter; he smiled embarrassedly and shrugged.
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Chapter 2
Quotes
She was wrong, she knew it. She was wrong and frozen and wet and tired and hungry, and pulled eighteen ways by conflicting demands. Including to pee.
If they were killers, they’d have killed her then. The branch wouldn’t’ have stopped them, three men facing one woman.
[…]
Bobbie would bleed. It was coincidence that Dale Coba had worked on robots at Disneyland, that Claude Axhelm thought he was Henry Higgins, that Ike Mazzard drew his flattering sketches. Coincidence, that she had spun into—into madness. Yes, madness.
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Ike Mazzard’s Drawings Symbol Timeline in The Stepford Wives
The timeline below shows where the symbol Ike Mazzard’s Drawings appears in The Stepford Wives. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...work ruined her childhood because she could never measure up to the women in his illustrations. In response, he says that he’s sure she measured up just fine. There’s also a...
(full context)
At one point, Joanna realizes that Ike Mazzard is drawing her. She suddenly feels self-conscious, as if she’s naked and Ike is staring at her...
(full context)
...like robots all their lives.” Then she starts taping herself while looking at the framed drawing that Ike Mazzard gave her. “Taker. Takes. Taking,” she reads into the microphone.
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