Upon reading “The Goodman of Wastness,” I considered the possibility that the Goodman stealing the skins of the Selkie was a metaphor for colonization. I came to this conclusion after looking up that a goodman is a term for the male head of household, and wastness means desolation. This can be inferred from the words of the Selkie whose skin he has stolen, as she begs him for her skin back. When he does this, he is taking an item of importance from her, making it harder for her to survive in society, just like colonizers did when they pushed out indigenous people.
The concept of taking something that is not yours from a group of people is not a new concept, as it has been a concept since colonization. An example of this in the story is when it states that the Selkie could not survive in the sea without her skin, and he would not give up her skin. I think this is referring to how colonizers take power away from groups of people that were already there, much like how they make groups of people defenseless, upset, and on-edge. Without her skin, she is helpless and is separated from her family, forced to marry someone who took something from her. This concept is not new, as many indigenous women in the past were forced to marry white Englishmen in order to survive in times of colonization.
While reading the story, I got an uneasy feeling due to how the story seems like it is about colonization.