Women's Writing II blog

Adam Bede

2005-04-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

Going back to our class discussion on Dinah from Adam Bede I did find her manipulative. She goes to visit Adam and Seth's mother under the guise of being helpful. But in the novel she says that she persuaded Lisbeth to let her clean the kitchen because she believed that a sense of "order and quietude around her would help in disposin Lisbeth to join in the prayer she longed to pour forth at her side." Dinah's main purpose is always her religion. Although she is not aggressive she is manipulative because she uses her knowledge of human nature to help her sense when a prayer would be more accepted. "From her girlhood upwards she had had experience among the sick and mourning... and had gained the subtlest perception of the mode in which they could best be touched, and softened into a willingness to recieve words of spiritual consolation or warning." (112) The fact that Dinah always has an agenda makes it hard to like her as a character.

The Colonies

2005-04-04T08:59:00.001-07:00

I thought that the information that we learned in a class a couple of weeks ago, when talking about Adam Bede, about how author's used the colonies in their novels was interesting. I've never heard of this before. I noticed that Margaret Atwood also uses the colonies in a Handmaid's tale. This is the ultimate threat, for the Handmaid's, probably more than death that keeps them in line. I still have the image of Offred's mother working among the was it bodies? in my mind.

A Room of One's Own

2005-04-03T18:41:00.000-07:00

Virginia Woolfe is definitely an original writer. I read Orlando and her version of androgyny is a complicated thing to figure out. To add to the discussion in class about the question would she have written the same way without her bouts of madness. I don't think she would have. I think that it was part of who she was. It would direct her thoughts. I think you live in an altered reality when you cope with an illness like this. It becomes part of who you are and acts as a lens through which you see life.

Short story - Lizzie Leigh

2005-04-03T17:57:00.000-07:00

In the short story Lizzie Leigh Elizabeth Gaskell shows how the lives of the woman in this short story are all controlled by patriarchal figures. The story shows how the controlling father ruins his relationship with his daughter, Lizzie. Lizzie as a young girl faces harsh consequences because of her pregnancy. The story shows how if you are a woman and make a mistake you are on your own.
The father is so controlling that he would not even allow his wife to go to her daughter. However, the mother/daughter relationship in this story is powerful. The wife worshipped her husband for 19 years until he disowned their daughter then she rebelled against him as she could. Her rebellion was a"hidden silent rebellion." She only decided to stay with her husband at his death because he redeemed himself by forgiving his daughter and realizing that he had been wrong. She also moved to Manchester and spent night after night on the streets looking for her daughter.
The oldest son was not much better than his father. He was also hard and unforgiving. He did not stop his mother from looking for his sister, but he wished she were dead so he would not have to be embarrassed by her.
When the oldest son married Susan the cycle continues with the husband being in charge and her being the passive follower. She trades in her own father who treats her like his servant for another authority figure.
The men in the story like the father, Susan's father and the oldest brother are controlling and unforgiving. The women and the youngest son who is compared to a girl, are kind, caring and loving.

Jane Eyre

2005-04-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed reading Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte presents a good solid female character. I really like Jane because she is so passionate and she knows who she is even from a young age. She is not beaten down by her harsh life. I like that she is not passive like Helen Burns.
The novel also appeals to my romantic nature because of the relationship between Jane and Mr. Rochester. It was definately a meeting of "true minds." Their relationship was one of intellect instead of being about status or appearance. Bronte is original in her use of a plain heroine and a dark gothic looking Mr. Rochester. I liked that Bronte showed that Jane would not stay to be his mistress. It was revealling of the fact that no matter how important a relationship is women should be true to themselves. Jane was miserable when she left, but she would have been miserable if she had stayed. She would have been a kept woman and the terms of their relationship would have changed. The novel foreshadows this as being problematic when Jane is so uncomfortable with Mr. Rochester buying her new dresses.
Bronte gives us a very pro-feminine ending when Jane returns to Mr. Rochester as a completely self-sufficient heiress. He is now reliant on her to live a normal life. She did not feel comfortable living supported by him, and was happy when she could return to him as the stronger partner in the pair.
I also found the section long after she left Mr. Rochester. It seemed to be very drawn out. I was terrified that she would stay with St. John because she felt it was her duty. I was surprised that Bronte showed her so completely taken over by him. I can see how he drew her in though by always challenging her to do more and holding her up to his incredibly high standards. The character of St. John was an effective comparison to Mr. Rochester because they were such opposites. Rochester was dark and brooding while St. John was fair and like a god. In this novel it is the dark character who is more favorable.

The Handmaid's Tale

2005-04-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

This is the first novel I've read by Margaret Atwood. It is really good. Her skill as a writer is evident in the way she gives you just enough information to get you hooked, but not enough to know what is really going on. I found that she was really good at weaving in pieces of the past without making the novel choppy.
It is hard not to react to this novel. I found it had the feel of 1984 by George Orwell. The women were so controlled to the point that they could barely talk to each other and they could not read anything. It does its job by really making you think about women's position in society. There has never been a society like the one described in the novel, but I can only imagine that conditions in the Middle East would be just as horrifying.
At first I thought that the forced sex would be one of the worst things, but she shows how she could distance herself from the sex, and just see it as a ritualistic act. When she starts sleeping with him without his wife she even wishes for Serena Joy so it would be easier to distance herself. The hardest thing for her seems to be losing her daughter, her husband and her mother. I wasn't impressed with her husband though. He was not supportive because when she told him she lost her bank account he said "haven't I always taken care of you?" He wasn't indignant about her loss of freedom.

My impressions of A Whisper in the Dark

2005-01-31T08:25:00.000-08:00

I forgot how quickly short stories can quickly draw you into the narrative. I haven't read any in a while.
A Whisper in the Dark by Louisa May Alcott made the biggest impression on me. I shudder when I think of how easy it was for Sybil's uncle to get her locked up. This short story through her use of the gothic involving suspense, horror and sexual themes seems to be paralleling women's freedom in the larger sense. I think Alcott was trying to show that even if women were under the illusion of having their freedom they could still be controlled. Despite the fact that Sybil was an heiress with lots of money she still could not get away from the patriarchy. It was so easy for Sybil's uncle to commit her to the asylum because the more she tried to assert herself and the more emotion she showed the easier it was for everyone to believe she was crazy. In this uptight Victorian setting everyone was offended by her actions. In the asylum she had a difficult time maintaining her sanity. She was very nearly broken when the opportunity came to escape through her mother who had been sufficiently repressed under lock and key in the asylum. When she wrote this I think that Alcott was asserting that the road to sanity or women's freedom is a difficult one, but women can persevere like Sybil. But I can see through the events of the story that she does caution that freedom does not come easily or without emotional scars.
"Home received me, kind madame welcomed me, Guy married me, and I was happy; but over these years, serenely prosperous, still hangs for me the shadow of the past, still rises that dead image of my mother, still echoes that spectral whisper in the dark." (66)

Frankenstein

2005-01-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

I first read Frankenstein in Dr. Creelman's class a couple of years ago. I was surprised by how captivated I was by the novel. We talked about how the novel fit nicely into the romantic era because of the emphasis on the emotional, inner life of the main characters. Shelley is an effective voice raising issues with the ideas of imaginative creativity and going too far. She advocates the individual and individual aspirations but cautions that you can go to far. Victor should not have played god and created Frankenstein. Especially since he rejected him once he was created and did not take maternal responsibility. He introduced chaos into his own life and into the lives of the people around him. She also illustrates the rigidness of society in her novel through her use of positive and negative binaries. Victor's main reason for rejecting the creature is because of his hideousness. He is individual enough to create the monster but not enough to see past the society he lives in and the association of ugly with evil and negative attributes to accept him and take responsibility for him as he should have.

The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals

2005-01-10T09:02:00.000-08:00

"Our favorite birch tree it was yielding to the gusty wind with all its tender twigs, the sun shone upon it and it glanced in the wind like a flying sunshiny shower....The other birch trees that were near it looked bright and cheerful-but it was a Creature by its own self among them" (p. 40)
It is observations like this that kept me reading the journals. Even though the journals were a bit dry and repetitive because they talked mostly about their social life, health, reading and walking I found myself picturing a pleasent sort of pastoral life. Observations like this have to be art. Throughout her work she uses figures of speech such as metaphors, similies and personification. She has the gift of describing nature in a way that evokes our senses and has us seeing the lone birch tree or the daffodils "rest(ing) their heads upon stones" (85). It also says in the intro. that she worked at what she writing, rewording sentences and changing words. This shows that she cared about her work.

I have to agree with the argument that she was of the gendered mindset that she was not able to write poetry because she thought she was unable to, or that it wasn't her place. If it was just a matter of finding time to write why wouldn't she have taken a notebook with her on her walks to record her observations and jot down a few lines to be worked into poetry? She did take walks alone and spent time sitting and looking at the scenery. Dorothy loved Grasmere and was always marveling at the beauty of it. I think that if she had of thought that she could write poetry or prose she would have found a way to.

Her descriptions of the many beggers that they encountered give a little information about her personality. She seemed to have respect for the beggers who did not complain and especially those who did not ask for anything. She obviously was very critical of the beggers who whined about their conditions. When she saw one begger on the road she decided that he looked like he was someone who was "lazy" and steeled herself with indignance not to give him any money. When he passed her by without saying a word she felt ashamed of her injustice to his character and ran back to give him a little bit of money.

I found that because the journal is so impersonal that I looked for things that gave me an insight into her character.

2005-01-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone! I never thought I'd be blogging again. But here I am.
A drama production in this class would be great I think-Instead of the presentations!