Women’s health: a short European approach to Women’s literature
Abstract
This article
endeavors to draw a parallel between various women writings of the twentieth
century (and even a scarce part of the nineteenth) and to question their authenticity
within the study of contemporary post (modern) writing. The issue is thus
raised to what an appeal these syncretic ideas launched by two rather
revolutionary women writers, as it is the case of Woolf and Jane Rhys (and even
George Elliot, earlier in time), have on current vivid readers and even
students of English literature by women. The author allows thus a very open and
hopefully not biased (subjective) challenge of the promoted literary canon in
so far and to propose newer more lax and less stringent criteria and a lens of
interpreting women literature that very much promoted women as solely husband
hunters, rather feeble minded and highly influential by outside influences of
different kinds, as it was the case of the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen.
Hence, I question literary texts that are admitted as compulsory reading and do
not speak to the majority of students as such. A serious revising of literary
models becomes thus an imperative and a predicament.
A
Kk
K Keywords: sanity, valour,
importance, love, relationships, friendship
KKeywords
Revising Hence
Women
were mostly approached with prudence in European literature. For instance I regard Virginia Woolf as very
fragile as she wrote novels that portrayed women on the verge of exasperation,
as it is the case of: “To the Lighthouse”, “Mrs. Delloway” and “The Waves”. She
suffered tremendously in portraying her characters. Her life was even filmed:
Entitled “The Hours”, the film was shut starring Nicole Kidman as Virginia and Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughan, a slightly unappealing-looking woman character. Her husband committed suicide in the film and she was very busy with party planning. The blond haired woman Laura Brown left her husband and the kid to work as a librarian somewhere far away and was regarded as a monster by Clarissa Vaughan’s daughter. The film also portrays crises and upheavals Virginia went through in order to finish her novel presumably “Miss Delloway” as it is not really clear in the film what novel is meant. The film is presumed to be autobiographical as the protagonist commits suicide as she throws herself into the water so that she won’t be a burden to her loving husband.
The
novel “To the Lighthouse” renders some general metaphysical questions such as
the value of art and intellectual creation which are supposed to last above the
coordinates of time and space. Mr. Ramsey and Mrs. Ramsey and James and Pue
Ramsey are the main characters of the novel. The intruder Lily Briscol, an
ambitious painter falls in love with Mr. Ramsey but unfortunately the latter
resists her charms.
The novel “Mrs. Delloway” depicts the
overheated subject of insanity soldiers had to confront with after the war.
Women are portrayed as art lovers and strength giving wives. Clarissa’s husband
Richard does not commit suicide but is tempted by the thought many a time. It
is rather that the Septimus character
commits the dreadful deed. Eventually love triumphs again and the couple
reunites at the party thrown at 3:00 in the morning.
The last novel “The Waves” circles around
eight characters that have different views of love. Bernard persists as one
of the narrators and emerges all-throughout the unfolding of the stream of
consciousness technique. Bernard is friendly, garrulous, and in many ways the
glue that holds the group of friends together. He is the least snobbish of the
group, willing to talk to anyone as an equal. Bernard wants to become a
novelist, though his hopes go unfulfilled. By the end of the novel, however, he
achieves the greatest insight into the lives of the other characters. Dr.
Crane goes as the headmaster at the private boarding school the boys
attend. Dr. Crane represents both traditional authority and religion, and the
boys’ individual responses to him are telling. Neville despises him as a
repressive, pompous, insincere figure, while Louis admires him as the
representative of the English society he so much wants to be a part of. Bernard
sees the headmaster primarily as a character about whom he can spin a story.
Jinny is the other of the narrators. Jinny is a beautiful,
upper-class woman who leads the life of a glamorous socialite. She is grounded
in the here-and-now, rarely wondering about the deeper significance of events
or the symbolic value of things—a marked contrast to her friends. She is
intensely physical, seeing her body and her sexuality as her primary means of
interacting with the world. Jinny is perhaps the most static of the main
characters, though she does come to terms with her own aging.
Louis is one of the narrators. Louis’s father is an Australian
banker, and Louis is painfully aware of his own accent and his lower-class
status in comparison with his friends. He is driven by a desire to escape his
position as an outsider and to prove the superiority of his own intellect.
Louis becomes a successful businessman, but he also wants to become a poet in
order to make something permanent out of the passing disorder of everyday life.
Louis is attracted to both the concrete reality of life in London and the ideal
realm of art. He and Rhoda are lovers for a time, but she eventually leaves
him.
Neville is one of the narrators. Neville is refined,
intellectual, and upper class, with a deep appreciation of beauty. Neville
loves Percival from afar, admiring him for being everything Neville is
not—athletic, charismatic, and grounded in practical reality. After Percival’s
death, Neville pursues many different lovers, devoting himself intensely to
each for a time and then moving on. Neville desires order and beauty, and he
tries to exclude much of the disorder and ugliness of the world from his life
by isolating himself with his books and his lovers. Neville becomes a famous
poet.
Percival, a friend of each of the main characters bears a name with
mythological significance. A Greek God, resembling the ancient God of fire,
Prometheus that was the protector of children and knowledge becomes celebrated
all throughout German literature. Fire becomes nevertheless the symbol of
knowledge. The boys meet Percival at school, where he is one of the most
popular students. Percival is handsome and charismatic, a natural leader. He is
killed when he is thrown from a horse in India, where he has gone to work in
the colonial government. Percival is in love with Susan, though he does not act
on it, and Neville is in love with him, though Percival has no idea. Percival
is an idealized figure for the other characters, and they each respond deeply
to his death, though in different ways.
Rhoda is one of the narrators, too. Rhoda is introverted,
highly sensitive, and almost phobic when it comes to interacting with others.
She tends to drift off into her imagination as a means of escaping from social
situations, and she comes to feel that her own personality is insubstantial and
illusory. Rhoda and Louis become lovers, but Rhoda is terrified of intimacy and
leaves him. Eventually Rhoda’s sense of the transience of life and her own
desire for unconsciousness lead her to take her own life.
Susan, as one of the narrators, hates city life and cannot
wait to return home from school to her family farm, where she wants to tend the
land and raise children. Susan is an earthy, passionate woman who is highly
compelling to men, though not as classically beautiful as Jinny. Susan has an
intense relationship with the land and with nature, but her cultivation of this
natural bond leads to the suppression of many of her other desires. Susan loves
Bernard, for example, but sacrifices any passion of her own for the sake of her
family and her place in the cycle of rural life. The novel is highly
experimental as the two main male and female characters die, as they foresaw
their own death. They remind us of Greek legendary figures that aspire solitude
and endlessness at the same time. The end of the novel is open as the
characters choose to fulfill their dreams in an abstract sense. The message of
the novel might be that people should not pursue mainly physical values but
also deeper, higher and more profound aspirations, such as true love and a
deeper insight into real knowledge.
The novel “A Room with a View” by E.M.
Foster portrays a couple that has a formidable view of the picturesque Italian landscape
in Florence. Lucy Honeychurch is regarded as a young woman from Surrey who
doesn't know what she wants. Her piano skills show that she has potential for
great passions and the ability to recognize truth even if it means breaking the
social codes that are expected of her. She grows into a woman through the
course of the book, choosing to follow the true instincts of love (as represented
by George) over the tedious falsities perpetuated by pretentious upper class
society (as represented in Cecil).
Charlotte Bartlett is Lucy's older, poorer cousin and an
old maid, thus Charlotte accompanies Lucy to Italy as a chaperone, and attempts
to uphold what is "proper". She has old-fashioned notions and does
not approve of the Emersons. She seems to conspire against the happiness of
everyone with her tiresome and cloying manner, but in the end, she mysteriously
assists Lucy to pass into final marital happiness.
George Emerson is a young man with a passionate desire
for truth and at the beginning of the book he shows a faltering hopelessness
that life is not actually worth living. Though he is of a lower social class,
he falls in love with Lucy in Italy, and she becomes a beacon of hope to him in
his search for joy and meaning. He encourages her not to marry Cecil and helps
her to follow the true ways of her heart.
Mr. Emerson is described, alternately, as being
both ungentlemanly and beautiful. Mr. Emerson means well but constantly offends
proper societal conventions with his abrupt manner of speaking and his blatant
honestly. An avid reader, he espouses liberal values, and also plays a role in
helping Lucy to surrender herself to her true desires even if it means
violating social taboos. His wife is dead.
Cecil Vyse represents the dislikable man who becomes
Lucy's fiancée for a short period of time. Cecil is pretentious and despises
all the country people of Lucy's town, finding them unsophisticated and coarse
in comparison to the affluent London society he is used to. He sees Lucy not
for herself but as an abstract vision that he has hung upon her. He treats
people without kindness or respect. Cecil tries to be authoritarian and manly,
but is actually awkward and self-conscious.
Mrs. Honeychurch is Lucy’s cheerful, talkative,
good-natured, and warm-hearted mother, who always says what's on her mind. Her
husband is dead. Mr. Beebe is the rector in Lucy's
town, a tactful and pleasant man who aims to use his influence to help various
characters. He takes a liking to those who are honest, but sees the good in
almost everyone. He supports Lucy all through the book until she decides to
marry George, when he oddly turns against the idea.
Freddy is Lucy’s younger brother, who is energetic
and loves tennis, swimming, and the study of anatomy. He dislikes Cecil and
likes George.
The
Miss Alans are usually referred to in the plural, these two old spinster
sisters, Catharine and Teresa Alan, stay at the same pension as Lucy and the
others in Florence. They are mild-mannered and very proper, but they have an
adventurous streak that will eventually take them traveling all over the world.
Miss Lavish is an ostentatious writer who also stays in
the same pension in Florence, and hopes to write novels about Italian life. She
is outspoken and clever, but also abrasive. She despises English people
traveling abroad and believes she alone knows the "true" Italy;
however, her unconventionality falls very close to conventional ideas.
Mr. Eager embodies the British chaplain in Florence. He
is rude to Italians, unkind to the Emersons, and perpetuates a false rumor that
Mr. Emerson murdered his wife. Minnie is Mr. Beebe's
rambunctious 13-year-old niece, who stays with the Honeychurches during a
diphtheria epidemic.
Sir Harry Otway is a local in Lucy's town who buys the two villas,
Cissie and Albert, subsequently letting one out to the Emersons. Eventually
Forster depicted his female character by underlining her great female features
such as love and caring.
George Eliot, who went with the male name
while being a female writer, m.e. Mary Anne Evans became famous with her novels
“Middlemarch”, “Felix Holt’’ and “Adam Bede”. Her portrayal of women is
exquisite and pertains to the picture of the struggle to survive in a man’s
world and a strict Victorian society. Thus, “Middlemarch” embraces modern
topics of female power and confidence although a nineteenth century novel,
nonetheless. Dorothea resembling the resonation of Dorothy, in the “Wizard of
Oz” by Louis Carroll is a charming woman that wants to improve the world by
lessening its misgivings.[1]
In depicting
her characters she goes to a great length by describing all the realities of
marriage which situates her at a counterpoint and at an evident opposition to
her female rivals: the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen, whose characters’
troubled life ends in a fortunate marriage. She becomes thus revolutionary in
British literature portrayed by women; a real literary adventure, indeed. This
fact originated from her rejection of the conventional patterns of portraying
real romance.
Nevertheless : “Dorothea was saved from living with her mistake for her whole life
because her elderly husband dies of a heart attack.” (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/middlemarch/summary.html
19.01.2016) Lydgate and Rosamond
married young and had a hunch of real lasting true love. Hence it becomes a
fact or a very good determined result that: “Moreover, marriages in which women
have a greater say also work better, such as the marriage between Fred and
Mary.’’(sparknotes)
Another
obvious problem seems to be the fact that men crave for control over women and
give them little chance to develop as individuals both intellectually and
spiritually. Therefore: “Dorothea's passionate
ambition for social reform is never realized. She ends with a happy marriage,
but there is some sense that her end as merely a wife and mother is a waste.”
(sparknotes)
Moreover I consider Eliot as the
pioneer of the modern novel in such a dark age of mental confinement. A very
courageous woman writer, who sets a milestone in understanding real, valuable
literature: “Eliot's refusal to conform to happy endings demonstrates the fact
that Middlemarch is
not meant to be entertainment. She wants to deal with real-life issues, not the
fantasy world to which women writers were often confined. Her ambition was to
create a portrait of the complexity of ordinary human life: quiet tragedies,
petty character failings, small triumphs, and quiet moments of dignity. The
complexity of her portrait of provincial society is reflected in the complexity
of individual characters. The contradictions in the character of the individual
person are evident in the shifting sympathies of the reader. One moment, we pity
Casaubon, the next we judge him critically.
Middlemarch stubbornly refuses to behave like a typical novel and thus reaches
greatness. The novel is a collection of relationships between several major
players in the drama, but no single one person occupies the center of the
action. No one person can represent provincial life. It is necessary to include
multiple people. Eliot's book is fairly experimental for its time in form and
content, particularly because she was a woman writer.”
In “Adam Bede” it is the contradiction between women
that is rendered and emphasized: “Dinah
Morris - A Methodist preacher who seeks to bring God’s love to all
those around her. Dinah’s gentle demeanor and selfless attitude bring comfort
to the other characters, including Hetty,
during the hours before she is scheduled
to die. Dinah’s outer beauty matches her inner calm and draws all the other
characters to her. She feels compelled to help those in greatest need, even
when it results in the denial of her own happiness. Eventually she comes to
believe that her own happiness and God’s will are not necessarily incompatible”
and “Hetty Sorrel - A startlingly beautiful young peasant girl. Her
downfall is the primary action of the novel. Hetty is selfish and shallow.
Although her humiliation changes her somewhat, even to the end she is more
concerned with her own suffering than anyone else’s. Hetty is also foolish. She
has no sense of the way the world really is and no appreciation for Mr. and
Mrs. Poyser for taking her in and raising her when she was orphaned. Hetty
wants everyone to notice her beauty. Hetty is a foil to Dinah’s character.”
Hence, the portrayal of the female character leaves the idyllic, angelic
postures portrayed so far in the realistic novels of Eliot’s so well known
women precursors. It is even a return to Shakespeare’s portrayal of Lady
Macbeth[2]
who instigates her husband to kill the king and place himself in his stead.
Nevertheless, the good wins over the bad and Dinah and Adam reunite in marriage
to fulfill God’s will. Hetty being a murderer as she kills her own child is to
die and repent, if repentance could be reached in her relentless state.
“Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys echoes Charlotte Bronte’s work “Jane Eyre” in which a mad woman in the
attic of a house in Thornfield hall is to die, so that in the end Mr. Rochester
gets to marry the woman employed to take care of the household. The
circumstance of the woman’s madness are not known to the reader, so one can
only presume that Mr. Rochester love for her faded and he was seeking for a new
flame. The novel ends on a happy tone, as they both get married but the fact
that a victim was called for their happiness is highly questionable. To draw a
parallel between the two novels leads us to a point where reality becomes
entangled with fantasy. To establish which of the two novels renders reality
more objective is a quite difficult tasks but the endeavor is worth a try.
J. Rhys’
characters are women that
struggle to find happiness in a male- dominated world. Antoinette is the
daughter of Anette who is married to the rich Mr. Rochester. When he dies Mr.
Mason asks for Anette’s hand in marriage and eventually the latter starts
neglecting her daughter. During these times elegant visitors call on the mother
from the “Spanish town” which is the elegant version of a sophisticated
metropolis. This is the point where Antoinette’s downfall emerges. She
entangles in a chain of mistakes which like a boomerang fire back on her. Her
younger brother Pierre stays with her and with Aunt Cora in the “Spanish town”
on the Coulibri estate. He dies at the end of the novel badly wounded. Antoinette’s father, Alexander Conway
dies and leaves unhealed wounds on Antoinette’s psyche. Tia, the daughter of a
servant and her only companion turns against her and abuses her good
heartedness. She throws a jagged rock at Antoinette cutting her forehead and
drawing blood. Her mother is close to
losing her mind and rejects Antoinette when she sees her. Her honeymoon she
spends in Trinidad but the husband is chosen for her by the acquaintance of her
mother. He ends up cheating on her with her guardian leaving deep wounds on her
soul. The story ends with the image of Antoinette setting the house in England
on fire, as she carries a candle in her hand. The novel also discusses the huge
differences between races, as the Jamaican offspring was considered superior to
the Martinique’s. Thus, some servants rose above the freed blacks. Women are
supposed to commit thoughtless acts in the period of the abolition of slavery.
But the key of realism is very well depicted as they sometimes are really frail
and very much rely on the love of the surrounding people. Anette might have
desired a child but was actually hindered by the fact that she did not find the
right man in order to fulfill her dream. In spite of the bad ending the novel
portrays reality more elegantly than Charlotte Bronte did a century before.
Agatha Christie on the other hand
portrays men as more inclined to commit murder in order to get wealthy and gain
supremacy over things of all kind. Women are more inclined to murder when the
gain is a very expensive object. However, the cruel act is more associated with
men than with women. Here women prove supremacy over men, a theory enunciated
by William Golding, the author of the renowned novel: “The Lord of the Flies” Margareth Atwood on the other hand
concerns herself with issues of female supremacy and tries to enter all corners
of her psychical state and harmonious development. She is very much concerned
with maternal well being and the harmonious cohabitation of her and the
surrounding environment. In her dystrophic novel “The Report of a Maid” she
bestows upon women fantastic qualities, besides the one of bearing children.
The novel “The Edible Woman” [3]exhibits
women’s frailties and their concern to reach intellectual and spiritual
accomplishment:
Atwood does not provide alternative possibilities. At the end of
the novel, there is no suggestion of what Marian will do next or what kind of
life she may begin to lead. The important question for Atwood is always whether
her protagonists can assert their individuality and begin the process of
discovering who they are. “The Edible Woman” is more rooted in the processes of
everyday living and less allegorical than is “Surfacing”, but the central
concern is the same: Will the protagonist allow her job, her family, and her
friends to dictate what she will be? Atwood is pessimistic about social change.
Nothing in her novels suggests that society is recognizing the need of women
for self-realization, although her novels are clear demands for such change. At
the same time, her protagonist does come to an intuitive understanding of
herself and of her own needs. Marian MacAlpin survives her trials, and the
novel concludes with her assertion of her own personality. (http://www.enotes.com/topics/edible-woman/themes)
Hence, she remains with her real love Peter, the only one who
is able to fulfill her dreams and aspirations and stand by her side. For her
really good depicted characters and her continuous literary strive, Atwood won
the Booker prize. Therefore, Atwood contributes to rendering women a plus of
confidence in themselves, remaining thus a master of her writing. Thus, it is
important to give women a chance so that they can fulfill their dreams. No one
knows what the future holds but maternal love and continuous devotion are
features that remain relentless and unshattered, feelings that all real women
feel for their loved ones.
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