Classics Corner: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; A Unique Trip Inside the Mind of Post-WWI London

Classics Corner: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; A Unique Trip Inside the Mind of Post-WWI London

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Virginia Woolf was a talented writer who knew about the inside of the human mind. Many of her works explored characters from the inside out, what they were thinking, feeling, and experiencing in their pasts and present. Sometimes the interior was a darker stormier place than the exterior. Unfortunately this was a truth that Woolf knew rather well. She was gripped by frequent depression and committed suicide by drowning in 1941.

However, her works such as Mrs. Dalloway are excellent works that explore the psychology of individuals and how their surrounding environment affects them. Mrs. Dalloway is similar to James Joyce’s Ulysses in that the action covers a single day and takes the Readers inside the characters’ minds. However I find it a better work because it does a better job of separating a person’s exterior life of conformity and respectability and the interior life of rebellion and boredom. It also acknowledges the death and despair that often are just waiting around the corner.

Without the stream of conscious trips inside the minds of Woolf’s characters, the day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway would be deadly dull. Mrs. Dalloway prepares for a party and shops surrounded by other characters including WWI veteran, Septimus Warren Smith. She then would present the party and hears about Septimus’ suicide. Well alright the suicide would be interesting to read, but the rest of Mrs. Dalloway’s life would be extremely dull. And that’s the point.

Mrs. Dalloway is driven to give this party as though it is her only purpose and Woolf hints that as far as she and the other characters in her life are concerned, it is. She chooses flowers, food, oversees the menu, and the servants’ preparation, and welcomes guests playing the role of perfect hostess. However, inside she is suffering from boredom, ennui, and possibly depression.

At 51 years old, Mrs. Dalloway feels her life slipping away from her and is unwilling to accept middle age. She remembers her rebellious youth when she carried on affairs with Peter Walsh, a former Lothario and Sally Seton, a formerly Bohemian friend who has now become a Conservative mother of five. As she thinks of her early affairs and wayward youth, she feels nothing but boredom and disgust at the life around her even though she goes through the motions.

Mrs. Dalloway’s relationship with her husband, Richard is proper and conventional with all of the propriety one would expect from a marriage in Upper-Middle Class London. She is economically cared for, has children, and attends the correct functions. But still she feels something is missing. She goes from location to location throughout her day as if avoiding her deeper thoughts and unhappiness as the clocks tick away as if removing hours, minutes, seconds of her life.

Mrs. Dalloway also feels somewhat envious and competitive towards her daughter, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth is a New Woman product of the early 20^th century. Unlike her mother, she is able to express her displeasure and disappointments (making it clear that she does not want to attend her mother’s dinner party and would rather go to the country with her father). She also has dreams of being a doctor, a farmer, or go into Parliament avenues that her mother would never have dreamt. Instead Mrs. Dalloway gives parties as her life passes her by.

Mrs. Dalloway isn’t the only character with problems. Woolf saw Septimus Warren Smith as “an essential counterpoint” to Mrs. Dalloway and he is. While Mrs. Dalloway goes through the ennui of her life, Smith goes through the trauma of his. He is a WWI veteran with PTSD and an unhappy marriage with his wife, Lucrezia, an Italian immigrant.

Smith is haunted by the ghost of his friend and fellow soldier (and possibly more) Evans who was killed in action. He goes through his life having imaginary mental conversations with Evans and finding life difficult to adjust to returning after war. His wife, Lucrezia is supportive but doesn’t understand him. His doctor, Dr. Holmes gives blank diagnoses about his condition based on little effort. (Perhaps Woolf’s way of getting back at some fraudulent psychiatrists in her life). The pressure and inability of returning to a so-called normal life leads to Smith’s suicide by jumping off a building.

Though Mrs. Dalloway and Smith never meet or interact with each other (except for a moment when he sees Mrs. D. through a window), their fates are connected. When one of her party guests mentions Smith’s suicide, Mrs. Dalloway at first is dismayed and upset that this shadow of death fell on her surroundings. (“A young man had killed himself. And they talked of it at her party..”)  Instead she feels envious towards him. She says to herself, “But this young man who had killed himself-had he plunged his treasure? ‘If it were now to die, ‘twere now to be most happy.’” She is jealous that Smith was able to do something about his unhappiness. He was able to act out and accept what he was feeling. While Mrs. Dalloway had to hide her feelings behind a semblance of respectability. Smith’s death forces Mrs. Dalloway to confront her own tormented thoughts and emotions and for the first time live honestly to herself.

Virginia Woolf took the Reader on a trip inside the human psyche and explored who they were. She showed us that sometimes those who are most seemingly contented are often inside the saddest.

Classics Corner: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: A Landmark in Postmodern Feminism

Classics Corner: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: A Landmark in Postmodern Feminism
By Julie Sara Porter, Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers Ahead: In 2017, it was hard to escape the presence of The Handmaid's Tale. Margaret Atwood's dystopian Feminist novel seemed to be everywhere. It was made into a critically acclaimed Emmy winning Hulu series starring Elisabeth Moss. Protestors against sexual assault and for reproductive rights and other women's health issues have taken to standing in silence and wearing the Handmaid's costumes: a red robe and a white bonnet covering most of the face.
The book has been banned, analyzed, and debated over the themes and whether modern society is approaching the grim Totalitarian theocracy of Gilead, as envisioned by Atwood in 1985. When a novel reaches modern consciousness, sometimes people wonder if it's worth all the hype. Luckily in this case, the Atwood novel is and so much more. It is one of the Landmark works of Postmodern Feminism.

(Note: I am basing this review on the novel since I don't have a Hulu subscription and have not seen the series-a shame since I love the novel and am a fan of Elisabeth Moss. I will make passing references to the series based on things I have heard but since the series will soon be entering its second season, I must reiterate that this review will contain spoilers.)

For the few people unaware of the premise, The Handmaid's Tale is set in a futuristic United States which has become a collective of Theocracies that tie church and state together tightly. (You know that thing the Constitution warned us about in separating them.) The main setting is Gilead, which is formerly known as the state of Maine. The Gileadian structure, indeed most of the governments, is very unstable. Many of the various religious factions war against each other. Different racial and ethnic minorities have been either isolated or wiped out. Previous nuclear attacks have rendered the population diminished and sterile.

Because of the reduced population and the strict religious laws, the roles of men and women are rigidly defined. Men either fight in the wars, are Guardians of the various enclaves, or are Commanders or overseers of the communities. Women are tightly constrained as either Wives of the Commanders, Marthas who are housekeepers and cooks, Econowives, wives of poorer men, or Handmaids, women of childbearing years who are given the task to give birth to their Commander's children, whether they want to or not.

The book is told by one of the Handmaids, known as Offred a patronym meaning that the Handmaids belong to their Commanders, in this case Fred. Showing that the women don't even have the freedom of a real name beyond belonging to a man. (Though there are hints in the book that Offred's real name is June, which the series also uses as her name in flashbacks.)
 Offred describes her daily life in which the Handmaids are constantly monitored, deprived of possessions, and forced to remain silent, according to the Biblical tenets which dictate their society. Their only outside experiences are their shopping trips in which they are partnered with other Handmaids and walk into stores with pictures for signs. (In this society women are not permitted to read because in the words of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast: "Next you thing you know women start getting ideas...thinking."). The women however also are forced to participate in sex rites with their much older Commanders for the purpose of conceiving children. So women are meant to be sexual playthings in a society dominated by religious dogma. It's a world dominated by men who are somewhere between Mike Pence and Harvey Weinstein.

Like 1984's Winston Smith, Offred hates her society but does not overtly rebel against it. Instead she covertly acts in small ways to retain her individuality and humanity in a world of forced conformity. She sees words scratched  in her room which says "Notile te bastardes carborundorum" which she repeats silently as a mantra. (She later learns that it means "don't let the bastards grind you down" making her repetition of the phrase more subversive.)
 She goes with her shopping partner to the Wall where prisoners are hung and displayed for various "crimes" such as participating in abortions, being "gender traitors" i.e. homosexuals, and being different religions.
 She takes a secret smug delight in the silenced and diminished role of Serena Joy, Commander Fred's Wife who used to be a Conservative Religious spokeswoman who campaigned against Feminism and insisted that a woman's place should be in the home. ("How furious she must be now that she has been taken at her word," Offred remarks observing Serena Joy's now-powerless role in the world she helped create by her views.)
Offred also uses restricted alone time with her Commander to play Scrabble and to be granted favors like hand lotion and magazines, and to receive answers to questions about why the world became the way it did. ("Better never means better for everyone," The Commander observes. "It always means worse for some.") These moments of defiance serves to remind Offred that she is an individual person underneath the red robe and that as long as she is aware of that, her spirit can never be broken.

Another way Offred retains her individuality is to retain her memories of her life "in the Time Before." She recalls her Feminist mother who gave birth to her in middle age and used to drag her daughter to protest marches when Offred was a little girl. Offred also rembers her best friend and former college roommate, Moira and how the two shared cigarettes, pretentious thoughts, and opinions on men and society.
Above all, Offred remembers having a job at a library, a husband named Luke, and a daughter, all of which she loved and loved having the freedom of choosing a life.
She recalls the world changing around her-Conservative pundits, like Serena Joy, speaking loudly about Traditional values, declining birth rates and infant kidnapping including briefly her own daughter's, slight restructuring of laws giving less rights to women-until the day comes when Offered and her female colleagues are removed from their jobs and their cards are declined; when their status as women were marginalized and they officially became second-class citizens.

These memories of those basic times of various choices of wearing different clothes, earning her own money, having relationships become dear to Offred. She also recalls various memories with the people in her life;  the bad-the teasing, her mother's embarrassments, Moira's odd views, squabbles with Luke and her daughter, and the good- advice from her mother, heart-to-heart chats with Moira, public moments of affection and romance  with Luke, and a joyous  bond with her daughter. Offred misses all of them and the people they used to be.

With a feeling of nostalgia, Offred longs for the return of those days no matter how embarrassing, confusing, and minor they seemed at the time but are now precious in a world she no longer recognizes. They become weapons in her defiance against the Gileadian society as she longs for a different time because she lived through it.

There are hints of a Resistance and Offred possibly becomes involved with a member who may also be a spy for Gilead. In the end, Offred's whereabouts become murky as she is taken away never to be heard from again. (Though a second season to the series is planned with Atwood's full cooperation.)
However, an epilogue set long after the end of the Gileadian regime in which women reclaim their full power states that Offred's account of her life as a Handmaid was an important document in the return of a Feminist society.
The academic epilogue in which a professor discusses Offred's account shows that in her small acts of subversion and her accounts of her life before and her time as a Handmaid, Offred gained more than she ever would have believed in her life time.: People inspired by her to survive the Totalitarian regime of Gilead, to fight against it, and ultimately defeat it.

Favorite Feminist Literature Part III: Mid to-End of the 20th Century

Favorite Feminist Literature Part III: Mid-to- End of the 20th Century

 

By Julie Sara Porter, Bookworm

In honor of March, Women’s History Month, I am writing a three-part review series of my favorite works considered feminist literature from the 19^th to the end of the 20^th century. While most of the authors are women, not all are. The works just have to be told primarily from a woman’s point of view or feature a female protagonist.

The female protagonists are strong characters who challenge society’s expectations of them. While some are successful, others are not so successful. But they certainly let the other characters and the reader know exactly who they are and how they feel. I use the term “literature” because while the selections are mostly novels, I have also included one book of poems and an anthology of short stories.

I am aware that some books are left out. Many such as The Well of Loneliness, Mrs. Dalloway, and Atonement were left out for a very simple reason: I haven’t read them. (Though I want to). Of course, I am open to any great suggestions of feminist literature or any other sort of literature that discusses important topics, so please write your comments below.

All descriptions will include spoilers to the works.

5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)

The plot- Celie and Nettie are two impoverished African-American sisters that get separated: Nettie joins a missionary couple to Africa and Celie, after having been impregnated by her father is practically sold into marriage to Mr., a cruel abusive man. While living with Mr., Celie becomes romantically involved Shug Avery, a blues singer and Mr.’s mistress.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature-The Color Purple explores the solidarity and union between the female characters and how they rely on each other for strength and support. The one bright spot in Celie’s childhood is in her relationship with Nettie and even as she grows older, she continues to write letters to Nettie.  (Letters that change from “Dear God” to “Dear Nettie.”) Shug and Celie seem like a very unlikely couple. (In fact when she first sees her, Shug tells Celie, “You as ugly as sin.”) but they bring out the best in each other as Celie reveals Shug’s kindness and Shug helps Celie find her independence by helping her open a store and become a pants designer.

Favorite Quote: Celie (to Mr., as she and Shug, leave him): I’m pore, I’m black, I may be ugly and can’t cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I’m here.

4. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1986)

The plot: In a futuristic dystopian society, women are placed in only a few categories: as wives of commanders, as servants, or as handmaids whose job is to give birth to children to be raised by commanders and their wives. The society is seen through the eyes of Offred, a handmaid, who writes not only about this society, but her memories of the days before.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: It portrays what would happen if women’s roles were completely stifled in the name of religion and conservatism. Through Offred’s cynical and sarcastic observation, she describes the regulations that demean her and the other women. (All of the signs have pictures because women are forbidden to read along with other rules and regulations that are meant to remind women that they are second class citizens in this society.)

She fights in minor ways by whispering her name late at night, receiving little tokens like hand lotion and fashion magazines from her commander, engaging in an affair of sorts with the commander, and learns about the Resistance from her fellow handmaids. She also reveals her connections to her former life by remembering her mother, her friend Moira, her husband Luke, and her daughter as well as memories like having a job and her own money and living independently. The reader feels her despair at the world that ended and her rage to fight the new order in her own way.

Favorite Quote: Offred (on Serena Joy, a former religious leader and her Commander’s wife): “Her speeches were about the sanctity of the home, about how women should stay home. Serena Joy didn’t do this herself, she made speeches instead, but she presented this failure of hers as a sacrifice she was making for the good of all…..She doesn’t make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn’t seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she’s been taken at her word.”

3. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman (1995)

The Plot: Two sisters, Gillian and Sally, belong to the eccentric Owens clan, a family whose women are rumored to be witches. The sisters conspire to get away from the odd happenings and vicious rumors. Gillian runs away and gets involved in various short-lived marriages while Sally settles for a suburban life with a husband and two daughters. The Owens sisters are forced to confront their magical past and their feelings for each other after Gillian returns with her deceased husband.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Practical Magic is filled with the strength and power of its female characters. Gillian and Sally’s aunts often use herbs and charms to aid women in town with their problems in love and health. Sally’s daughter, Kylie, sees auras and gains empathic abilities into others’ emotions. Despite their rejection of their past, Gillian and Sally also have precognitive abilities and deep connections with nature. The strongest magic that the Owens women have is their union with each other and how the various generations challenge their destinies of having short-lived or bad romantic relationships. Also, the Owens women are able to band together to fight against the vengeful spirit of Gillian’s abusive ex-husband and their own fears and insecurities to embrace their inner power.

Favorite Quote: Narration: “For more than two hundred years, the Owen women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in town. If a damp spring arrived, if cows in the pasture gave milk that was runny with blood, if a colt died of colic, if a baby was born with a red birthmark stamped onto his cheek, everyone believed that fate must have been twisted, at least a little, by those women over on Magnolia Street. It didn’t matter what the problem was-lightning, or locusts, or a death by drowning. It didn’t matter if the situation could be explained by logic, or science or plain bad luck. As soon as there was a hint of trouble or the slightest misfortune, people began pointing their fingers and placing blame. Before long they’d convinced themselves that it wasn’t safe to walk past the Owens house after dark, and only the most foolish neighbors would dare to peer over the black wrought iron fence that circled the yard like a snake.”

2. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

The plot: Sethe, a former slave escaped to freedom but still has many dark secrets. She and her daughter, Denver, are haunted by the ghost of Sethe’s deceased daughter. After the ghost is exorcised by Paul D, a friend of Sethe’s from slavery days who longs to be more, a young woman appears. The young woman, called Beloved, begins to share information and knowledge that only Sethe and her daughters would know. So it doesn’t take long for Sethe and Denver to suspect the mysterious young woman may be Sethe’s daughter returned from the grave. Sethe not only has to deal with the return of her daughter but also her guilt for murdering her daughter, so she couldn’t be returned to slavery.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature:  Like The Color Purple and Practical Magic, Beloved also explores the ties between women in families and in society. Sethe, Denver, and Beloved play off each other with their affection as well as the guilt and buried anger within. Sethe feels guilt about the death of her daughter and filters that in her relationship with Denver and Beloved. Denver finds a connection with the sister that she never know and Beloved finds some answers to her own identity.

The female connections aren’t just limited to the members of Sethe’s family but are found in the society at large. The community of escaped slaves is headed by Baby Suggs, Sethe’s former mother-in-law, who holds the community together through her love of God and family. During her escape, Sethe gets assistance from Amy Denver, a street-smart white woman who helps Sethe escape and give birth to her daughter whom she names her for. These connections reveal the strong circle of communication and love between the female characters.

Favorite quotes: Denver: “Slaves are not supposed to have pleasurable feelings on their own; their bodies are not supposed to be like that, but they have to have as many children as they can to please whoever owned them. Still they were not supposed to have pleasure deep down. (Baby Suggs) said for me not to listen to all that. That I should always listen to my body and love it.”

1. The Bell Jar and Poems by Sylvia Plath (1963 Britain; 1971-United States)

The plot: Plath’s semiautobiographical novel focuses on Esther Greenwood, a brilliant scholarship student working at the prestigious Ladies’ Day magazine. Esther becomes overwhelmed by her work at the magazine, writing her thesis on twins in Finnegan’s Wake, her failed romances, and her failing relationship with her dim mother. Esther’s sanity ebbs, so she suffers a nervous breakdown and attempts suicide.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Esther is the worst-case scenario of a woman who is so overwhelmed by her unhappiness that she cannot find her way out except to surrender. Many women who are mentally ill or engage in addictions or self-destructive behavior can completely relate to the struggles that both Esther and her author, Sylvia Plath felt.

Esther is not fulfilled, but she sees little hope in her future. Her self-consciousness against other women hamper her pursuit for a career. She also finds little romance and companionship in her relationships with men ending any possibilities of marriage. She wants so much in her life, but feels unable to pursue any of her goals and desires. She even wonders, “I wonder what terrible thing it is that I had done.” This inability to find satisfaction in her life leads to her psychological downfall.

Plath herself also suffered from mental illness until her suicide in 1963. Many of her poems recounted such emotional struggles as her unhappy marriage to poet, Ted Hughes, her difficulties with her parents particularly her father, and her struggles with her psychological state. Her writing made readers share her pain and suffering and explore what the mind of a brilliant, but troubled woman was like.

Favorite quote: Esther: “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Eee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantine and Socrates and Atilla and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these fights were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

Honorable Mention: Fear of Flying by Erica Jong, The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike, Possession by A.S. Byatt, The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor, and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding, Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, and The Women's Room by Marilyn French

Non-Fiction: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and Nineteenth Century Imagination by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, and The Warrior Woman: Memoirs of A Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston

Plays: The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Short Stories and Poems: Works by Maya Angelou, Shirley Jackson, Flannery O’Connor, Joyce Carol Oates, Gwendolyn Brooks, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Sandra Cisneros, Lorrie Moore, and Alice Munro

Favorite Feminist Literature Part II: Early 20th Century-WWII

Favorite Feminist Literature Part II: Early 20^th Century-WWII

 

By Julie Sara Porter, Bookworm

In honor of March, Women’s History Month, I am writing a three-part review series of my favorite works considered Feminist literature from the 19^th to the end of the 20^th century. While most of the authors are women, not all are. The works just have to be told primarily from a woman’s point of view or feature a female protagonist.

The female protagonists are strong characters who challenge society’s expectations of them. While some are successful, others are not so successful. But they certainly let the other characters and the reader know exactly who they are and how they feel. I use the term “literature” because while the selections are mostly novels, I have also included one book of poems and an anthology of short stories.

I am aware that some books are left out. Many such as The Well of Loneliness, Mrs. Dalloway, and Atonement were left out for a very simple reason: I haven’t read them. (Though I want to). Of course, I am open to any great suggestions of feminist literature or any other sort of literature that discusses important topics, so please write your comments below.

All descriptions will include spoilers to the works.

5. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (1938)

The plot: A young unnamed protagonist marries Maxim De Winter, a wealthy Cornish man and moves to his estate, Manderley. While setting up house, Mrs. De Winter hears about Rebecca, Maxim’s late first wife who was apparently a paragon of beauty, social grace and skills. Rumors start to swirl about Maxim and Rebecca’s relationship and Mrs. De Winter begins to fear and envy the deceased woman. When she learns about Maxim and Rebecca’s marriage and the truth about her death, Mrs. De Winter finally comes into her own.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Through the two female characters, Du Maurier gives a stronger look at the “Madonna/Whore” stereotypes in which female characters are either good or bad, but not both. Instead Du Maurier turns that around by creating two characters that are revealed to be more than their outward appearances suggest.

Rebecca and Mrs. De Winter are practically two halves of the same woman. On the surface, Rebecca seems like the perfect lady, beautiful, brilliant, and well bred. Mrs. De Winter appears to be a mousy ingénue who is overwhelmed by her predecessor. However, when Maxim reveals the truth of his marriage to Rebecca and her death, and then Maxim and Mrs. De Winter learn of the possible motive for Rebecca’s death, their personalities begin to change. Instead Rebecca is seen as a spirited, intelligent, troubled woman making her life and death meaningful in the only way that she can. Mrs. De Winter also takes control of her role as lady of Manderley and Maxim’s wife by revealing her love for her husband and her own control over the servants and the estate.

Favorite Quote(s): Mrs. Danvers, Manderley’s sinister housekeeper: (Rebecca) had all the knowledge then of a grown person, she’d enter into conversation with men and women as clever and full of tricks as someone of eighteen….Spirit, you couldn’t beat my lady for spirit….No one got the better of her, never, never. She did what she liked, she lived as she liked. She had the strength of a lion too…..That’s how she went at life, when she grew up. I saw her. I was with her. She cared for nothing and for no one. And then she was beaten in the end. But it wasn’t a man, it wasn’t a woman. The sea got her. The sea was too strong for her. The sea got her in the end.”

Mrs. De Winter (after Mrs. Danvers disagrees with her decision to send messages through Robert, a junior servant): “I’m afraid it does not concern me very much what Mrs. De Winter used to do. I am Mrs. De Winter now, you know. And if I choose to send a message by Robert I shall do so.”

4. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton ((1902)

The plot: Lily Bart longs to enter New York high society. She falls in love with lawyer, Lawrence Selden but does not want to pursue a relationship with him further because of his lack of wealth. Instead she engages in bridge playing for money, gets involved with crooked financier, Gus Trenor, and is accused of engaging in an affair with the married, George Dorset, husband of Lily’s nemesis, Bertha. All of these along with other scandals lead to Lily’s ostracism from society and decline.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Wharton knew how to write about 19^th century high society in New York, since she was herself a member. She had a cold indifferent relationship with her family particularly her mother and had an unhappy marriage with Teddy Wharton, a socialite who was abusive, violent, and bipolar. Wharton engaged in an affair with an American journalist which though passionate ended badly. All of this pain is revealed in her writing, particularly how she described the New York setting that Lily longs to be a member with cynicism and an experienced eye.

The world is filled with men and women who scheme, bicker, have secret affairs, and then judge others for doing the same, particularly Lily. Lily however questions these standards longing to find enjoyment and mirth along with her desire for money and a comfortable life.

Favorite quote: Narration (after Lily lies about seeing her dressmaker when she was alone having tea with Lawrence Selden): “Why must a girl pay so dearly for her latest escape from routine? Why could one never do a natural thing without having to screen it behind a screen of artifice? She had yielded to a passing impulse in going to Lawrence Selden’s rooms, and it was so seldom that she could allow herself the luxury of an impulse!”

3. “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1890-1913)

The plot: Various, but Perkins Gilman most famous story is “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In this story, a young married woman is given a “rest cure” by her physician husband. This entails her to be placed in a bedroom without any outside stimulation: no writing, hardly any visitors, no physical activity. As the narrator writes of her confinement, she becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her room which she begins to believe has a woman trapped inside.

Perkins Gilman’s other stories feature various women who embrace independence despite objections from friends, lovers, spouses, and family members. Some of the best include: “My Poor Aunt,” in which a young woman follows the path of her divorced journalist aunt, “Three Thanksgivings,” in which a middle-aged mother decides to live on her own and run a social club despite her children’s objections, “Her Beauty,” in which a seemingly plain-looking woman embraces her unconventional beauty to become a dressmaker, and “When I Was A Witch,” a fantasy story in which a woman uses her wishes to make the world a better place with unique results.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Perkins Gilman captured some of the issues prevailing women in her day some that still resonate like lookism, desires to find fulfilling careers, choosing love over duty, and other themes.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” in particular stands out. Perkins Gilman herself was given a rest cure which made her mental and emotional state worse than she was before she was prescribed the cure. Even though the narrator is thought to be insane, the realization of her confinement from her husband and brother become clearer to her. She sees herself in the dream woman behind the wallpaper. In freeing the dream woman, the narrator is trying to free herself.

Favorite quote: The narrator: “The front pattern does move-and no wonder! This woman behind shakes it!

Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over….And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern-it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many shakes.

They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white!”

2. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926)          

The plot: Lolly, a middle-aged spinster, becomes tired of being shuffled between her brothers’ families. Under a bit of serendipitous and possibly supernatural circumstances, she decides to move to the fictional village of the Great Mop. While at the Great Mop, Lolly begins to make herbs, takes in a stray cat, and meets a somewhat sinister visitor. She then attends Sabbat meetings and becomes a witch.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Warner turns the concept of an innocent getting involved in witchcraft on its head. Instead of the Sabbats becoming a satanic wicked orgy of hatred, Lolly feels a welcome connection to other women and to nature. She becomes enamored of her independence and solitude far from her family’s protective watch. This book could almost be a precursor to Wicca and its members’ involvement in feminism and environmentalism.

Favorite Quote: Lolly: “It’s like this. When I think of witches, I seem to see all over England, all over Europe, women living and growing old, as common as blackberries, countries one sees from the train. You know. Well, there were, there they are, child-rearing, house-keeping, hanging washed dishcloths on current brush; and for diversions each other’s silly conversation, and listening to men talking together in the way that men talk and women listen. Quite different to the way women talk, and men listen, if they listen at all. And all the being thrust further down into dullness when the one thing all women hate is to be thought dull.”

1. The Awakening bby Kate Chopin(1899-I think of this book as a bridge between the Feminist works of the 19th and 20th centuries)

The plot: Edna Pontellier, a dissatisfied married Creole wife and mother falls in love with a young man. Edna is awakened to the idea of her own desires and lives independently, becomes an artist, befriends an outspoken female musician, and engages in an affair with a known seducer. She worries that her new independent life is only temporary and agonizes about returning to her role as wife and mother.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: The book is filled with imagery about sleeping and awakening, which reflects Edna’s life before and after her transformation. Once she is awakened to the idea of being a liberated woman, she pursues this desire to the fullest. Edna discovers her sexuality in her affairs with Robert Lebrun and Alcѐe Arobin. She also finds fulfillment in her talent for painting and swimming. She awakens to being an independent woman.

While the book ends with Edna drowning, the plot and characterization suggests that Edna does not commit suicide so much as she is unwilling to return to the confinement of marriage even to the point of swimming to exhaustion.

Favorite quote: Narration: “There were days when (Edna) was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested.”

Honorable Mention: Novels: Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, My Antonia by Willa Cather, Song of the Lark by Willa Cather, Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton, Notes on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith, Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, and Pursuit of Love/Love in A Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, Herland by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman, and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

Non-Fiction: A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, The Story of My Life and Other Writings by Helen Keller, The Fun of It and Other Writings by Amelia Earhart, and “How It Feels To Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston

Plays: Trifles by Susan Glaspell, The Children’s Hour and Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman, and The Women by Clare Booth Luce

Poetry and Short Stories: Works by Dorothy Parker, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Sara Teasdale, Stevie Smith, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Katherine Mansfield, Tillie Olsen, and Eudora Welty

Favorite Feminist Literature Part I: 19th Century

Favorite Feminist Literature Part 1: 19^th Century

By Julie Sara Porter, Bookworm

In honor of March, Women’s History Month, I am writing a three-part review series of my favorite works considered Feminist literature from the 19^th to the end of the 20^th century. While most of the authors are women, not all are. The works just have to be told primarily from a woman’s point of view or feature a female protagonist.

The female protagonists are strong characters who challenge society’s expectations of them. While some are successful, others are not so successful. But they certainly let the other characters and the reader know exactly who they are and how they feel.

I use the term “literature” because while the selections are mostly novels, I have also included one book of poems and an anthology of short stories. I am aware that some books are left out. Many such as The Well of Loneliness, Mrs. Dalloway, and Atonement were left out for a very simple reason: I haven’t read them. (Though I want to). Of course, I am open to any great suggestions of feminist literature or any other sort of literature that discusses important topics, so please write your comments below.

All descriptions will include spoilers to the works.

5. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (1881)

The plot: Isabel Archer, an intelligent and well-read American young lady is taken to Europe with her aunt. Her aunt wants her niece to marry well, but Isabel turns down a marriage proposal from Lord Warburton, an Englishman and spurns her enamored cousin, Ralph. Ralph’s father and Isabel’s uncle is captivated by Isabel’s spirit and intelligence and leaves her half his wealth upon his death. Isabel then becomes the target of fortune hunter, Gilbert Osmond, in which they engage in an unhappy marriage.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: The book is filled with strong female characters from Henrietta Stackpole, a wry American journalist to Madame Merle, a scheming conniving con artist. James gives prominent female characters voices and makes them memorable instead of stereotypes of dizzy females who live for marriage.

Isabel stands out in this novel as a character who is brilliantly realized. She questions her role as a woman longing to live a life of independence and experience many things before she falls into marriage. She is also flawed as she engages in an unhappy marriage with Osmond, who is clearly not good enough for her. However, Isabel continues to keep her independent spirit by helping her stepdaughter, Pansy escape from a marriage to the wrong man. She also has a fondness for Pansy that overcomes her dislike for Osmond, wanting to be a guide for the younger girl.

Favorite Quote: Isabel (on turning down Warburton’s marriage proposal): “I’m not in the first youth-I can do what I choose-I belong to the independent class. I’ve neither father nor mother; I’m poor and of a serious disposition; I’m not pretty. I therefore am not bound to be timid and conventional; indeed I cannot afford such luxuries. Besides, I try to judge things for myself; to judge wrong, I think is more honorable than to not judge at all. I don’t wish to be a mere sheep in the flock; I wish to choose my fate and know something of human affairs beyond what other people think it compatible with propriety to tell me.”

4. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891)

The plot: After her father discovers that her family is descended from nobility, Tess Durbeyfield claims relation to the titled D’Urberville family. She falls in a relationship with the caddish Alec D’Urberville who leaves her pregnant. Tess ends her relationship with Alec and the child dies. A grief-stricken Tess finds work in a nearby dairy farm where she encounters the cold and spiritual Angel Clare. Tess and Angel marry and Tess reveals her past to Angel, who rejects Tess, considering her a “fallen woman.” Tess leaves her husband and things get worse from there.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: The novel reveals the double standards that fall when women step outside their role and embrace their passions and afterwards suffer from a sullied reputation while many times men suffer no consequence whatsoever. Hardy gives a character who at times acquiesces to this standard, but also is not afraid to make her own decisions.

Tess embraces her passions by falling into an affair with Alec and then into marriage with Angel. She then ends her relationships with both men unwilling to compromise, particularly after Angel rejects her. While he sees her as flawed, she sees him as flawed as well in his unwillingness to accept her. While she makes a very wrong decision in her final scene with Alec, the novel suggests that she is unwilling to take being a pawn anymore and fights back in one of the few ways that a poor 19^th century woman can.

Favorite Quote: Tess (to Alec D’Urberville clearly not buying his “conversion to Christianity” story): “Don’t go on with it! I can’t believe in such sudden things! I feel indignant with you for talking to me like this, when you know-when you know what harm you’ve done to me! You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted! Out upon such-I don’t believe in you! I hate it!”

3. The Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson (Various beginning in 1891 after Dickenson’s death)

The plot: Well really not a plot since they are poems, but Dickinson’s poems’ topics range from nature subjects like bees, birds, spiders, flowers, trees, and the sky, to social subjects like marriage, sexuality, spirituality, and death.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Dickinson was known for her extreme shyness and solitude. She spent most of her life in her home town of Amherst, Massachusetts. Only a few of her poems were published in her lifetime. She had a reputation, which carries to this day of being an agoraphobic spinster.

However, Dickinson’s deepest themes are revealed throughout her poetry. Her writing features such themes as enjoying solitude, being an outsider in a world of conformity, and finding spirituality within nature rather than in the four walls of a church.

Favorite Quote:

“Much madness is divinest sense

To a discerning eye;

Much sense the starkest madness.

‘Tis the majority

In this, as all prevails

Assent, and you are sane;

Demur,-you’re straightway dangerous

And handled with a chain.”

 2.  Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871)

The plot: Various plots unfold in this tome. However, Dorothea Brooke’s story is the main plot for this review. Dorothea, a well-educated intellectual woman dreams of a life of meaning, so she marries Edward Casaubon, an elderly academic. The marriage quickly becomes unhappy and Dorothea falls in love with Will Ladislaw, Edward’s younger cousin. When he learns of the affection the two share, a dying Casaubon changes his will so that Dorothea loses her inheritance from him if she marries Ladislaw.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Dorothea stands out among the other female characters like the superficial Rosamond Vincy and Dorothea’s conventional sister, Celia. She longs for a life of deep meaning, intellectualism, and active service towards the poor, and is stifled by the role women in her period have to fill as decorative pieces waiting for marriage.

She designs cottages for the people on her uncle’s estate and she longs to discuss and analyze Casaubon’s Key to All Mythologies study. While her marriage to Casaubon is obviously unwise to all but her, she is less drawn to him physically than she is to someone who she believes understands her mentally. Dorothea is simply a woman born in the wrong circumstances and the wrong time period, and unlike her trail blazing author, lacked the stamina to pursue her interests.

The other reason this book is a favorite for Feminism is because of its author. Eliot, whose real name was Mary Ann Evans, chose to write under a male name and pursue her academic interests and writing. Her subjects were not specifically about marriage and romance, so much as they discusses topics like religion, social issues, and class conflicts. Eliot pursued an over 20 year affair with George Henry Lewes, a married editor. After Lewes died in 1878, Eliot married a man 20 years her junior. While the fictional Dorothea was unable to find happiness in her role as a woman, the real Eliot was able to pursue her own happiness.

Favorite Quote: Narration (This sets up one of the main themes to the book): “Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving heartbeats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centering in some long-recognizable deed.”

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847)

The plot: Orphaned, Jane Eyre is abused by her aunt and cousins then is sent to a cruel Dickensian school for girls. After she grows up, she is offered a position as a governess to the ward of the wealthy mysterious, Edward Fairfax Rochester. While she tutors Rochester’s ward, Adele, and becomes fascinated by her employer, Jane hears unusual laughter and encounters mysterious circumstances in the house. These weird happenings threaten Jane’s happiness in the Rochester home and her and Rochester’s growing affection for each other.

Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Jane is no wilting naïve Victorian heroine. Even as a child, she is not afraid to stand up for herself. She fights back when her cousin, John Reed bullies her and tells her cruel aunt, “I am glad you are no relation of mine.” When she gains employment with Rochester, she is not afraid to call him out when he manipulates her with a phony engagement even though she is in love with him.

 When she finds out that Rochester’s first wife is imprisoned in the house, mad, Jane refuses Rochester’s offer to marry him or live as his mistress. In all of her decisions, Jane displays a great deal of self-sufficiency and strength that allows her to fight against her antagonists even if they think of her as inferior because of her gender and her poverty. Only when Jane is able to become Rochester’s equal, and in some ways his superior, in the end does she accept his proposal.

I also highly recommend the novel, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which is the story of Bertha Rochester, Rochester’s first wife. She also has a passionate independent spirit that allows her to stand up for herself against antagonists like Rochester.

Favorite quote: Jane: “I tell you I must go! Do you think that I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?-a machine without feelings? And can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drops of my living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soul and heartless? You think wrong!-I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you love leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you through the modicum of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the Grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal, as we are!”

Honorable Mention: The novels: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, Mill On the Floss by George Eliot, Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, Washington Square by Henry James, Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett -Browning,  Ruth Hall by Fanny Fern, and Leila by George Sand.

Non-fiction: A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft (alright this one was from the 18^th century published in 1792, but it definitely is worth a mention), Eighty Years and More by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman” speech, Woman in the 19^th Century by Margaret Fuller, Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams, and The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill.

Plays: A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen

 Short Stories and Poetry: Works by Mary Wilkens Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewitt, Rebecca Harding Davis, Emma Lazaru,s, and Elizabeth Barrett-Browning