Drums: More "Women's Issues" (Pt. 2)

The writing of this post resembled a research paper--I can only hope it doesn't read like one.  Here, I try to give an overview of how the Outlander books build up a preoccupation with sexuality, bound up with fertility, that develops, in later books, into a curious near-feminist statement on birth control and reproduction.

The Early Books

From the first novel, Outlander, Gabaldon's novels have been focused on reproduction and fertility in one way or another.  At first, the focus is negative--that is, the absence of fertility. Claire wants to get pregnant. She has a duty  to get pregnant.  But she can't get pregnant.  The novel ends on a positive note for Jamie and Claire.

Geilie Duncan, on the other hand, does get pregnant in Outlander, and does so deliberately, in order to have a hold on the father.  I believe that there is also the implication that she dabbles in abortifacients, for her own unwanted offspring and for other women.  Her pregnancy is both her means of exposure and her means of buying Claire's escape (Outlander) and eventually her own (as Claire learns in Voyager).

Fertility becomes a problem for Claire and those around her in wholly new ways in Dragonfly in Amber, as Claire experiences pregnancy complications, and as she befriends a coquette who finds herself pregnant by her lover at an inopportune time, and a young girl who is completely ignorant of sex and its ties to reproduction.  In these contexts, and in her work at L'Hopital des Anges, Claire first encounters and contemplates Eighteenth-century abortion, and first teaches sex-ed (of a sort).   Nevertheless, Claire's advice to Mary after an interrupted rape is not textbook Twentieth-Century advice:

"Am I going to have a baby?" she blurted out, looking  up fearfully.  "You said..."
"No," I said , as firmly as I could. "You aren't. He wasn't able to...finish." In the folds of my skirt, I crossed both pairs of fingers, hoping fervently that I was right. The chances were very small indeed, but such freaks had been known to happen.  (Dragonfly 360)

Claire is clearly hedging here, but the certainty she expresses to Mary to prevent the girl from panicking contrasts directly with her stance on coitus interruptus in Drums of Autumn, and although the two situations are different--in one case the man is forced to discontinue the incomplete act while in the other, he does reach climax--the risk of pregnancy is similar in each case, speaking biologically rather than statistically.

Eighteenth and Twentieth Century Men and Fertility

In previous books, the relationship between men and fertility is straightforward:  Frank wants a child of his own (though he's not too sure he could love an adopted one); Jamie wants a child of his own. In Voyager, things get more complex for men and women, in the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

In Voyager, a good part of the action takes place in the Twentieth Century, which generally manifests its own particular form of sexism under the veneer of more enlightened attitudes toward sexuality.  Frank has learned that he can, indeed, love another man's child--particularly since he is infertile himself.  Nevertheless, he manifests Twentieth Century chauvenism by philandering while staying with Claire while they raise Bree.  This wouldn't seem to lend itself to judgment of Bree, but he seems to presume that she is as guilty of promiscuous tendencies as any undergraduate of the college, stating bluntly that "she'll be off with the first fellow who--" (what, we don't know).  (If Bree only knew, she might not think that Frank would be kinder to her than Jamie, when Jamie calls her a wanton in Drums of Autumn...)  When Claire interrupts Frank, defending Bree, she adds a certain Sexual Revolution "wisdom":  "Besides, all young people experiment, that’s how they learn. You can’t keep her swaddled in cotton wool all her life”  (Voyager 268).  The curious thing is that she upholds Bree's right to experiment--suggesting that Bree might, in fact, be "off with the first fellow who..." and at the same time defends Bree's virtue.  Frank continues with a particularly nasty bit of racism.

While Claire is living with philandering Frank in the Twentieth Century, Jamie adopts some of Claire's erstwhile Eighteenth-Century roles, namely sexual education (albeit in an ironic sense), critique of his century's (Biblical?) view of women, and acknowledment of the dangers of childbearing.  All of these contexts interact in interesting ways with his own masculinity, showing clearly how female identity and its constraints and dangers influence how men are able to be--and expected to be--men.  The most poignant damage done to Jamie's masculinity happens through the person of Geneva, who blackmails him into sex, conceives his child (perhaps intentionally, as she "looks at him with new interest" when Jamie warns her to summon him when she is least fertile), and dies in childbirth.  When explaining the situation to Claire, he confesses his guilt, which carries the realization that his sexuality, which he has already felt as shameful because of Geneva, is also deadly:

“No,” he said softly. “She  …   wanted me. I should have found a way— should have stopped her, but I could not. She wished me to lie wi’ her. And I did, and  …   she died of it.” He did look down then, long lashes hiding his eyes. “I am guilty of her death, before God; perhaps the more guilty— because I did not love her.”  (Voyager 940-941).

Claire's Mission 

In both centuries, it is up to Claire to be the voice of Enlightment as regards sexuality in general, and contraception in particular.  So Voyager functions as a kind of primer of Claire's mature knowledge of and philosophies on sex and reproduction, influenced by her medical training against the backrdrop of emerging Twentieth Century attitudes toward sex and their culmination in the 1960s.  Claire's return to the past represents not only a reunion with Jamie, and the continued consummation of their love, but also a mission of sorts--to spread sexual education to 18th Century women, thus improving their overall condition (we learn in Drums that this has been a Twentieth Century mission of hers as well--more on this later).  It starts with her observation of the affects of childbearing on women who were ignorant of hygiene and nutrition:

Nineteen when the eldest was born, and Maisri was ten now. She was twenty-nine. And I, blessed by good nutrition, hygiene, and dentistry, not worn down by multiple pregnancies and hard physical labor, looked a good deal younger than she.  (Voyager 311-312)

The dangers of childbith, and the detriment to men and women that come from those dangers, are so much a part of Voyager that Jamie picks up that traditional wartime rhetoric--the comparison between childbirth and battle:

“I’m a man, Sassenach,” he said, very softly. “If I thought there was a choice  …   then I maybe couldna do it. Ye dinna need to be so brave about things if ye ken ye canna help it, aye?” He looked at me then, with a faint smile. “Like a woman in childbirth, aye? Ye must do it, and it makes no difference if you’re afraid— ye’ll do it. It’s only when ye ken ye can say no that it takes courage.”  (Voyager 877)

A less comfortable revelation than his night with Geneva, Jamie's failed marriage to Laoghaire makes clear, by degrees, that women stand not only to lose their looks, their health, and their life, but also sexual pleasure.   Influenced by her mother's warnings and fears of Jamie, Laoghaire's daughter Marsali, who has seen that Claire enjoys sex, confides her fears that childbearing will prevent her enjoyment of the marriage act.  Marsali is comparatively well-educated on the topic when she poses her question to Claire:

     “Weel, it’s to do wi’ bairns,” she explained. “And how ye get them.”
     I raised one eyebrow. “Your mother didn’t tell you where babies come from?”
     She snorted impatiently, her small blond brows knotted in fierce scorn. “O’ course I ken where they come from! Any fool knows that much. Ye let a man put his prick between your legs, and there’s the devil to pay, nine months later. What I want to know is how ye don’t get them.”

Specifically, she confesses to Claire, anticipating her marriage to Fergus, “I want to like it.... When we get to the prick part”  (Voyager 706-707).  Marsali's question leads Claire into her first explicit lesson on contraception, 18th Century style:

     “So there is a way?”
     “There are a lot of ways, and unfortunately most of them don’t work,” I told her, with a pang of regret for my prescription pad and the reliability of contraceptive pills. Still, I remembered well enough the advice of the maîtresses sage-femme, the experienced midwives of the Hôpital des Anges, where I had worked in Paris twenty years before. (Voyager 711)

[....] 

     “Here,” I said, pulling out a large chunk of cleaned sponge. I took one of the thin surgical knives from the fitted slots in the lid of the box and carefully sliced off several thin pieces, about three inches square. I searched through the box again and found the small bottle of tansy oil, with which I carefully saturated one square under Marsali’s fascinated gaze.
     “All right,” I said. “That’s about how much oil to use. If you haven’t any oil, you can dip the sponge in vinegar— even wine will work, in a pinch. You put the bit of sponge well up inside you before you go to bed with a man— mind you do it even the first time; you can get with child from even once.”  (Voyager 711-712)

So here we have it--explicit instructions for the 18th Century contraceptive sponge.  And at the same time, the first really direct contraceptive propoganda, complete with the admonition that a woman can get pregnant even from the first time--which, by now, we have learned from Jamie and Geneva.  This is textbook sex ed, though interesting.  I would want to know whether this is a historically accurate birth control method (something I suppose Google would tell me--or the dreaded Wikipedia), and what the actual effectiveness is, given that Claire is recommending it as at least somewhat reliable from her Twentieth-Century authority and her Eighteenth-Century practical wisdom.

But more than that, I wonder about the role it plays in the novel.  It signals to the reader, certainly, that Claire is serious about contraception, and signals this in a big way.  Whereas there is commentary earlier in the books on the state of women who are burdened with multiple pregnancies, particularly in an age lacking in hygeine and nutrition, and action in the novel that dramaties the dangers of childbirth and its implications for men and women, when Claire actually dispenses birth control rather than providing commentary, the reader is asked to take notice in a whole new way.  The gesture not only says, "Unregulated birth is a problem for women," it provides the solution, backed by Claire's medical authority, Twentieth Century wisdom, and position as the central character in the Outlander novels.  Moreover, the action is presented as amoral.  There is no indication that the Church or religion condemn contraception, although there are a couple of digs at St. Paul for not particularly liking women.  Rather, there is a strange little scene when Claire visits her stillborn daughter Faith at the Hôpital des Anges:

As we walked slowly back, I noticed other small stones set here and there among the larger ones.
     “Are those all children?” I asked, a little surprised.
     “The children of the nuns,” she said matter-of-factly. I gaped at her in astonishment, and she shrugged, elegant and wry as always.
     “It happens,” she said. She walked a few steps farther, then added, “Not often, of course.” She gestured with her stick around the confines of the cemetery. “This place is reserved for the sisters, a few benefactors of the Hôpital— and those they love.”
     “The sisters or the benefactors?”
     “The sisters...."  (Voyager 629)

This clearly means that the sisters have had tristes, and that those unions have resulted in children.  The fate of the children is less certain.  Did they simply die?  It might be strange for so many to have died in childhood, though perhaps not.  The uniformity of the size of the graves suggests infanticide or abortion--sinister alternatives glossed over with a shrug and almost... understanding.  Not quite a divine pass, but definitely stopping short of narrative condemnation, since neither of these strong, authoritative women seems to condemn.

So why the contraceptive propoganda--why now, in the third book?  Why continuing throughout the series--even into the newest volume, due out in March?  What seems clear is that fertility is a preoccupation of the author--as well it might be for a female author.  As it is, in fact, for me. And there is no doubt that the novels romaniticize sexuality.  They do so, however, in a very specific way--by romanticizing near-impossible marital sexual passion and prowess.  If a reader isn't paying attention, however, good sex with a tall Scotsman might be mistaken for the union between Claire and Jamie, and it is a reality that there are many, many women--many young women certainly, and just as certainly women of other staeges of life--who are confused or deluded about sex--whatever "being confused about sex" means to my readers, who no doubt see sexuality and reproduction in a few different ways, complete with nuances.  The novels are not, I would say, feminist overall, but they do have this element of feminism:  the need to warn women about the reprocussions of sexual activity.  Perhaps it has to do with responsibility--the woman's, or the author's.  In the first two novels, Claire either fears herself barren, or carries a child.  So in the books in which sexuality carries such a locus of power, there is, in fact, very little emphasis on unwanted consequences.  So perhaps the lesson from Voyager forward is that Claire's barrenness shouldn't lure young women into false securiy?  What, in fact, is the reader supposed to glean from these lessons?

I do read them as a lesson for the reader--and one that is reemphasized, almost ad nauseum.  But for all that, there is still some ambiguity, and some room for the reader to negotiate levels of awareness of fertility and its power, use of birth control, and occasions of self-giving.  Jamie and Claire remain open--well, almost.  So the conflict between what is good for the woman according to Claire's wisdom, and what is powerful and vital, is played out between the other "power couple"--Brianna and Roger.

To be continued...

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Drums of Autumn (Outlander). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Drums: More "Women's Issues" (Pt. 1)

It's an ambitious title for a post, no? [Refers to a previous title] And a long time coming.  It's the post that I really wanted to write when I intially finished the books, but the more I reread, the less I want to write about it because I've already got it all worked out in my head and now I want to move past it.  But it's very much a part of the Outlander books.  So here goes...

One thing that struck me when I was initially reading Outlander is that the novel did not toe the feminist line by denouncing historical gender roles as necessarily oppressive and unjust.  Rather, it is often the case that the historical limitations on what women could do in society, the need for women to be protected by their men (most often from other men), are validated, and the lot of women not so terrible--or at any rate, no worse than what men had to endure.  A good example of this is the should-be-scandalous spanking scene.  Reading the Little House Books to my daughters, I recently realized that the justification in those books for corporal punishment was much the same as Jamie's justification to Claire in Outlander, and while she is his wife rather than his child, the fact that her disobediance did endanger everyone does suggest the need for some type of consequence--at least in that society.  Repeatedly through the first two books, Claire's twentieth-century headstong nature, while one of her strengths, proves to be out-of bounds and dangerous to her and to those around her.  In the struggle between female independence and history, history prevails.

I was also struck after a while--though not at first--by representations of 18th Century women and their fertility.  Claire is the only major female character in Outlander, and she is unable to become pregnant--first in the Twentieth Century, and then in the Eighteeth Century.  She seems to be barren.  In the Twentieth Century, she and Frank want a child.  In the Eighteenth Century, she is expected to want a child, and while she is a bit more ambivalent about the prospect, she is still open to the possibility of life--and after a while, she wants to give Jamie a child.  The first book, then, treats fertility as something desirable, if risky.  Even the fecundity of Jenny and Ian (the elder) is basically a good thing, though she is weary.  Jenny wouldn't have it any other way, and expects to bear many children.  In Drums of Autumn, Jamie articulates it very simply in response to the implication, stated by his own (unknowing) offspring, that Scots breed like rabbits:

“Scottish families are sometimes large, aye.” Jamie plucked a wren’s down feather from the small box and laid it delicately against the shank of his hook. “We think children a blessing.”

However, as the books progress, the narrative seems to make an effort to correct the error inadvertantly committed in Outlander, the book that Diana Gabaldon wrote, according to her own account, as an experiment, never completely expecting it to be published.  It is a risky novel, and by implication (as a discourse on the dangers of pregnancy and the need to limit births creeps in) one of the bold and perhaps inadvisable moves (Books 2 through 7 suggest) is the depiction of unrestricted, unprotected sex.  It is perhaps the prominance of the birth control message in the subsequent books that make it seem not only like a backlash against its absence in the first book, but also like a particular, pointed message aimed at the reader.  Don't think, the books seem to suggest, that this is the right way to live.  Even Claire's Twentieth Century pregnancy is risky, and Claire denies medicated childbirth because she is afraid that she will die in childbirth, even with available medical interventions.

The discourse of birth control does not, however, revolve around Claire, though Claire is the source of much of the emotional and physical vulnerability that surrounds pregnancy and childbirth, including miscarriage.  In fact, it is striking that the sexual relationship between Jamie and Claire--which is the ideal around which the novels are built--remains largely untainted by concerns with birth control. Once or twice we do learn that the pre-menopausal Claire is not taking chances this time around, but for other characters, birth control is much more a part of the story, and in the case of Bree and Roger, it is much more an anxiety of the male.  More on this later, because I don't think it actually works out in poor Roger's favor.  The message we get, increasingly, is that children are good, childbirth, pregnancy, and unregulated births are dangerous to women and undermine their autonomy.  However, the contradictory message that we get is that children are good--very good--much to be desired, that children strenghten a family and provide a powerful bond between men and women that is not always respected, and that men for whom female fertility is a source of anxiety are comparatively weak.  This will require some proving, I know.  So my feeling is that the narrative of birth control is still somewhat reactionary, which makes it all that much more artificial to me--again, as if the reader is being cautioned not to see unrestrained sexuality as an absolute good.  If there's a discourse on chastity, I haven't found it--such would be the Catholic remedy for the tendency toward licentiousness.

But what begins in Dragonfly in Amber surfaces in a big way in Drums of Autumn.  In my next post, I plan to review how the theme builds.  Eventually, I will take a closer look at some of the scenes, dialogues, and curcumstances that build into the discourse on birth control.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Drums of Autumn (Outlander) (Kindle Locations 10291-10292). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

The Ethos, Logos, and Pathos of Choosing Notable Moments

“And you, my Sassenach? What were you born for? To be lady of a manor, or to sleep in the fields like a gypsy? To be a healer, or a don’s wife, or an outlaw’s lady?” 

“I was born for you,” I said simply, and held out my arms to him. 

“Ye know,” he observed, letting go at last, “you’ve never said it.” 

“Neither have you.” 

“I have. The day after we came. I said I wanted you more than anything.” 

“ And I said that loving and wanting weren’t necessarily the same thing,” I countered.

He laughed. “Perhaps you’re right, Sassenach.” He smoothed the hair from my face and kissed my brow. “I wanted ye from the first I saw ye—but I loved ye when you wept in my arms and let me comfort you, that first time at Leoch.”

The sun sank below the line of black pines, and the first stars of the evening came out. It was mid-November, and the evening air was cold, though the days still kept fine. Standing on the opposite side of the fence, Jamie bent his head, putting his forehead against mine.
“You first.” 

“No, you.” 

“Why?” 

“I’m afraid.”

“Of what, my Sassenach?” The darkness was rolling in over the fields, filling the land and rising up to meet the night. The light of the new crescent moon marked the ridges of brow and nose, crossing his face with light. 

“I’m afraid if I start I shall never stop.” 

He cast a glance at the horizon, where the sickle moon hung low and rising. “It’s nearly winter, and the nights are long, mo duinne.” He leaned across the fence, reaching, and I stepped into his arms, feeling the heat of his body and the beat of his heart. 

“I love you.”

As part of the ongoing read-along of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels, a promotion on the Diana Gabaldon (official) Facebook page to re-invigorate the already vigorous fan-base in anticipation of the March release of Written in My Own Heart's Blood, "Ashley," the Random House communications person posted the above passage from Outlander, to the admiration of many swooning fans.  I mentioned this initiative in my last blog post, and while I think it's interesting, I take issue with the method.  Why, you ask?  Well, I would not read the books based on the above passage.  Even seeing it out of context makes me cringe more than a little.  It was probably at this point in the novel (or a little before) when I started entertaining significant suspicions about the genre--would I have to go into the ROMANCE NOVEL section in order to buy the next installment??  That I am a book snob (though an odd one) is not a surprise if you have read this blog before.

What we have here is not what I would call a "notable moment."  Perhaps it's a swoon-worthy moment or some such, but it does not pull thoughts in my mind.  It is perhaps a matter for Aristotelian rhetorical terms--this passage is making an appeal by way of pathos, eliciting emotion from the reader.  And while it is effective in context, it just registers as, well, sappy out of context.  There are undoubtedly appeals by means of pathos throughout the Outlander series--and perhaps especially in Book 1.  But though some readers might engage with this element, they are not the substance of the works.  And, frankly, this marketing ploy is losing me--to the extent that it ever had me.

"Ashley" should, perhaps, take a cue from Diana Gabaldon herself, who personally posts (if the internet is to be trusted) "Daily Lines" from her novels, most notably from the upcoming novel, on Facebook and (occasionally) on her blog.  Very rarely, first of all, do these "Daily Lines" tell a whole story. They are evocative, and they leave more unsaid than they do said in most cases. This is particularly important because Gabaldon is posting lines from a previously unpublished, soon-to-be-published manuscript.  She only posts scenes that whet the appetite--none that satisfy--which means that the reader, who has already read some substantial bits from the novel by this time, does not have the sense that she now knows what will happen in the book.

That strategy fits with Gabaldon's purpose of posting from the upcoming novel.  Her publicity agents are not following the same strategy.  Rather, assuming that the reader of the Facebook is already a fan, the agent is posting more complete scenes, like the one above.  The scenes are rather to evoke the nostalgia that fans--many of whom reread the books frequently--have for the characters' romance.  This works for certain fans, as the hundreds of comments and thousands of "likes" on Facebook indicate.  However, it does not work for all readers, and should someone who has not read the books happen upon these excerpts, it is possible that the quotes and excerpts, taken as they are out of context, will either give a false impression, will "satisfy" because the scene involves closure, or will turn the reader off because of the sickly sweet sentiments.  The novels are love stories, no doubt--but they are more complex and grittier than that.  I would like to see some of the gritty. 

Moments can be notable to an audience, then, for different reasons, and Gabaldon and the Random House representative are tapping into two different purposes and functions of an excerpt.   My own notable moments are personal, but meant to be public as well, as I share my deep reading in the hopes that my analysis will open something new in the novels for others.  My choice of moments is bound up with my process of reading, my academic training, and what interests me not only in the books, but in life.  That's what I mean by a reader's personal "rhetorical situation of reading":  it's where the reader is right now--mentally, in terms of interest and life experience, and, yes, emotionally--that influences what elements of a text engage, frustrate, or please him or her.  While in the moment--and certainly in the first flush of reading a new book--I might be reading for the escapism, intentionally getting caught up in the pathos, the moments that are truly notable--moments that make my mind take notice, that make me form theories and connections--are the moments that engage me by means of logos, and here I mean not just "logic" but compelling content that invites potential argument and dialogue with the text, as well as the moments in which the author, intentionally or unintentionally, imparts her own ethos, revealing something about her artistic choices.  I think it is the variety and quality of the integration of ideas, as well as the successful manipulation of emotion, that make successful novels, as the quality and variety of appeals are what guarantee that a variety of people will find the novel engaging.

Although I didn't write about many notable moments in the Harry Potter novels during my recent rereading, I actually think that J. K. Rowling's strength as a writer lies in the ability to execute many appeals simultaneously, to engage a variety of readers--which, of course, just makes sense.  But for me, during this reread, I was not attuned so much to the ideas.  I was retreading old territory, in part to see what the experience felt like for me right now.  It was sort of like a vacation--no, not to Hogwarts.  Just an adventure in novel reading.  And what stood out for me this time was the ethos--the author's exercise of control over the text.  It is something I have criticized before--truly, at times Rowling might have been reigned in by an editor, but on this reread (perhaps my third reading), I don't think she necessarily had to be reigned in much.  I find the symmetry and tying up of loose ends in The Goblet of Fire to be very pleasing.  It is a very well-executed mystery.  And while the angst of Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince were still there, what struck me more than anything was the pointlessness of the former (really? all of this effort over some words?) and the exquisite ending of the latter.  I wonder if perhaps Rowling was giving the reader a taste, in Order of how Harry would feel about the futility of striving in Deathly Hallows.  And Half-Blood Prince had at once a satisfying sense of closure--the reader knew that the novel had to end there--and the sense of a long road ahead--seemingly the opposite of closure, and yet not.  I don't think I had yet appreciated exactly that aspect of the sixth book in the series, but because of where I was--my mindset, my leisure, my particular literate moment--I was able to appreciate it.  But it was not a notable moment, because it involved the novel as a whole.

So as I work toward a consideration of the ways of reading of different personality types, and how INFPs and ENTJs, for example, engage with different elements, it is useful, I think, to consider how an individual chooses a selection from a novel to highlight, and why.  It is also useful to think of how personal circumstances, including modes of reading--rereading compared to exploratory reading, for example, or academic vs. pleasure reading--contexts, and even overall mood--change what we get out of fiction--how we filter the details and action differently.  I also think it is useful to consider ethos, logos, and pathos--the friends, and perhaps the bane, of every scholar of rhetoric, from Freshman to graduate level.  Because where I look at the passage from Outlander out of context and wrinkle my nose and say, "oh, please!" the fact is that I enjoyed it in context, in the rhetorical reading situation in which I encountered it first--and again.  It wasn't a "notable moment" to me, because why would I analyze saying or not saying "I love you"?  It's not particularly meaningful to me.  But clearly, to hundreds and thousands of readers of Gabaldon, it is meaningful.  It captures their nostalgia for the emotion evoked, and their admiration of the ideal portrayed in the scene.

Voyager: A Portrait of Professor Randall Pt 1

Well, I'm getting behind.  *sigh*

The truth is, I've been reading a new book--Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Princess. I may or may not have anything to say about that one.  It's the last of the series that I got hooked on a while back, and I'm glad it's the last, because I don't like Clare's worldview.  I'm hoping it will tie up some loose ends in the series so that I don't have to continue with her Mortal Instruments series, which is pretty awful--engaging at its best, demonic and dangerously transgressive at its worst.  Very disappointed.

I have also been sewing--first my daughters' Easter dresses, and then a casual dress for myself.  I would like to make another dress for myself, and some hooded knit dresses for the girls.  So basically, when I sew, and when I read, I am less inclined to blog.  I should have timed things better so that I had a backlog of posts scheduled.  Oh well!  Hindsight and all...

So I mentioned that I don't like Frank.  Perhaps this is why I have beaten around the bush for two full paragraphs before getting to the point.  Since a dream that Claire had in Outlander about Frank in his "professor" role, I have been meaning to write a post about Frank's teaching persona.  Teaching persona is something that I have thought a lot about.  I have written about it formally and informally.  It's how a teacher presents him- or herself to a class--on what his or her credibility rests, and how she or he establishes a rapport.  When I was an undergraduate, I wanted professors who were experts.  They were scholars.  They knew everything, and I could drink of their wisdom.  Ideally, I also wanted them to be approachable.  I wanted to be able to ask a question and have a conversation as we walked back to his or her office.  In grad school, I was taught that that model was outdated--students did not benefit from having experts, because being lectured to by an expert made them passive rather than active learners.  I was never a passive learner.  I was uncomfortable learning that the scholar/lecturer model was "outdated," because that was how I liked to learn.  I soon grew into it, as I realized that that was not how I liked to teach.  I like to be a co-collaborator and co-investigator with my students (when I have students).  I like to explore the subject with them so that we're discovering new things.  Frankly, I'm not confident enough to be a scholar/lecturer.  I do not have an "expert" persona, because I am always so very aware of what I don't know that I can't rest on what I do know.

Gabaldon--who, as a former professor herself, has thought of this as well--gives a few cues as to Frank's teaching persona.  And my assessment is that in this, as in everything, Frank is a bit of an ass.

The first thing to know, for our purposes, is that being a professor is all about literacy.  It's why Roger is all about the archives (which, of course, has nothing to do with wanting to seduce the 6-foot tall redhead--no, I'm not talking about Jamie).  It's why, at the beginning of their last conversation, Frank is in bed "reading with the book propped upon his knees" (265).  Being a professor.  It's a literacy vocation.  Like printing--but that's Jamie's gig.  That book-reading figures heavily in this scene.  Every snarky comment is punctuated with a gesture involving the book, which is related to being a professor:

“But what good does thinking do?” he asked, sticking a bookmark in his book. “You’ve done whatever you could— worrying about it now won’t change  …   ah, well.” He shrugged irritably and closed the book. “I’ve said it all before.”  (265)

Though specifically in reference to Claire's thoughts about her patient, and the surgery she had recently performed, there is something that feels wrong--sarcastic on Frank's part, or ironic on the part of the author--with a professor asking what good thinking does.  I rather feel as though it reflects back on his pedagogy in some way.  Don't think--just accept what I tell you.  The other angle is that it certainly sets his own vocation--one that involves thinking--above hers, which, by implication, only involves performing.

More to come in part 2...

Voyager: Jamie Teaches Sex Ed

The Outlander novels, on the whole, are preoccupied with sexual education.  There aren't just scenes of sex; there are instructional discussions of sex, sexuality, and matters of reproduction that occur (I believe) in all of the books, beginning as early as Outlander--I'll come back to that in a minute.

In Dragonfly in Amber, for example, Claire--with her 20th Century knowledge, her medical knowledge, and her sexual experience, corrects Mary Hawkins' misperceptions that Frenchmen do anything different from Englishmen or Scotsmen do in bed:

"Well," I said matter-of-factly, "there are only so many things you can do in bed with a man, after all.  And since I see quite a large number of children about the cite, I'd assume that even Frenchmen are fairly well versed in the orthodox methods."
     "Oh! Children.... well, yes, of course," she said vaguely, as though not seeing much connection. "B-b-but they said"--she cast her eyes down, embarrassed, and her voice sank even lower--"th-that he... a French-man's thing, you know...."
     "Yes, I know," I said, striving for patience.  "So far as I know, they're much like any other man's.  Englishmen and Scotsmen are quite similarly endowed."
     "Yes, but they, they... p-p-put it between a lady's l-l-legs!  I mean, right up inside her!"  This bit of stop-press news finally out, she took a deep breath, which seemed to steady her, for the violent crimson of her face receded slightly.  "An Englishman, or even a Scot... oh, I didn't mean it that way..."  Her hand flew to her mouth in embarrassment.  "But a decent an like your husband, surely he would n-never dream of forcing a wife to endure s-something like that!"
     I placed my hand on my slightly bloated stomach and regarded her thoughtfully.  I began to see why spirituality ranked so highly in Mary Hawkins's catalog of manly virtues.
     "Mary," I said, "I think we must have a small talk." (Dragonfly 254)

She has "the talk" with other young women throughout the Outlander series, and counsels and reassures Mary after an interrupted rape that she will not become pregnant, because he "didn't finish" (Dragonfly 360).

In Voyager, Jamie is a somewhat unlikely sex ed teacher.  Except that, if we consider the romance novel model, maybe it's not so unlikely that Geneva Dunsany's sexual instruction comes from the attractive near-stranger who also provides her sexual initiation (and, indeed, her sole sexual experience).  But his instruction begins immediately after he yields to her blackmail.  Now that he is a "co-conspirator," he gives her advice based on biology, of which she is clearly ignorant:

     “Arrange it, then,” he said, his stomach curdling. “Mind ye choose a safe day, though.”
     “A safe day?” She looked blank.
     “Sometime in the week after ye’ve finished your courses,” he said bluntly. “You’re less likely to get wi’ child then.”
      “Oh.” She blushed rosily at that, but looked at him with a new interest. (208)

There is no indication that this is information that Jamie has learned from Claire; however, because Jamie was a virgin when he and Claire were married, the encounter with Geneva necessarily recalls his own first time, with his own inexperience:

     “How much do you  …   I mean, have ye any idea how it’s done?”
     Her gaze was clear and guileless, though her cheeks flamed.
     “Well, like the horses, I suppose?” He nodded, but felt a pang, recalling his wedding night, when he too had expected it to be like horses.
     “Something like that,” he said, clearing his throat. “Slower, though.  More gentle,” he added, seeing her apprehensive look.  (212)

In Outlander, Claire's first experience as a sexual educator was, in fact, correcting Jamie's assumptions.

Jamie is sensitive to Geneva's desire to watch him undress and conflicting shyness; he addresses in a less direct way the physical change of erection.  He addresses with her whether the act will hurt, reassuring her that the experience will improve after the first time, and gives her the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity about his body (212).  He also imparts something of the sacred nature of sex, though the context is both forced (for him) and (once again) fornication.  First, in the context of a reprimand to Geneva, he indicates that there is honor in the sex act, for men and for women:

“I’ll serve ye properly,” he said, looking down at his working fingers, “for the sake of my own honor as a man, and yours as a woman...." (201)

Even as he acknowledges to himself that the loveless, all-consuming lust he feels in anticipation of a sexual encounter is not honorable:

But overall there was a terrible lust, a need that clawed at his vitals and made him ashamed of his own manhood, even as he acknowledged its power. (213)

Then, as he commences with Geneva, he instructs her in how she should feel about her own body, and how a man should treat her in bed:

“A man should pay tribute to your body,” he said softly, raising each nipple with small, circling touches. “For you are beautiful, and that is your right.” (214)

The emphasis is actually on her dignity.

When the act is complete, Jamie answers her confusion:

     “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t know it would hurt you too.”
     His eyes popped open in astonishment, and he raised himself on one elbow to find her looking at him like a startled fawn. Her face was pale, and she licked dry lips.
     “Hurt me?” he said, in blank astonishment. “It didna hurt me.”
     “But”— she frowned as her eyes traveled slowly down the length of his body—“ I thought it must. You made the most terrible face, as though it hurt awfully, and you  …   you groaned like a—”
     “Aye, well,” he interrupted hastily, before she could reveal any more unflattering observations of his behavior. “I didna mean  …   I mean  …   that’s just how men act, when they  …   do that,” he ended lamely. (216)

He tends to her, and even endures the indignity of her response to his ejaculation, another learning experience for her.

Jamie's final lesson to Geneva about sex is that it should not be confused with love, though there is something more akin to infatuation or puppy love than lust in Geneva's regard for Jamie, and certainly more akin to love than anything she was likely to experience in her arranged marriage.

     “No,” he said, but gently, shaking his head. “That’s the third rule. You may have no more than the one night. You may not call me by my first name. And you may not love me.”
     The gray eyes moistened a bit. “But if I can’t help it?”
     “It isna love you feel now.” He hoped he was right, for his sake as well as her own. “It’s only the feeling I’ve roused in your body. It’s strong, and it’s good, but it isna the same thing as love.”
     “What’s the difference?”
     He rubbed his hands hard over his face. She would be a philosopher, he thought wryly. He took a deep breath and blew it out before answering her.
     “Well, love’s for only one person. This, what you feel from me— ye can have that with any man, it’s not particular.” (217-218)

While he is trying to protect himself from the beginning, he is also trying to protect her.

Jamie's is necessarily a more comprehensive lesson than those usually given by Claire--even more so than her instruction of him, since she was not concerned with honor or dignity or emotion, simply with completing the act, and with pleasure.  Though I have argued that Geneva's tryst with Jamie parallels the expected plot of a romance novel, and though even these moments of instruction have correlations in the romance genre, the nature of the instruction, and in particular Jamie's honest and straightforward communication with Geneva and emphasis on her dignity, distinguish Gabaldon's imitation from the real romance novel genre, even making the romance novel seem a parody of this more serious representation of an inexperienced girl's willful manipulation of a man she desires into her bed for her edification.

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

Is there a Postcolonial Scotland?

This post starts from a couple of places. First, Marc Gunn's blog, where he writes about the differences between Scottish and Irish Celtic music in the context of his experience with each:

"It’s like the Irish songs were seeped in hundreds of years of oppression and Scotland broke free from that feeling. Oh wait! They did!"

Now, reading this from where I am now, analyzing a series of historial fantasy/fiction that dramatizes the  definitive defeat of the Highland clans and the aftermath of that conflict seen through the lens of a fictional Highlander and various 20th Century characters, it struck me that this conclusion was a bit too... easy, perhaps?  So I posted a couple of responses on Facebook:

You might say that the English crushed the opposition more definitively in Scotland in the 18th C, so there wasn't the festering subversive element as in Ireland. The clans didn't really survive as such. The Irish didn't have the obvious social/political structure in place, so it wasn't as easy to rout out. And even in the 18th C, Scotland was more influenced by Protestantism. In Ireland, the English Protestant landowners formed a superstructure on top of the native Irish--with more integration in Ulster. You might say that the religious question was already native to Scotland, so it wasn't an imposition from without as in Ireland.

And specifically with reference to music:

Also - I would venture that the complex stories are there in Scottish ballads, but those aren't the songs we remember as being quintessentially Scottish. I think the songs we remember as quintessentially Scottish are the ones with bagpipes and brogues. Many of the songs that we think of as *Irish* actually appear among the ballads collected by Frances James Child in the Nineteenth Century in England and Scotland!

So really, it's more complex in terms of folk-tradition.  Why is there this connection?  What was the folk culture exchange between Ireland and Scotland?  I'm sure someone has written on this subject.  And politically, I'm not sure I feel comfortable with the idea of Scotland more easily accepting its position relative to England.

Now, on this blog, I have posts that ask postcolonial questions.  But I am not really asking them of Scotland, but of the novels--which are 20th and 21st Century American novels. Not British.  Not Scottish.  So really, the novels don't tell us anything at all about Scotland, only about the perception of Scotland that the novel represents.  A historical novel has the potential to act as a piece of historical commentary, arguing more effectively than any textbook or essay that the reader should view the past from a certain perspective.  Films do this, too.  Consider Gone with the Wind, for example--because it's an easy one, and both a film and a novel.  It definitely presents a very specific view of the South from before and after the Civil War. The problematic character of Scarlett O'Hara might make each work's sympathies harder to sort out.  By contrast, the reader's lot in the Outlander novels is cast irrevocably with Jamie's sympathies and experiences, even if sometimes tempered by Claire's 20th Century hindsight.

Scotland was never a colony.  Ireland was.  America was.  Scotland and England have shared monarchs, dynasties, land mass,  religious movements.  As an English major and History minor, I never learned about Scotland as separate from England.  The one reference to Scottish history I will never forget was my history professor Dr. Schlunz, who said that James I looked around at Parliament and said, "I know what you are!  You're a bunch of goddamned Presbytarians!"  Irish history, I learned through studying Yeats and largely under the tutelage of Dr. Mary FitzGerald (and to a degree, O'Flaherty's Irish Pub).  But there was no "in" for me in Scottish literature--Burns?  Not someone I ever liked, in part because I had no real interest in the 18th Century, and no real interest in Scotch Gaelic.  I studied French, Latin and Greek, and considered Irish, but I wanted my English literature in English.  I didn't give Old English any serious attention until grad school, and didn't really have the patience for Chaucer's Middle English.  So only through some Celtic music, like "Culloden's Harvest" by Deanta, which I enjoyed but didn't investigate, and now through the Outlander books, do I get a sense of Scottish history.  (And I've read a few bona fide history articles, though not a lot.)

America was a colony.  So it makes sense that I grew up feeling a hefty sense of righteous indignation toward Imperialists--England, and especially Spain, which was vilified in all textbooks of the 1980s and early 90s, to my knowledge.  I have an affinity for postcolonial criticism and literature--Marxism notwithstanding.  I like the idea of a center and a periphery, and an exchange between the two--that the colonizer is influenced by the colonial subject.  I like the idea that by exercising power over others, the colonizer is debased.  I like subtle subversion of colonial power.  I do not think we would be better off had the Spanish not wiped out the Aztecs, nor if Christianity had not spread.  I am definitely an imperfect postcolonialist.  I do think that England caused immeasurable, lasting global political harm with its Empire.  But...  Scotland was not a colony.  So when I look for that postcolonial sentiments in Outlander, it is to satisfy my own righteous indignation at the atrocities committed in Scotland, by the English, in acts that were similar to the oppression/suppression under colonization, but not technically colonization.

Scotland has nationalism, but not postcolonialism.  The clans--who would offer resistance to English rule--were well-organized, and easily stamped out.  Robert Burns may have actually been fairly typical of the non-Highland response to the Jacobite rising, if you consider his version of the Anti-Jacobite/anti-war "Ye Jacobites by Name":

YE Jacobites by name, give an ear, give an ear,
Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear,
Ye Jacobites by name,
Your fautes I will proclaim,
Your doctrines I maun blame, you shall hear.	5
What is Right, and What is Wrang, by the law, by the law?
What is Right and what is Wrang by the law?
What is Right, and what is Wrang?
A short sword, and a lang,
A weak arm and a strang, for to draw.	10
What makes heroic strife, famed afar, famed afar?
What makes heroic strife famed afar?
What makes heroic strife?
To whet th’ assassin’s knife,
Or hunt a Parent’s life, wi’ bluidy war?	15
Then let your schemes alone, in the state, in the state,
Then let your schemes alone in the state.
Then let your schemes alone,
Adore the rising sun,
And leave a man undone, to his fate.

It might be summed up as "don't rock the boat," or "why can't we be friends?" And perhaps the Jacobites were to blame.  (Come to think of it, Bono from U2 might be the Irish equivalent of Robert Burns in "Ye Jacobites by Name."  Turn that one over for a moment!)  But it seems that there was an element of identity at stake--personal identity, religious identity (for the Catholics), and national identity.

Because it is the clans and the plaids--and the symbols of the past that was so definitively cut off by Culloden--that signify Scottish Nationalism today.  When you look to representations of Irish Nationalism in popular culture, they're not always pretty--Patriot Games, for example.  (Also see Patriot Games and "The Patriot Game.")  But the examples are contemporary.  When we look for movies that celebrate Scotland--and Patriot Games in no way celebrates Ireland, by the way.  I would look to The Secret of Roan Inish or The Field or The Commitments or even The Quiet Man--when we look for celebrations of Scotland, we get Braveheart or Brave.  One historical, one fantasy--both idealizations of a far, far distant past.  Postcolonial, post-British Nationalist Scotland is, in fact, pre-British Scotland.  As in Outlander.

I think that American audiences, and maybe contemporary audiences, want to see oppression opposed.  And so I look for postcolonial perspectives (for so they are called) imposed onto 18th Century Scotland by the author--to ignite my righteous indignation and to satisfy my innate sense of justice.  And sometimes, I find them.

Historical Fiction in Dialogue with History and Fiction

I have always like the idea of having texts "talk" to one another.  When I was an undergrad, I was excited to see the ways in which The Chronicles of Narnia, which I had read a hundred times, echoed the literature I was reading.  I liked the idea of "reading backwards"--reading contemporary allusions first, and discovering the originals, almost as commentary on the later works.  It was a perspective thing.  Later, I taught an Intro to Lit course using parallel ancient Greek and later British and American works--not really my best course concept (a bit sophomoric)--and also a course on "retellings."  So while this is nothing new--for me, or perhaps for anyone, I still like the idea of teaching contemporary texts alongside their historical counterparts. (I also like having a few "revealing" novels to illustrate historical social movements as the basis for British literature survey courses, but while related, that's sort of different.)

Today I am thinking about the way survey courses integrate background material and even literary criticism.  I have not met too many undergraduates (translate: none) who relish reading journal articles about literary works, and lecturing on the historical period is not my favorite way to pass the time.  It's too much work for too little return, and really? there has to be a better way to get students to get a sense of a historical period.

Take historical fiction, for example.  Writers of good historical fiction do their homework--they have to!  They immerse the reader in the historical period, and even when they take liberties, those liberties can be interesting topics for discussion, as in my reactionary moments posts on the Outlander novels.  They tell us something about history, but they might tell us more about our own historical moment and how we regard the past.  That they do so in the guise of fiction is perhaps a boon, since though there is the tendency to view historical fiction as historical, there is more of a tendency to view historical nonfiction as TRUTH.  And in truth, that's a bit of a gamble sometimes, especially when the critical method falls into certain ideological categories.  So regarding historical fiction as a type of literary criticism can actually give a healthy perspective on how we regard criticism--with some skepticism.  This in turn teaches critical thinking and active reading.

In addition to Outlander, which I think could serve to jump-start a course on 18th Century literature and history, Steampunk provides some good material to use when looking back on the 19th Century.  Consider Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate.  Nothing but fun there.  It shatters, in a way, the notion that the Victorians were nothing-but-stuffy while playing up that stuffiness at the same time.  Most Steampunk novels that I've read include little bits of commentary about how Victorians regarded class and objects.  This is one of the best, from Carriger's Soulless:

Everything was perfectly clean and chosen with utter precision, each object occupying the space it had been given with immense dignity. (83)

Also consider:

Miss Tarabotti could not help but compare it to the Duchess of Snodgrove's palatial residence.  Here there was more real affluence and grandeur, the kind that did not need to display itself openly--it simply was. (82)

In a book I decided not to read after downloading a sample, I noted the distinction between antique white-and-blue china, and the mass-produced variety that social climbing households acquired to imitate the upper crust.  These few fictional moments replace at least three intolerably dull, overtheorized and overwrought articles I had to read in grad school.  Having read the latter, I can recognize the former.  But wouldn't it be fun to tell students--see?  This is a commentary on a real fact of Victorian social climbing.  This kind of thing comes to a head in expat Henry James's 20thC novel The Spoils of Poynton, which, when we read it, will seem even more dull and Henry James-ish by comparison.

Voyager: Jenny Reading Again - More Women's Literacy

In the early chapters of Voyager, in the aftermath of Culloden, when the people of Lallybroch are coping with hunger, grief, fear and oppression,  literacy takes on a more urgent kind of significance than the one it had for Jenny in Dragonfly in Amber.   In his hermit-like exile, Jamie depends on books, and Claire's medical training is not only book-based, but occasions her own use of books for coping.  Meanwhile, in her own, practical way, Jamie's sister Jenny also depends on books to cope with hardship--and not French novels and poetry this time (see here and here for Jenny reading in Dragonfly).

So it happens that, coming into the house with freshly killed rabbits, Jamie finds Jenny with a book that seems, to him, superfluous:

“Cut them into collops and break the bones for me, will ye, Jamie?” she said, frowning at Mrs. McClintock’s Receipts for Cookery and Pastry-Work, laid open on the table beside the pie pan.
     “Surely ye can make hare pie without looking in the wee book?” he said, obligingly taking the big bone-crushing wooden mallet from the top of the hutch where it was kept. He grimaced as he took it into his hand, feeling the weight of it. It was very like the one that had broken his right hand several years before, in an English prison, and he had a sudden vivid memory of the shattered bones in a hare pie, splintered and cracked, leaking salty blood and marrow-sweetness into the meat.
     “Aye, I can,” his sister answered abstractedly, thumbing through the pages. “It’s only that when ye havena got half the things ye need to make a dish, sometimes there’s something else you’ll come across in here, that ye can use instead.” (61-62)

This is an interesting moment, because it shows a book--a codex--that is not used for pleasure or propaganda.  Rather than providing spiritual nourishment (as Bibles are mentioned occasionally, though in Outlander mainly as an object signifying need for vengeance against Jack Randall), this book provides for physical nourishment.

This literacy moment is also interesting because it is another instance of gendered reading.  When Claire reads, it is without the same kind of gender marker as Jenny, simply because she is a different kind of woman than Jenny.  Claire, while marked by motherhood, can't really be called "domestic"--much to the chagrin of Frank.  Jenny's reading--in this and the other instance, in Dragonfly--is gendered, domestic reading.  By this I mean that in the narrative, it is specifically tied to her duties as the matriarch of the household, providing food and clothing and otherwise caring for her children and her men.  Beyond just the fact of being gendered and domestic, this women's reading is thrifty and useful.  She reads for reference, which is not common in the novels--even when Claire refers to reading medical texts, the emphasis is on the fact that she and her colleague are not reading professional materials.  She also reads as a matter of resourcefulness.  It is a hands-on, practical means of coping, showing that not all reading in the Outlander books is pie-in-the sky, escapist sort of stuff.  In fact, the uses of literacy are quite diverse (even if individual, intellectual uses of literacy are privileged).

Gabaldon, Diana (2004-10-26). Voyager (Outlander) Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Reading The Awakening Wrong**

I've always hated Kate Chopin's The Awakening, ever since it was forced upon us in high school.  When, as a 19-year-old college senior, 8 months pregnant, I was designated in my Literary Criticism  class to read aloud the Marxist feminist essay on The Awakening that argued that motherhood rendered a woman's life meaningless, I was amused, but not more inclined to like the tale.  I have not quite decided to reread it, as I am still inclined to think that trotting out The Awakening as a long-lost, long-forgotten classic that was suppressed because of the patriarchal slant of the canon was bona fide First- or Second Wave feminist nonsense, but as I was turning it over in my mind today, I decided to jot down a few thoughts.

While it may seem like a drastic departure from the Outlander series, I'm not sure that it wasn't, in fact, Outlander that brought it to mind.  Or at least, it was Outlander with its discourses on gender, sexuality, and motherhood, combined with my own thoughts on those very same subjects--which happen, actually, to be some of my very favorite subjects, just not as they are usually treated by literary critics and gender theorists.  My own model of literary criticism would take as a starting point the reader's reactions and the connections that proceed from those reactions, rather than taking as a starting point some external point of reference, like Marx (for an easy example).  It is entirely possible that Marx might become relevant (though usually not here), and certainly external theorists, philosophers, and critics--many more (and many more classical and Enlightenment philosophers) than exist in the current canon in the humanities--should be available as a point of reference.  But in order for the writer to be truly invested in the analysis, in order to be writing something that is, for her, meaningful, and in order for the result to have originality and resonance, the initial spark should be at least somewhat personal.  This is why student papers on "Good and Evil in XY Literary Work" will always be doomed to failure (well, one reason)--lack of personal investment.  (The same can be said about hot topics in composition courses.  Because really?  They don't have much invested in a paper about lowering the drinking age, even if they think they do.)  It is the original combination of influences, experiences, and knowledge that shape an original critic.

So I found myself thinking about motherhood.  And thinking about my recent posts, here and here, about women in some stage of becoming mothers claiming the child as their own, I realized--this is a necessary step in becoming a mother.  It is, in some ways, a sign of the maturity and capacity to mother a child.  It is--at least in Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager--an Awakening.  But it is clearly a step that is missing from Chopin's Awakening.

So I thought to myself, perhaps that's the point.  Perhaps the feminist icon Edna Pontellier was not a model of subversion and rebellion.  Certainly, she achieves self-negation rather than succumbing to the role of mother.  But is this the result of a deep character flaw, or a nobility of cause and purpose?  She is petulant.  She is childish.  She is weak.  She is hardly an admirable character.  And yet I remember having the distinct impression that her act of self-negation, because it was rebellion against the only possible role available to her as a woman, was a noble act.  Is it any wonder I regarded the work with disgust?  I do remember asking how her original audience received the story.  I'm not sure my teacher in high school new the answer--and when I was in college, my questions about reception were automatically dismissed as irrelevant.  I believe that Chopin was popular--it's one of the arguments for retaining her in the revised canon (If she was relevant in her own time, why have we dismissed her? Because she's a woman?  And yet, Tolkien is often considered unworthy of graduate study because he is popular, as when a course on his novels was proposed in my degree-granting department.)

Thinking further about Pontellier, though, I remember how she was set up against Adèle Ratignolle, the epitome of perfect, devoted motherhood.  While I find Edna repugnant, Adèle is not a suitable alternative, because to be held up to such a model of perfection could make any woman feel that self-annihilation is preferable to 1) that model of motherhood, or 2) trying to live up to that model while knowing the impossibility of achieving it.

I couldn't help visualizing this New Yorker cover, with its take on women and identity.

It seems that every model of womanhood in The Awakening is impossible, or imperfect, or undesirable, and perhaps that is more to the point than the claim that motherhood negates one's identity.  Edna Pontellier did not have an identity.  She looked for one in the women she knew, and she looked for one as a lover of the men she knew, and she was unable to find anything to fill her own void.  Rather, she becomes aware of herself as the Self that cannot be signified (a reference to Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy).  She cannot identify herself except with reference to others, and finds, finally, that her self does not exist, and yields to non-existence.  I find this slightly more interesting, but I still find Edna Pontellier to be a waste of a significant chunk of novella.

As it reflects on motherhood, though--it is her failure as a mother to claim her children that seems significant.  I have written papers (in grad school) about the need for the postfeminist woman to come to terms with fertility, and the choice to--or not to--mother.  But women constantly have choices put before them regarding their fertility, though they are not discussed as such. The "choice" that is commonly evoked with reference to women's fertility is, in fact, and act of violence that negates that fertility.  The choice that Edna never makes is the choice to claim her children as her own.  And it is only when she makes that choice that she can construct an identity that includes the act of mothering, even if her identity is not limited to Mother.

**I leave it open whether I am reading it wrong--intentionally against the grain--or whether I think that the feminist readings I was taught were wrong.  At the end of the day, I am not, in fact, committed to the text, though I am invested in the ideas of motherhood, choice (no, not that kind of choice!), and identity.