Traditional Female Gender Role under Deconstruction

Why aren’t women making babies anymore? Are American women saying “No” to babies, but saying “Yes” to childless marriage or childless single existence?

As more and more women gain socio-economic independence, what was once considered her only legitimate space, “home,” is undergoing massive structural transformation. Only about 24% of the US family structure represents the traditional nuclear home—i.e., heterosexual parents with children.

Household Types, 1990-2000

1990

• Total Households 91,947,410 (100%)
• Married Couple 23,494,726 (55.15%)
• With Children 23,494,726 (25.55%)

2000

Total Households 105,480,101 (100.00%)

• Married Couple 54,493,232 (51. 66%)
• With Children 24,835,505 (23.55%)
  

According to this statistics (Census Scope http://www.%20censusscope.org/), we as a society are headed towards a predominantly elderly populace, since less and less women are willing to produce babies. In fact, such is the trend for other countries with 1st world status.

Do you have any concerns with this trend?

Who are to be blamed for the modern women’s “anti-domestication” stance?

Question: Who are to be blamed for the modern women’s “anti-domestication” stance, as they overwhelmingly restrain their reproductive organs? Is it A, B, or C?

A) Men, who for centuries have underappreciated or exploited domestic wives’ human dignity in general, compelling women to seek psychological/intellectual validation outside her traditional enclave (home and her children).

B) Women, who innately having “Eve’s syndrome” to thwart “Adam’s God-ordained authority” over her, have ingeniously made some strategic political strides over the years, such as: the 20s suffrage act (1st wave feminism), the 60s civil rights’ movement (2nd wave feminism), and the 90s women-of-color consciousness and post-colonial transnationalism (3rd wave feminism).

C) Other: Your insights as to why.

An Image of an Ideal Woman Shaped by Men

Women, don’t allow men to

commodify & objectify you!

We are being manufactured by men’s desires and needs

An Image of an Ideal Patriotic Woman

during the World Wars

 
The notion that women were biologically unfit for hard physical labor faded due to wartime shortages in the workforce.

All of sudden, men (factory owners & politicians) preferred women of the following sizes:

• Muscle – Big
• Intelligence – Small
• Money – N/A
• Obedience – X-large

Women, don’t sing all the verses at the same time!

Women today are encouraged by the society to have it all—generally, all simultaneously: money, travel, marriage, motherhood, career, and etc. However, doing things sequentially—pursuing/fulfilling a career, education, or various roles one at a time—is the wisest way to do each thing well in its due time and seasons (p 18-19). If a woman work on her various tasks or dreams sequentially, then one day she will have it all.

So, all of you out there, don’t pressure your woman to sing all the verses of her milliard different songs at the same time because she will CRASH!!

Source: Faust, J. E. (1986). A message to my granddaughters: becoming great women. Ensign, Sep, 18-19. http://lds.org/

Rivalry relation between Jane in Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” and Bertha in Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea”

Rivalry relation between

Jane in Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” and Bertha in Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea”

Adrienne Rich in “Jan Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman” articulates that “Jane Eyre, motherless and economically powerless” has successfully resisted “certain traditional female temptations” with dignity (470).  Rich quotes from Phyllis Chesler’s essay called the “Women and Madness” to explicate what she means by “motherless woman”: Rich explains that women for generations “have had neither power nor wealth to hand on to their daughters [because] they have been dependent on men as children are on women” (470).  Therefore, Rich says that for a woman to secure herself financially, she is left with one option: women must learn to “pleas[e] and attach themselves to, powerful or economically viable men” (470).  In Rich’s opinion, what makes Jane Eyre so different and admirable is the fact that she does not “please and attach” herself to a powerful or economically viable men in order to fare well.  Though she is an orphan, who is in need of financial support, Jane never compromises morality, self-respect, and dignity.

Adrienne Rich further lists four major temptations in Jane’s life which she courageously overcomes: (1) the temptation of victimization; (2) the thrill of masochism; (3) the temptation of romantic love and surrender; and (4) the deepest lure for a spiritual woman.  First, Jane’s “temptation of victimization” occurs when she lives with the Reeds (her Aunt), “a hostile household, where both psychic and physical violence are used against her” (471).  Though the insults and abuses she suffer from them are enough to diminish “her very spiritedness and individuality,” she manages to come out of this situation with her self-respect intact.  Secondly, “the temptation of masochism” springs from Jane’s deep affection and respect for Helen who is religious, forgiving, and ultimately masochistic.  However, Jane soon realizes that “the thrill of masochism is not for her, though it is one of her temptations” (474).  Thirdly, “the temptation of romantic love and surrender” comes to Jane at Thornfield, as she falls in love with Rochester and decides to marry him.  On the wedding day, however, it is reveled that Rochester has a living wife—a mad woman, Bertha.  Not only is it against Jane’s high moral to become Rochester’s mistress, but more implicitly, she flees from the risk of “becoming this [mad] woman” herself by marrying him (476).  Lastly, Jane’s final temptation which comes from St. John is the “most confusing temptation,” because it is “the deepest lure for a spiritual woman” (480).  As St. John offers her marriage without love which is instead filled with a spiritual sense of “duty and service to a cause” in India as a missionary couple, Jane, upon serious contemplation, rejects this offer (480).  Rich ultimately believes that it is Jane’s strong sense of morality, self-respect, and dignity that saves her from the usual trap and temptations of a motherless woman.

Although I agree with Adrienne Rich on most of her points about Jane Eyre, I take issue with her concluding comment of her essay, in which she states that “In Jane Eyre,…we find an alternative to the stereotypical rivalry of women” (482).  Rich believes that the women in the novel are supportive to one another, and they are “not…points on a triangle…as temporary substitutes for men” (482).  Though it is true that Jane and many of the women in the novel is supportive to one another, what Rich is neglecting with this comment is that she is completely overlooking the fact that the relationship between Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason is a relationship of “rivalry,” and these two women are the “points on a triangle” with one man— Rochester.  If Rich assumes that Jane’s relationship with Bertha is non-rivalry because that is how it is depicted by Bronte, then, she is complicit with Bronte for grossly misrepresenting and symbolically oppressing the women of color in Eurocentric literature written by feminist of the first world.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in “Imperialism and Sexual Difference” critiques that the feminists of the first world—such as Bronte and Rich—are complicit with the racist masculist of universalism, and asks that the female writers and critics to stop perpetuating the “racism within feminism” (347).  Spivak states that a novel like Jane Eyre commits “translation-as-violation,” because Bronte writes about woman of the third world (Bertha Mason) when she is “total[ly] ignoran[t] of history and subject constitution” of that world and its women (344).  Spivak says that such ignorance on the part of the first world feminist like Bronte is not only insensitive and arrogant—in that they assume their feminist paradigm is universal—but is also misleading because the distorted representation of the women of color, often as lunatics (like Bertha), becomes a generalized stereotype on the minds of their readers.

Spivaks fear of “translation-as-violation” committed by the first world feminists must have been comforted by Jean Rhys, who sympathetically reconstructs Bertha Mason in her novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, as a character who is victimized by Rochester.  While Adrienne Rich convincingly depicts the motherless Jane Eyre as an exceptional heroine who has resisted moral temptations in the world of patriarchy, Jean Rhys in her novel sympathetically reveals how Bertha not only became motherless, but why she became, fatherless, husbandless, childless, friendless, and penniless under the patriarch Rochester—the man Jane wins as a reward for her high morals.  Thus, though Adrienne Rich exalts Jane’s high morality and dignity, Jean Rhys novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, which is written from Bertha’s point of view, helps us see that these two women are the “points on a triangle” with one man, Rochester, and thus are rivals to one another.

Works Cited

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Imperialism and Sexual Differnce.” Falling into Theory. Richter,

David H. 2 ed. Boston:Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000.

Rich, Adrienne. “Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman.” Jane Eyre. Charlotte

Bronte. New York: Norton & Co., 2001.

Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. New York: Norton & Co., 1999.

Forfeiting One’s Comfort for Morality in Daniel Defoe’s “Moll Flanders,” Henry Fielding’s “Joseph Andrews,” and Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”

The Consequences of Forfeiting One’s Comfort for Morality in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

In Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Moll writes in her Memorandums than she was “Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent” (2). However, many of these circumstances could have been avoided if Moll had chosen comfort over morality.  The word “comfort,” in her case equates to “security,” which she desperately needs and seeks, but only with “moral” conscience. 

Moll’s first emotional battle over “morality” versus “security” is well captured in the event of her first marriage to Robert. For instance, when the elder brother encourages her to accept Robert’s offer—though she being an orphan knows marrying Robert will not only give her the security she needs from the harsh world, but is also the only option she has to guard herself against being homeless—she does not immediately take this offer. Rather, she is disgusted with the idea of marrying the younger, when her virginity is taken by someone else—the elder. She feels that she is morally bonded to the elder brother, though they are not legally married. She feels that she would be a prostitute in her heart if she marries the younger brother when she is in fact in love with the elder. She therefore demands moral clarification from the elder about their relationship, as well as making her own enunciation about woman’s chastity: “Will you Transfer me to your Brother? Can you Transfer my Affection?…whatever the Change of your side may be, I will ever be True; and I had much rather, since it is come that unhappy Length, be your Whore than your Brother’s Wife” (34). However, manipulated by the elder and pushed to no other alternative by the younger, Moll marries the younger brother, Robert, and attains the most needed security a young orphan girl needs—a family of her own. Nonetheless, her initial resistance to Robert’s offer deserves much credit to her high morals holding up against the temptations of security.  

Unfortunately, for Moll, the security gained through her first marriage does not last long, nor does she try to hold on to it as a widow. The security of a married woman ends as her husband, Robert, dies after five years of marriage, because she gives up the basic financial necessity and emotional security that she could have pursued and have as a widow of a prominent family. Instead, she quickly decides to leave the site of her first love because she feels she is loosing the moral battle against the imaginary incest. Moll, in her own word, explains the situation: “his Brother being so always in my sight…was a continual Snare to me; and I never was in Bed with my Husband, but I wish’d my self in the Arms of his Brother…In short, I committed Adultery and Incest with him every Day in my Desires, which without doubt, was…Criminal in the Nature of the Guilt” (49). Thus, bothered by her conscience throughout the marriage with Robert and after his death, she straight away sends her two children to live with Robert’s parents, so she can claim back her clear conscience, even if that entails forsaking security and facing danger of being all alone again.

Similarly, her third marriage to a plantation owner who is later revealed to be none other than her half brother becomes another situation that compels her to choose morality over security.  Moll marries her half brother inadvertently, both she and her husband with mercenary motives, mutually mistaking that the other party had great fortune. In light of finding out that each other has been misled into the marriage, they decide and move to Virginia where the husband has his family and plantations. For a while, the whole family get along well in America, and Moll enjoys the financial and emotional security and “th[inks] herself the happiest creature alive,” until one day she realizes that her husband’s mother is also her mother and that their marriage has been incestuous (70). Whereas with Robert, if incest was imaginary, this situation with her half brother is real enough to make all parties viscerally sick. Since she “loath[s] the Thoughts of Bedding with [her half brother],” Moll once again gives up her security for the sake of morality, and returns to England to face uncertainties and poverty (73).

Moll forgoes her security over morality again in the case of her unwanted pregnancy by Jemy. After she parts with Jemy, she realizes that she is pregnant by him. Much to her dismay, her pregnancy means that she cannot in her right conscience marry the banker who offers her the security she so desperately needs. However, abortive thoughts in regards to the life of a child—though her governess offers her help to miscarry the child—never cross her mind. Moll articulates this event to the reader: “if I was willing” she says, “[my governess] could [have] give[en] me something to make me Miscarry, if I had a desire to put an end to my troubles that way; but I soon let her see that I abhorr’d the thoughts of it” (133). In a word, rather than pursuing the security that would come by marrying the banker, she chooses the life of a child. Considering the fact that she had received offer to help her miscarry the unwanted child, Moll’s insistence in choosing the child’s life is, then, a courageous moral act on her part. Luckily, however, the banker remains devoted to Moll long enough, so the consequence of holding fast to her maternal conscience does not cost her the marriage/security itself, but the heartache of parting with the child with the “Country Woman” who shows “many a Tear,” in gratitude for receiving the child (140).  

Similarly, in Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, Parson Adams suffers the consequences of substituting his comfort for moral duties. Unlike Parson Trulliber, Parson Adams is an epitome of Christ-like charity. Although his charity exposes him to inconveniences and harm, he volunteers to help those in need, namely Joseph. For instance, when Joseph injures his leg he falls into the care of the innkeeper’s wife. However, her husband berates the hostess and Joseph “for wasting Hog’s Puddings” (145). Adams being an active Christian is unable to bear such inhospitable manner of the host, so he “deal[s with] him so sound a Compliment over his Face with his Fist, that the Blood immediately gushe[s] out of his Nose in a Stream” (144). The host strikes back at Adams “with so much Gratitude, that the Parson’s Nostrils likewise began to look a little redder than usual. Furthermore, the hostess, too, ungratefully returns Adams’s heroic intervention by throwing “a Pan full of Hog’s-Blood…into the Parson’s Face” (144). Thus, because Adams chooses to referee when situations seem unjust for Joseph, he himself must suffer the injurious and humiliating consequences of being a moral parson.

Parson Adams’s another example of choosing moral duties over personal comfort occurs when he rescues Fanny from being raped. While he is almost being lectured by a gentleman who claims to be brave, he hears Fanny’s shrieks. Ironically, however, it is not the self-claimed courageous gentleman but Adams who respond to the scream and saves Fanny: “Adams, who was no Chicken…exert[s] his utmost Force at once, and with such Success, he overturn[s]” the rapist (161). Then he “call[s] aloud to the young Woman, [and says]…‘Be of good cheer, Damsel,’…’you are no longer in danger of your Ravisher” (161). Though he did not know that it was Fanny who was in trouble, his unfeigned concern for all human beings, not just the selective few, makes him react and rescue victims without any moral hesitations.

Although, Parson Adams’s fearless and selfless kindness is inauspicious to him, his goodness is constant. His unvarying kindness is evidenced by his willingness to help Fanny and Joseph while traveling together with him. Though he himself is poor and has been robbed of what little he had, he is willing to share all that he has with them, whether it be money, food, or clothing.  Because he is genuinely charitable, he believes others would likewise help him in need, and he does manage to procure help when in need. Unlike Parson Trulliber, then, Parson Adams not merely preaches charity, but lives it, and expects the same from others. Thus, Parson Adams’s continuous moral examples radiate to all those around him, though they cost him countless troubles.

Finally, we see Parson Adams’s unflinching moral character when he stands up to Lady Booby on behalf of Fanny and Joseph. Being a woman of influence, Lady Booby orders Parson Adams not to publish the “Banns” for Fanny and Joseph, but he is undaunted by her command.  Instead, he dares to counter-argue Lady Booby. He argues that he “would obey [her] in every thing that is lawful; but surely [he says,] the Parties being poor is no Reason against their marrying” (280). Furious by Adams’s protestation, Lady Booby threatens to “discard [him] from his Service,” but he is undeterred. In essence, Adams’s unwavering morality stands as a bulwark for socially inconsequential young people like Joseph and Fanny against social injustice from people like Lady Booby, and thus deserves utmost “respect” for being a true man of God.

In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, one’s “comfort” signifies one’s social “establishment” and one’s “morality” equates to “love” that is unfeigned. The novel’s predominant issue is marriage, especially from women’s point of view. Its female characters’ only means to gain social “establishment” is through marriage with the right man, with or without true “love.” The novel’s protagonist, Elizabeth suffers consequences of not compromising “love” for “establishment.” Although the social norms at the time expects young woman to settle more for a reasonable comfort—than true love—in a marriage, Elizabeth does not want to forsake true affection in relationships.

An example of Elizabeth’s unwillingness to sacrifice true affection for comfort is seen in the case of Mr. Collin’s proposal to her. Because Mr. Collins would inherit her family estate, he would be an ideal match for both her parents and herself to secure their present financial status.  Mr. Collins makes the offer to marry Elizabeth, and she is pressured by her mother, Mrs. Bennet, to accept his offer. By implication, Mrs. Bennet’s attitude also mirrors social expectation of women in her era, which weighs the groom’s social establishment heavier than true affections exchanged between the couple. However, Elizabeth defies social norms and ignores her mother’s demands, albeit there is that risk of Mr. Collins being her first and last chance of being married. Concerning what is at stake, when Mr. Collins finds her refusal unbelievable, she steadfastly makes certain that he understands that she is not the average girl of her time: She tells him that she is “not one of those young ladies…[and that she is] perfectly serious in [her] refusal” (93). She further shamelessly articulates her point clearly by foretelling Mr. Collins that “[he] could not make [her] happy” (93).  As this scene suggests, Elizabeth is adamant about not settling for mere comfort in a marriage. Instead, what she expects and searches for in a relationship is unfeigned love, not financial establishment.

Elizabeth’s affection for socially dubious Wickham while rejecting well suited Mr. Collins is another examples that illustrates her innate tendency to value love above men’s social recognition. Although it is only their first meeting, Wickham tells her of his misfortunate status, especially due to—as he claims—Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth nonetheless falls for him all the more, out of empathy. Irrespective of Wickham’s social standing and his personal problems with the socially formidable Darcys, she finds him sympathetic and attractive. In fact, she defends him at every turn until her high regards for Wickham is proven wrong by Darcy’s revelation about his disreputable past. Nonetheless, Elizabeth’s initial respect and loyalty shown towards Wickham reveal her honorable side—the side that can never be diluted or tempted by man’s favorable social status.

Finally, Elizabeth’s courage to resist Darcy’s first proposal attests to her virtue—the fact that she is least concerned with Darcy’s immense social status than she is about true love and respect between the couple. Later when Darcy proposes to Elizabeth for the second time, he admits how surprised he was to have her reject him the first time, but thanks her for teaching him “a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous, [because it]…properly humbled” him (308). Because Elizabeth never compromises her virtue, she is given a second chance from Darcy. For it is Elizabeth’s resolute self-respective manner towards Lady Catherine that Darcy is encouraged to propose to her for the second time. Knowing Elizabeth’s “disposition,” Darcy knew that if Elizabeth has “irrevocably decided against [him], [she] would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly” (306). For Elizabeth, it is only when the truth is revealed about Darcy—his fairness and generosity in the matters of “Wickham and Miss Darcy” and “Wickham and Lydia,”—she is able to dismiss her prejudice against him. Because she is proven wrong about Darcy’s character, she is able to love him. For Elizabeth it is man’s character—not his establishment/status—that she attracts her. Thus for Elizabeth, not only that Darcy is “violently in love” with her, but that she, too, is with him is an unnegotiable factor in her romance. (305).

In the three novels—Moll Flanders, Joseph Andrews and Shamela, and Pride and Prejudice—the common factor among the three protagonists, Moll, Adams, and Elizabeth, is that they are not hypocrites, but are characters who hold firm to high morals at all costs (except Moll who sometimes is just as immoral as she is moral). All three characters risk comfort/establishment for morality/love and suffer the due consequences. For intance, Moll often risks her security to choose what is morally right in her mind. Similarly, Parson Adams jeopardizes his physical safety and finances to help those in distress, namely Joseph and Fanny. Finally, Elizabeth likewise never considers what comfort or social establishment she may be able to obtain by marrying a certain men, but rather painstakingly scrutinizes whether mutual love and respect can be traceable in her relationships. Thus, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Jane Austen, by giving a happy ending to their respective protagonists in their novels impart a moral lesson: that whether it be “security” for Moll, “respect” for Adams, or “love” for Elizabeth, their ultimate reward were gained by withstanding the temptations of “comfort” that comes in various forms.

Outline of Spivak’s “Imperialism and Sexual Difference”

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Biography:

• Born in Calcutta
• Education: University of Calcuttan and Cornell University
• Chief spokesperson of “subaltern studies”
• Postcolonial theorist (with a global feminist Marxist perspective)
• Avalon Professor at Columbia University 1991
• Former Andrew w. Mellon Professor of English at university of Pittsburgh
• Social projects: Rural Literary Teacher Training (on grassroots level, in India and Bangladesh)
• Lit. Works:

1.  
   1. Translation of Derrida’s Of Grammatology (1967)
   2. Myself I Must Remake: The Life and Poetry of W. B. Yeats (1974)
   3. In Other worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (1988)
   4. The Postcolonial Critic (1990)
   5. Outside the Teaching Machine (1993)
   6. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (1999)

 

“Imperialism and Sexual Difference”

Objective: Point out the “racism within feminism” against the third world women of color

Claim 1:  Academic institutions insist “White Male as a Norm” for universal humanity. Therefore, needs “The Tropological Deconstruction of Masculist Universalism.” (it means that “Truth Claim,” in this case, the truth claimed by the white male universalists, is no more than a trope, a figure of speech that passes as truth.  Therefore, it needs to be deconstructed—borrowed from De Man’s theory)

Q:   What does Spivak mean by the truth claims made by the postcolonial Masculists?

A:   She is talking about colonial texts that try to justify colonialism; for instance, (1)  colonialism was an act of benevolent masculism/paternalism; (2) it was a historically appropriate event, for instance “the Conquest of India” wasn’t really a “conquest.” Imperialism, in other words is “in loco parentis,” meaning that it was “in place of the parent”—to feed the starving, childish Indians who are utterly dependent on the first world.

Claim 2:  Eurocentric feminism is complicit with the white male imperialism.

quote: “even as we feminist critics discover the troping error of the masculist truth-claim to universality or academic objectivity, we perform the lie of constituting a truth of global sisterhood where the mesmerizing model remains male and female sparring partners of generalizable or universalizable sexuality who are the chief protagonists in that European contest. In order to claim sexual difference where it makes a difference, global sisterhood must receive this articulation even if the sisters in question are Asian, African, Arrab” (341).

 

Claim 3:  Eurocentric writers commit “Translation-as-Violation” (“total ignorance of history And subject constitution,” meaning that European writers mistranslate the language orculture of the third world women; or grossly misrepresent them in terms of gender andindividuality. In their writings, they are not really individuals, but a collective mass of dark inferiors)

quote: “kipling uses many Hindusthani words in his text—pidgin Hindusthani, barbaric to the native speaker, devoid of syntactic connections, always infelicitous almost always incorrect. The narrative practice sanctions this usage and establishes it as “correct,” without, of course, any translation. This is british pidgin, originating in a decision that hindusthani is a language of servants not worth mastering “correctly”; this is the version of the language that is established textually as “correct.” By contrast, the hindusthani speech of the Indian servants is painstakingly translated into archaic and awkward English…Let us call this ensemble of moves…translation-as-violation (344). 

quote:  “the second wave of U.S. academic feminism as a “universal” model of the “natural”reactions of the female psyche. This too is an example of translation-as-violation” (345).

Claim 4:  Institutions perpetuate the “Sanctioned Inorance” (blindness of truth telling, teachers teach without the true understanding of the 3^rd world women, therefore, the ignorance perpetuates)

quote: “Our own mania for “third-world literature” anthologies, when the teacher or critic often has no sense of the original languages, or of the subject constitution of the social and gendered agents in question (and therefore the student cannot sense this as a loss), participates more in the logic of translation-as-violation than in the ideal of translation as freedom-in-troping. What is at play there is a phenomenon that can be called sanctioned ignorance” (345).

 

Conclusion: 

1. Spivak is deeply interested in “the tropological deconstruction of masculist universalism. She knows that the “correction” of one trope points to another trope—the process is endless. Yet, she insists that critics must be persistent. 

2. The subaltern writers/critics want “the chance of an entry into the vertiginous process” of de-colonialization—the equal rights of historical, geographical, linguistic specificity, and theoretical sophistication” (347).

Questions:    

1. In our campus, is there racism within feminism? For example, does literature written by women of color receive equal appreciation as to their historical, aesthetical, and theoretical sophistication?  If no, why not?

2. Who has the ultimate authority to critique literature of the third world? Can white males/females of the first worlds critique texts of the third world? Are they capable of deconstructing the false claims of the masculist universalism? Who can de-colonialize racist texts?

Presentation by: Joey Reyes & Jessie Chen

Women’s Spatial Mobility under Patriarchy In Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” and Jean Rhys’s “Wide Sargasso Sea”

 

Women’s Spatial Mobility under Patriarchy

In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

        Virginia Woolf, in “A Room of One’s Own,” speculates that “if a woman in Shakespeare’s day had…Shakespeare’s genius” (39), but not given an artistic arena to channel out her creative energy, then, she would have died on some winter’s night, and found “buried at some crossroads where the omnibuses…stop” (39). In other words, Woolf is claiming that women’s “room of their own,” and more abstractly, “a space of their own,” is directly reflective of how they fare psychologically, intellectually, and even physically.  Succinctly, she is implying, figuratively and literally, that if a woman is not allowed a space to intellectually grow and physically move about, she will wither and die.  In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, “a space of women’s own” – which, from here-on-after, for the purpose of this essay, will be called “spatial mobility” – reflects the level of freedom and independence the female protagonists are allowed under patriarchy.  In Jane Eyre, the fact that the protagonist, Jane, is an orphan works to her advantage because she has no patriarchal allegiances that restrict her from maneuvering her various spaces, different dwellings, to enhance her self-preservation and independence.  On the other hand, in Wide Sargasso Sea, the fact that the protagonist, Antoinette, has numerous patriarchal authorities (Mr. Cosway, Mr. Mason, Richard Mason, Daniel Cosway, Sandi Cosway, and Rochester) who, in one way or another, restrict, malign, and stifle her spatial mobility, forestalls her self-preservation and independence.  Thus, while absence or escape from patriarchal authority allows spatial mobility that preserves Jane, too much of its presence – too many controlling men – confines Antoinette into a fixed space that kills her.

        For Jane, albeit, moving from one home to another causes tremendous amount of anxiety and insecurity, each spatial movement, nevertheless, leads her to a higher level of independence.  Her first spatial movement to Mr./Mrs. Reed’s home provides her the basic shelter, food, and protection from the harsh world.  Her second movement to Lowood Institution not only satiates her yearnings to be literate, but more importantly, equips her with employable skills that enable her to be self-sufficient.  Her third relocation to Thornfield as a governess had required a permission from a guardian, which she gains effortlessly due to the absence of paternal authority in her life; in place of her deceased uncle, her aunt, Mrs. Reed, permits “that ‘[Jane] might do as [she] pleased, [for] she had long relinquished all interference in [Jane’s] affairs’” (76).  Her fourth movement, a flight to St. John’s abode proves to be quintessential in her life; it not only frees her from Rochester – a potentially threatening, patriarchal authority – but more significantly, links her to a loving and admirable extended family, which one of whom (her uncle) makes her a wealthy woman, a turning point in her life that cements her self-preservation and independence.  In fact, her final movement, a return to Rochester in Ferdean, is, in effect, a cardinal moment in her life where she makes an important pronouncement of her independence.  This final movement is profound, not only because it frees her from St. John – another potentially abusive, patriarchal authority – but because it is a choice that she deliberately makes, as Jane informs Rochester as “an independent woman” (370).  Bewildered by her new aura and claims to independence, Rochester asks for explanation: “‘Independent! What do you mean, Jane?’” (370)  Jane gives him a stunning answer that not only informs him that she now has money of her own, but her subtle word play also implicates that she intends to keep and manage her own money: “‘Quite rich, sir…If you won’t let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when you want company of an evening’” (370, emphasis added).  Indeed, for Jane, each “spatial movement” dramatically enhances and fortifies her self-preservation and independence. 

Although, Jane, an orphan, out of necessity moves from one shelter to another, “moving” or “going away” is imperceptible for Antoinette, whose family is deeply-rooted in her home town with a lineage of patriarchs, from her birth father to step-father, her half-brothers to a step-brother.  In terms of spatial mobility, Antoinette exhibits timid and stagnant mentality when she comments about her mother’s importunate pleadings to Mr. Mason to move away from their town: “I [also] knew that we were hated – but to go away … for once I agreed with my stepfather.  That was not possible” (19).  Antoinette seems to have been inculcated by patriarchal dogmas of the day about how woman should be – helplessness and immobile, always needing to stay within her boundaries.  The fact that her family estate is so deeply-rooted in her home town doesn’t help either; it seems to make it inconceivable and imprudent for her to even think about relocating herself to a different home or a town – the privilege of “not being an orphan,” a daughter of a prominent man in town. Her birth father, Mr. Cosway, therefore, is Antoinette’s first patriarch that indirectly restricts her spatial mobility.  Mr. Cosway, furthermore, by leaving a legacy as a slave owner, exacerbates Antoinette’s spatial stasis in her home town because his such legacy makes her become the target of malignant assaults from townspeople.  Worse yet, Antoinette’s step-father, Mr. Mason, and his son, Richard Mason, continue the role of a patriarch by engineering Antoinette into a marriage.  This commodification of Antoinette into a marriage with Rochester completely forestalls her independence, let alone any spatial mobility.  Moreover, Antoinette’s half-brothers, as an extended representatives of patriarchy, compounds this situation; both Daniel’s slander and Sandi’s tenderness toward Antoinette fuel up the tension between her and her husband, Rochester.  In fact, these issues become the very reasons that Rochester use to justify his imprisonment of Antoinette in England.  Thus, for Antoinette, each line of patriarchs and its successors in her family, collectively and individually, restrict, malign, and imprison her into a life of hell with no spatial freedom nor mobility.

Among all the patriarchs in Antoinette’s life, the one who holds the ultimate keys to her status, happiness, and freedom, her husband Rochester, cruelly eracinates all human dignity out of her; he treats her with the utmost disrespect, uproots her from her social and cultural familiarities, and imprisons her in his domain – Thornfied, a cell that slowly kills her.  Alarmed by such a plan to uproot Antoinette from her hometown, Antoinette’s surrogate mother, Christophine, exhorts Antoinette to leave him: “Ask him pretty for some of your own money…When you get away, stay away…Better not stay in that old house.  Go from that house, I tell you” (66).  Antoinette, however, is overwhelmed by the patriarchal forces that are seemingly omnipotent and omnipresent in her life, self-rendering her escape to freedom unfathomable; she gives in all too easily and feebly:

He would never give me any money to go away and he would be furious if I asked him…Even if I got away (and how?) he would force me back.  So would Richard.  So would everybody else.  Running away from him, from this island, is the lie.  What reason could I give for going and who would believe [or support] me? (68)

When Christophine pleads Rochester for money, so that she and Antoinette can go away to Martinique and “[t]hen to other places” (95), Rochester, not only denies Antoinette any spatial mobility by not returning a portion of her money, he also psychologically eliminates “the only space of her own” – her home – by having an affair with her servant: “Do you know what you’ve done to me?  It’s not the girl, not the girl.  But I loved this place and you have made it into a place I hate.  I used to think that if everything else went out of my life I would still have this, and now you have spoilt it” (88).  In fact, Rochester is so obsessed with the idea of controlling Antoinette that he exclaims in silence: “She said she loved this place.  This is the last she’ll see of it…I’ll take her in my arms, my lunatic.  She’s mad but mine, mine. What will I care for gods or devils or for Fate itself.  If she smiles or weeps or both.  For me” (99).  Thus, Rochester, Antoinette’s husband, who bears the highest moral obligation to love and protect her, betrays her most utterly, and becomes the ultimate culprit to her gradual death, psychologically and physically. Engineered, thwarted, and crumpled by various patriarchal figures in her life, most repulsively yet decisively, by her husband Rochester, Antoinette, unlike Jane, each “spatial movement” she undertakes pulls her downhill, undermining her self-preservation and independence.  

Both in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, the protagonists’ free movements from space to space, or even having such a constant space that she can call “a space of her own,” is directly linked to whether or not a patriarch is present or absent in her life.  For Jane, in Jane Eyre, absence or escape from patriarchal authority enables her to use spatial mobility as one of her means to enhance and fortify her self-preservation and independence.  For Antoinette, in Wide Sargasso Sea, however, too much patriarchal presence – too many controlling men – ultimately kills her. 

Works Cited

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Norton & company, Inc: New York, 2001.

Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. Norton & Company, Inc: New York, 1999.

Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” The Longman Anthology of Women’s Literature. (2001): 16-72.

A Governess Stepping Beyond Her Boundaries in both Louisa Alcott’s “Behind a Mask” and Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw”

A Governess Stepping Beyond Her Boundaries

The role of the governess in both Louisa  Alcott’s Behind a Mask and Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw poignantly evinces that there is – if spared – no limit to what an ambitious young woman who is determined to overturn her menial and impoverished circumstances can accomplish via assuming and impersonating roles beyond her boundaries.  The prevailing social dogmas of the Victorian age which repress governesses’ sexuality engender psychogenic imbalance in them to engross in erotic fancies – a perverse energy that contaminate and destabilize the members of the master’s home.  Consequently, if the restrictions and boundaries of a governess as a teacher are not strictly imposed upon from that of other female roles (such as a mother, sister, or a lover), and if the supervision (a female authority in a household) over her conduct is discounted, then, it lures her to assume any or all available roles as long as they are deemed to enhance and accelerate her contrivance: thereby empowering her to afflict those being used and shaped by her ominous influence – especially the innocent ones, the children.

The Governesses of the Victorian era must bear the weight of her sexual symbolism that generally disagrees with the mistress of the house for she poses as a possible temptation to the master and his sons – a destabilizing force to the family she enters.  The fact that she must be young, single, and without a suitor inserts a subtle tension, mainly in between the two women: the lady of the household and the governess.  It is interesting to note that the governesses from both novellas are not subject to any notable surveillance from female authorities of their employment: one, because she is invalid; the other, because she is dead.

The governess of Bly, on the very first day of her arrival, radiates with joy as she beholds the view of her new residence where she “would be in supreme authority” (5): “The scene had a greatness that made it a different affair from my own scant home…and…appeared…a little girl [and] a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsy as if I had been the mistress” (7).  Had the governess been subjected to controlling presence from the mistress above her, then, an unguarded field ready for harvest (a home without a female authority) to afford her to satiate her secular hunger would have been just a wistful dream.  “And then there was consideration – and consideration was sweet” (14).  “I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any pain, and I had more pains than one. (19).  A governess, a foreign force, who often comes from an impoverished background, given the chance, can and would rake up whatever she can gather, from the trimmings to the innermost structure of her master’s home, the remedies for her sufferings.

From A Woman’s Power, Jean, as a governess, enjoys an ample amount of flexibility and freedom in her position because the husbandless Mrs. Coventry does not perceive Jean to be a threatening force to her marriage.  Instead, she welcomes Jean as a soothing companion who is well qualified as an assistant to her diminished motherhood due to illness. Moreover, had Lucia’s mother (Mrs. Beaufort) been living, she, probably being the closest influence to Mrs. Coventry, and thus her status being next to the highest female authority, would have hampered Jean’s seductive conduct over Gerald out of maternal instinct to protect her daughter.  “’Hang Miss Beaufort!’ exclaimed Coventry, with such energy that Jean broke into a musical laugh” (60).  Miss Lucia Beaufort, without the title of a ladyship, though hurt and discomfited, lacks the clout over Jean – and even though her rank is higher – is unable to effectively guard her fiancé, Mr. Coventry, from slipping away from her into the arms of a “witch” (86) wearing an angelic mask.  Evidently, a weak or an absence of a female authority in the household enables Jean to presume multiple roles that are beyond her boundaries yet unoccupied in the house to fortify her stratagem – the reapings of her extraordinary talents, “the art of devil” (97) to ultimately become the Lady Coventry.

A governess of a Victorian age is at a peculiar position in a household – her rank is below the master but higher than that of the servants; therefore, her rights and merits are often ambiguously in between the upper and lower class, permitting room for manipulations.  Trusting that horses can keep a secret, Jean vocally reveals her true attitude toward her authority: “’I see,’ she said aloud, laughing to herself.  ‘I am not your master, and you rebel.  Nevertheless, I’ll conquer you, my fine brute” (15).  Clearly, her success and influence as a governess are highly dependent upon her abilities: scholastic and artistic proficiencies are essential, but more significantly, her psychological skills – the ability to grasp the character and analyze the needs of each member of the household and to adapt accordingly – are more pivotal, the art that is most celebrated and abused by Jean.  She ostentatiously outsells her role as a governess (as a sister to Bella, brother to Ned, lover to Gerald, and as a companion to Mrs. Coventry and Sir John) to appease everyone above her, but consummately, to bring gratification and exaltation to herself by elevating to the ultimate crown as a Lady Coventry.  Undeniably, Jean is the veteran of her industry and a distinguished winner over the other governess (from The Turn of the Screw) for the latter fails to materialize her ambitions while Jean succeeds in maneuvering and harvesting the most out of her peculiar rank and position.

However, to simply denounce that the governess of Bly is less adroit would be a hasty conclusion for the better part of her failure is a resultant of her insatiable sexual fantasies born by social taboos that are put on the governesses of the Victorian age – their stigmatized youthful sexualities.  Her (the governess of Bly) place of employment, “the house in Harley Street” (4) inflates her bosom with “unmentionable” (17) possibilities.  “She conceived him as rich… saw him all in a glow of high fashion, of good looks, of expensive habits” and, most importantly, “of charming ways with women” (4).  All the endeavors of this “youngest of several daughters of a poor country parson…at the age of twenty” are geared toward gaining a good impression from the master who is “a bachelor in the prime of life” (4).  The governess, who deems her own refection from the mirror as “the extraordinary charm of…small charge” (7), wants to partake of the forbidden fruit (a love affair with the master) – though she knows that would be stepping beyond her boundaries. This covert obsession – her melodramatic psyche that is repressed – gradually rots her innocence, drives her to madness (sees ghosts that others don’t see), and leads her to kill the symbolic figure of her infatuation, Miles, the heir of the unreachable master – a tragedy that could have been prevented, had the societies of the Victorian era been less prudish in the carnal nature of humans.

Although the role of a governess as a teacher should ideally embody nurturing qualities, the kind of nurturing it strives to emulate can never come close to standing parallel to that of a true loving mother.  For a limited time, governess of the Bly succeeds as a nurturer of her pupils because she puts on a deceptive cloak that is designed to charm and tame her subjects – to whom she attaches her psychosexual circuits.  “This was not so good a thing, I admit…essentially…my charming work…my life with Miles and Flora” (18).  Her initial success as a nurturer cannot be sustained because she fails to overtake and withstand the awesome role of a true nurturer, the mother, because her heart cannot biologically connect with the real needs of the children.  Instead, her biological chemistries with that of her students (Miles and Flora) and other family members (Mrs. Grose) are perverse arousals of erotic fancies, harboring grave threats to the minds of their victims, the innocent children.  “Oh, it was a trap – not designed, but deep – to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable.  The best way to picture it all is to say that I was off my guard” (14).  Succinctly, it is perilous to permit a twenty year-old governess, who is superfluous with sensuality to assume the great nurturing role of a mother for her students.

The two authors, Henry James and Louisa Alcott, by writing their stories that deal with the influence and power of a governess, warn the readers of the harmful effects a governess can exert over the members of her master’s family, especially her pupils – the future adults whose minds would be permanently marked by her!  Such stories help raise the awareness of social issues surrounding the governesses, a sexually problematic figure for the upper class. Furthermore, both novellas help address the issues of delegation of powers and responsibilities: They teach us that it is crucial for the appointees (governesses) to receive close attention and supervision from the master (particularly, a female authority) over her work; otherwise, the relentless desire in them to unshackle the yoke that bonds them to persistent – sexual and financial – repressions can readily be converted into a forceful charge that destabilizes the place of their employment, a home of an aristocratic society.  Any healthy institution functions under a prime principle of “checks and balances.”  A home is a smaller, yet indisputably the most important institution and a unit that builds nations.  Just as any well-managed clubs, companies, and governments employ strategies of “checks and balances” and “punishment and reward,” an avaricious governess with sensual charm who is devoid of authoritative attention and supervision is bound to abuse her power and bedazzle her way up the top to satisfy her yearning for improvements – a life of an aristocrat which she has the knowledge of but can never possess.