Blog.Here, you will find bi-weekly posts engaging with the neo-Victorian novel through various critical perspectives and modes of analysis.
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Blog Post #1 (Friday, Jan. 29, 2021)
🎵 If You’re Going to Academia, You're Going to See Some Gendered Issues There 🎵
In A.S. Byatt’s Possession, nods to academic culture are numerous and often humorous. Byatt honors the seriousness of academic scholarship while poking fun at its sometimes-misguided pursuits and taking care not to “mock or sneer,” as Sam Leith notes in an interview with Byatt. But what interests me most is the way Byatt manages to upend stereotypes about gendered contemporary scholarship. Instead of clearly marking any one character as the pious, superior scholar, Byatt chooses to highlight and problematize the downfalls of all kinds of academic approaches and impulses.
Byatt offers a picture of masculine ambivalence supplanting feminine ambition in the relationship between Roland and Val. While Val seems distraught over her inability to hold court in Ash scholarship (and incorrect assumptions that Roland does most of the work for her), Roland appears both unfeeling and unwilling to relent in his criticism of Val’s work. On the surface, this dynamic seems typical of gendered separation in scholarship (and the common, harmful dismissal of women’s intellectual work). But I think this dynamic also serves as a signpost for Roland’s future insecurities with Maud. Roland seems to have an issue with women who do not share his workaholic passion (Val) as well as women who have exceeded his own successes in no uncertain terms (Maud).
To my mind, Roland’s inability to be proud of Val or unintimidated by Maud is Byatt’s way of highlighting the precariousness of masculine “superiority” in intellectual spaces. More precisely, Roland doesn’t explicitly claim to want Val to fail, nor does he claim to want Maud to play second fiddle to him, but still . . . Roland cannot simply support the women in his life without considering their successes in relation to himself. Roland sulks when Val is struggling; he sulks when Maud is offering him rent-free lodging while he gets his act together. It seems that although Roland does indeed seem impressed with Maud and glad for Val’s eventual happiness, he cannot shake the feeling that he should, in any case, always feel intellectually formidable. I think this could be Byatt implying the harmfulness for all parties involved in the conditioning that has existed for so long in academia.
Byatt further complicates this commentary by making clear that academia, feminism, and romantic love are not monolithic, stagnant entities. For example, the women in the past serve as foils for the women in the present to show different levels or progress (or lack of it): Maud and Christabel as the underappreciated intellectuals; Blanche and Leonora as the misrepresented queer women artist and scholar, respectively; and Ellen and Beatrice, who are not taken seriously from the start, but who eventually become essential to the work in which the rest of the characters are so invested. Byatt then shapes a cast of characters representative of multiple mingling approaches to scholarship. For example, Leonora queers texts (and makes an unsuccessful attempt to queer Maud) while operating as a boisterous illustration of American boldness; Maud serves as a representation of women’s liberation movement tenets like obtaining traditionally masculine power in order to achieve equality; Blackadder is a purist; Cropper and Roland demonstrate academic dishonesty in two different forms. In effect, the scholars are all not-quite-caricatures, and not without redeeming qualities, but Byatt is taking clear aim at the self-conscious nature of academia through these characters and their often-comical ruminations on the integrity of what they are doing. That is, they are attempting to learn about the fundamentally unknowable past by inserting themselves into the lives of poets long-dead, and letters long-buried, which begs the question: will scholars ever have access to the postscript, so to speak?
(Hand-drawing by Lauren Randall)
Blog Post #2 (Friday, February 12, 2021)
Pulp Reality and the Violent Woman Offense
I grew up a middle child but, luckily, I never had to endure the insufferable torment of Middle Child Syndrome. I was the only girl in a house full of boys until my baby sister, Ella, became a person eleven years ago, so for many years, I had my own “thing” that set me apart in our family: my femininity. For example, my older brother, Ben, and I fought like there was a cash prize for the victor, and sometimes we’d take it a bit further than necessary. I usually won out in the parental department during those disputes, though, thanks to the femininity thing. The refrain was always: “You’re bigger than she is. You could really hurt her!”
This refrain rings true in Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace. As Atwood interrogates Victorian public perceptions of who or what constitutes a criminal, she also challenges readers to assess their own assumptions: what is a polite, meticulous, white woman really capable of doing? To understand this interrogation, we must look to Victorian gender norms and criminal precedent. In 19th century Canada, Victorian “ladies” were considered largely gentler and more pure of flesh and morals than Victorian men, which marked the public’s inability to conceive of a woman committing a crime, particularly a violent one. The typical conception of Victorian femininity also relied heavily on classist gender norms, as women of significant social standing were often shielded or sheltered from more graphic realities than women of lower economic classes, which perpetuated the myth of ideal femininity equating faintness of heart and weakness of mind. Since women were not permitted to enter, or even obviously overhear, conversations about “impolite” topics like murder or physical violation in general, they were perceived as less capable of handling gruesome, violent content, and thus were further shielded from such talk, and the cycle goes on.
In Atwood’s novel, Grace Marks uses these gendered assumptions to her advantage and also encounters them to her detriment. As a servant, Grace witnesses far coarser conversations and actions than society ladies, but she embodies the normative femininity of the time when it suits her. She positions herself as almost unbelievably virtuous, pious, and modest when compared to her lower-class counterparts (Nancy, Mary Whitney, MacDermott, Annie, and others). Grace is keenly aware of the distinction between those with access to social capital and those without, noting that after committing the “same sin,” Nancy was “rewarded” and Mary was “punished” (Atwood 276). Through her observations, she learns that what is termed “ladylike” may well make the difference between her own punishment (life in prison) or reward (early release). In this way, Grace maneuvers around the gendered norms, and the classist ideologies of her time, convincing folks like Jordan and the reformers that she is a model servant, a model member of the feminine identity. In effect, she plays the part so well that conceiving of her wielding physical intimidation in an act of murderous rage seems unreasonable, even unfathomable, but that much more salacious.
Blog Post #2 (Friday, February 12, 2021)
Pulp Reality and the Violent Woman Offense
I grew up a middle child but, luckily, I never had to endure the insufferable torment of Middle Child Syndrome. I was the only girl in a house full of boys until my baby sister, Ella, became a person eleven years ago, so for many years, I had my own “thing” that set me apart in our family: my femininity. For example, my older brother, Ben, and I fought like there was a cash prize for the victor, and sometimes we’d take it a bit further than necessary. I usually won out in the parental department during those disputes, though, thanks to the femininity thing. The refrain was always: “You’re bigger than she is. You could really hurt her!”
This refrain rings true in Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace. As Atwood interrogates Victorian public perceptions of who or what constitutes a criminal, she also challenges readers to assess their own assumptions: what is a polite, meticulous, white woman really capable of doing? To understand this interrogation, we must look to Victorian gender norms and criminal precedent. In 19th century Canada, Victorian “ladies” were considered largely gentler and more pure of flesh and morals than Victorian men, which marked the public’s inability to conceive of a woman committing a crime, particularly a violent one. The typical conception of Victorian femininity also relied heavily on classist gender norms, as women of significant social standing were often shielded or sheltered from more graphic realities than women of lower economic classes, which perpetuated the myth of ideal femininity equating faintness of heart and weakness of mind. Since women were not permitted to enter, or even obviously overhear, conversations about “impolite” topics like murder or physical violation in general, they were perceived as less capable of handling gruesome, violent content, and thus were further shielded from such talk, and the cycle goes on.
In Atwood’s novel, Grace Marks uses these gendered assumptions to her advantage and also encounters them to her detriment. As a servant, Grace witnesses far coarser conversations and actions than society ladies, but she embodies the normative femininity of the time when it suits her. She positions herself as almost unbelievably virtuous, pious, and modest when compared to her lower-class counterparts (Nancy, Mary Whitney, MacDermott, Annie, and others). Grace is keenly aware of the distinction between those with access to social capital and those without, noting that after committing the “same sin,” Nancy was “rewarded” and Mary was “punished” (Atwood 276). Through her observations, she learns that what is termed “ladylike” may well make the difference between her own punishment (life in prison) or reward (early release). In this way, Grace maneuvers around the gendered norms, and the classist ideologies of her time, convincing folks like Jordan and the reformers that she is a model servant, a model member of the feminine identity. In effect, she plays the part so well that conceiving of her wielding physical intimidation in an act of murderous rage seems unreasonable, even unfathomable, but that much more salacious.
(Photo by Lauren Randall)
I can recall, years ago, engaging in a routine sibling argument with my little brother, Alec. I couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. Alec was seven, maybe eight years old, and he was a scrawny kid. I was no bruiser myself, but I did outweigh him by about twenty pounds, give or take. Anyway, he was pestering me about some issue of paramount importance, no doubt, and after a while, we told our better angels to get lost as we began to really go at it. Eventually, I grew tired of the battle of wits and physically pushed Alec out of my way, planning to storm out of the room with a dramatic flourish. He stumbled and fell into the sharp corner of a coffee table, which resulted in his pained cry and my guilty intake of breath before asking: “Are you okay?” Our dad rushed into the room, and for the first time, he wasn’t looking at me to see if I was hurt. He was looking at Alec. “Lauren, you’re bigger than he is! You could have really hurt him!” And I could have.
Now, I know my little brother would be mortified if he knew I was blogging about the time I bested him in a round of fisticuffs, but my point is this: I was unaccustomed to being accused. I was not the one who needed to carefully control the power of my physicality, much less worry about harming one of the boys. Just as my dad called out my thoughtless error despite my “but I’m a girl” excuse, Alias Grace disrupts the gender normative idea that violence is an exclusively, even traditionally, masculine act – that women can receive but never reciprocate violence. Further, the novel suggests that a woman can exhibit violent behavior, not out of self-defense but, indeed, as an offensive action.
I can recall, years ago, engaging in a routine sibling argument with my little brother, Alec. I couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. Alec was seven, maybe eight years old, and he was a scrawny kid. I was no bruiser myself, but I did outweigh him by about twenty pounds, give or take. Anyway, he was pestering me about some issue of paramount importance, no doubt, and after a while, we told our better angels to get lost as we began to really go at it. Eventually, I grew tired of the battle of wits and physically pushed Alec out of my way, planning to storm out of the room with a dramatic flourish. He stumbled and fell into the sharp corner of a coffee table, which resulted in his pained cry and my guilty intake of breath before asking: “Are you okay?” Our dad rushed into the room, and for the first time, he wasn’t looking at me to see if I was hurt. He was looking at Alec. “Lauren, you’re bigger than he is! You could have really hurt him!” And I could have.
Now, I know my little brother would be mortified if he knew I was blogging about the time I bested him in a round of fisticuffs, but my point is this: I was unaccustomed to being accused. I was not the one who needed to carefully control the power of my physicality, much less worry about harming one of the boys. Just as my dad called out my thoughtless error despite my “but I’m a girl” excuse, Alias Grace disrupts the gender normative idea that violence is an exclusively, even traditionally, masculine act – that women can receive but never reciprocate violence. Further, the novel suggests that a woman can exhibit violent behavior, not out of self-defense but, indeed, as an offensive action.
(Hand-drawing by Lauren Randall)
Blog Post #3 (Friday, February 26, 2021)
Memory Texts: Writing History and Reading Reality
Through most of Julian Barnes’ novel, Arthur & George, the titular characters are constructed as contrary, if not downright oppositional, to one another in terms of habits of mind despite their shared goal. George is convinced that there is an innate, reliable logic within the legal system, upon which George is sure his fate will depend and from which he is sure he will ultimately receive justice. Arthur, however, is certain there are flaws and prejudices in the extant legal system, which serve as jumping off points for his fictional character Sherlock Holmes to fight and rectify. I am interested in this perceived differentiation between fiction and reality, between imagination and realism, between Arthur & George.
By applying Kate Mitchell’s critical lens of memory texts and memory acts, we can learn so much about Barnes’ central question in the novel, made clear by the narrator who articulates George’s understanding that “[the] legal profession, in great numbers, had supported [George]. And finally, one of the greatest writers of the age had loudly and continually asserted [George’s] innocence. Would these verdicts in time come to outweigh the official one?” (389).
According to Mitchell, “Neo-Victorian fiction is most often situated in relation to a postmodern [problematization] of historical knowledge, rather than as an act of recall” (Mitchell 12). Mitchell extends this thinking to include memory discourse, which suggests that historical fiction acts as a transference as well as a construction of memory and all its implications, including the state of the historical “record,” wherein certain groups lay claim to historical perception, perspective, and positioning over (or instead of) others. With this framework in mind, one can think of literary texts such as Arthur & George as not only transmitting but also always actively shaping cultural memory as they attempt to make sense of the past, the “memory,” itself.
Blog Post #3 (Friday, February 26, 2021)
Memory Texts: Writing History and Reading Reality
Through most of Julian Barnes’ novel, Arthur & George, the titular characters are constructed as contrary, if not downright oppositional, to one another in terms of habits of mind despite their shared goal. George is convinced that there is an innate, reliable logic within the legal system, upon which George is sure his fate will depend and from which he is sure he will ultimately receive justice. Arthur, however, is certain there are flaws and prejudices in the extant legal system, which serve as jumping off points for his fictional character Sherlock Holmes to fight and rectify. I am interested in this perceived differentiation between fiction and reality, between imagination and realism, between Arthur & George.
By applying Kate Mitchell’s critical lens of memory texts and memory acts, we can learn so much about Barnes’ central question in the novel, made clear by the narrator who articulates George’s understanding that “[the] legal profession, in great numbers, had supported [George]. And finally, one of the greatest writers of the age had loudly and continually asserted [George’s] innocence. Would these verdicts in time come to outweigh the official one?” (389).
According to Mitchell, “Neo-Victorian fiction is most often situated in relation to a postmodern [problematization] of historical knowledge, rather than as an act of recall” (Mitchell 12). Mitchell extends this thinking to include memory discourse, which suggests that historical fiction acts as a transference as well as a construction of memory and all its implications, including the state of the historical “record,” wherein certain groups lay claim to historical perception, perspective, and positioning over (or instead of) others. With this framework in mind, one can think of literary texts such as Arthur & George as not only transmitting but also always actively shaping cultural memory as they attempt to make sense of the past, the “memory,” itself.
As opposed to deciding which depictions of Victorian life are “truly” representative, Neo-Victorian authors aim to discern and determine which depictions prevail, and to what ends (Mitchell 41). In this way, Barnes anticipates Mitchell’s critical framework, which is especially evident in the following passage regarding the spiritualists at Arthur’s memorial service:
“[George] asks himself: what if there was in the proceedings that mixture of truth and lies he earlier identified? What if some parts of what has happened [at the memorial] are charlantry, but others genuine?” What if one suspects truthful expression from “those who also deal in fraud some of the time? Would that not be an explanation?” (Barnes 438).
The fiction writer, too, often employs a “mixture of truth and lies,” if one first defines “truth” in fiction as a limited record and perception of historical happenings, and then defines “lies” in fiction as invented extensions of those records and perceptions, by the author’s own admission. In the case of Arthur & George, Barnes encountered and then augmented the discourse surrounding Conan Doyle’s involvement in the Edalji case, effectively transferring and then altering that discourse while asking the metafictional question: to what degree can fiction have a meaningful impact on prevailing perceptions of historical events?
To some extent, I would argue that fiction (and the fiction writer’s) ability to alter or meaningfully influence cultural understanding of historical events depends on a host of other authors, memory texts, and real-world perceptual reorientations within the public discourse. As Barnes illustrates and Mitchell asserts without resorting to moral relativism, history isn’t limited to one perceived “truth,” but is instead a necessarily fragmented collection of perceptions, misconceptions, revisions, and revitalizations that we shouldn’t overly aggregate to suit a narrative (fictional or otherwise).
To some extent, I would argue that fiction (and the fiction writer’s) ability to alter or meaningfully influence cultural understanding of historical events depends on a host of other authors, memory texts, and real-world perceptual reorientations within the public discourse. As Barnes illustrates and Mitchell asserts without resorting to moral relativism, history isn’t limited to one perceived “truth,” but is instead a necessarily fragmented collection of perceptions, misconceptions, revisions, and revitalizations that we shouldn’t overly aggregate to suit a narrative (fictional or otherwise).
(Hand-drawing by Lauren Randall, inspired by Alasdair Gray’s original cover art)
Blog Post #4 (Friday, March 19, 2021)
Metatextual Satire and Subversion in Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things
Alasdair Gray sets up several layers of metatextual material in Poor Things, including narrator Gray’s introduction, Michael Donnelly’s research, Archie McCandless’s manuscript, Bella’s letters, other characters’ epistolary correspondence, Victoria’s addendum, and the historical appendix. Some of these elements seem more satirical than others within the mainframe of Gray’s novel, but each contribute to the unreliability of the personal “histories” detailed in the book and thus the unreliability of a singular narrative “History.” I’m left to wonder: in what ways does Gray’s decision to use satire illuminate the book’s theme of the contrary relationship between “histories” and “History”? Would a more earnest novel have been inadequate in taking up the issues of archiving, remembering, and representing the past?
Authors have employed satire as a politically subversive literary form for centuries. From Chaucer to Chappelle, Jane Austen to Amy Sedaris, satire has created an essence of absurdity within the real, highlighting the absurd social contracts and constructs that we have historically accepted as either inevitable or immutable. Gray’s novel is part of a lineage of texts that use the absurd to implicate readers in matters of political import while simultaneously allowing readers to remain coconspirators in the effort to underscore and upend various forms of social and political “absurdity.”
Gray’s use of the absurd draws on this lineage and responds to writers like Voltaire, Mary Shelley, and others who devised novelistic worlds where the real is embedded within the fantastical or macabre. Through his characters’ erratic behaviors, unorthodox interactions, and wild interpretations of events, Gray allows readers to see the absurdity within the book’s real-life themes: questions of women’s sexuality, imperialism, the institution of marriage, and the dangers of hyper-fixating on origin and pedigree. All kinds of absurd things reside in the real world, and the novel’s world highlights the particular feeling one encounters while existing within oppressive social contexts and constructs that have, in time, become more familiar but no less absurd.
Metatextual Satire and Subversion in Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things
Alasdair Gray sets up several layers of metatextual material in Poor Things, including narrator Gray’s introduction, Michael Donnelly’s research, Archie McCandless’s manuscript, Bella’s letters, other characters’ epistolary correspondence, Victoria’s addendum, and the historical appendix. Some of these elements seem more satirical than others within the mainframe of Gray’s novel, but each contribute to the unreliability of the personal “histories” detailed in the book and thus the unreliability of a singular narrative “History.” I’m left to wonder: in what ways does Gray’s decision to use satire illuminate the book’s theme of the contrary relationship between “histories” and “History”? Would a more earnest novel have been inadequate in taking up the issues of archiving, remembering, and representing the past?
Authors have employed satire as a politically subversive literary form for centuries. From Chaucer to Chappelle, Jane Austen to Amy Sedaris, satire has created an essence of absurdity within the real, highlighting the absurd social contracts and constructs that we have historically accepted as either inevitable or immutable. Gray’s novel is part of a lineage of texts that use the absurd to implicate readers in matters of political import while simultaneously allowing readers to remain coconspirators in the effort to underscore and upend various forms of social and political “absurdity.”
Gray’s use of the absurd draws on this lineage and responds to writers like Voltaire, Mary Shelley, and others who devised novelistic worlds where the real is embedded within the fantastical or macabre. Through his characters’ erratic behaviors, unorthodox interactions, and wild interpretations of events, Gray allows readers to see the absurdity within the book’s real-life themes: questions of women’s sexuality, imperialism, the institution of marriage, and the dangers of hyper-fixating on origin and pedigree. All kinds of absurd things reside in the real world, and the novel’s world highlights the particular feeling one encounters while existing within oppressive social contexts and constructs that have, in time, become more familiar but no less absurd.
(Photo by Lauren Randall)
One such absurd construct is Bella’s position as a Victorian woman surrounded by men. Her sexual interests, desire to learn, cunning manipulation of men who lech after her, and socialist proclivities confound and even anger many of the characters she encounters, most of whom are men, and many of whom are intellectuals or professionals. Their rationalizations for her behavior tend to veer toward either the scientifically anomalous or the spiritually ineffable, which seems to be Gray’s way of illustrating how gender roles are not innate or natural but devised and enforced. Wedderburn claims Bella is a witch, while Blessington declares that she is an unnatural reanimation (which, to a certain degree, is true). Within these two extremes, Gray suggests that a woman who is in command of her self and her sexuality is viewed as monstrous, anomalous, and ultimately dubious.
Throughout the text (and metatexts), no one trusts Bella’s accounts of her own experiences and, further, Baxter and McCandless actively conceal the details of her life from her and from others. Acquiring straightforward, unembellished information doesn’t seem to be an option for Bella, but this is where her intense desire to learn comes in: she knows she doesn’t know everything, and she is keen on those who hold answers she desires. So, she continues to inquire about, invent, and gather information in unorthodox, exaggerated, often hilarious ways, which underscores the absurdity of gatekeeping knowledge and oppressing marginalized folks (women, in Bella’s case). Through Gray’s renderings of ridiculous conversations between characters and circumstances under which the logical end is an absolute inability to understand one another in the novel’s world, the absurdity of refusing to try and understand others’ lived experiences in the real world becomes clear.
Throughout the text (and metatexts), no one trusts Bella’s accounts of her own experiences and, further, Baxter and McCandless actively conceal the details of her life from her and from others. Acquiring straightforward, unembellished information doesn’t seem to be an option for Bella, but this is where her intense desire to learn comes in: she knows she doesn’t know everything, and she is keen on those who hold answers she desires. So, she continues to inquire about, invent, and gather information in unorthodox, exaggerated, often hilarious ways, which underscores the absurdity of gatekeeping knowledge and oppressing marginalized folks (women, in Bella’s case). Through Gray’s renderings of ridiculous conversations between characters and circumstances under which the logical end is an absolute inability to understand one another in the novel’s world, the absurdity of refusing to try and understand others’ lived experiences in the real world becomes clear.
(Hand-drawing by Lauren Randall)
Blog Post #5 (Friday, April 23, 2021)
Power, Privilege, and Promiscuity: Intersectional Womanhood in Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White
Blog Post #5 (Friday, April 23, 2021)
Power, Privilege, and Promiscuity: Intersectional Womanhood in Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White
There are several remarkable ladies in Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White, all of whom hail from disparate socioeconomic backgrounds with varying degrees of privilege. In this blog post, I want to focus on the two principal, adult, feminine characters: Sugar and Agnes. While the women’s financial and social stations are strikingly different, Sugar and Agnes share some notably similar qualities: they have both composed secret bodies of writing; they have both been sexually intimate with William Rackham; and they have both had extremely invasive relationships with Dr. Curlew, to their extreme detriments. These crossover commonalities speak to the intersectional nature of womanhood within (and without) the novel. Faber's handling of the following dimensions of Victorian feminine experience offers a compounded understanding of how each woman navigates the social strictures within her intersectional identity.
Metatextuality & Intertextuality
Agnes and Sugar have each composed secret, autobiographical writings. Both of the women must operate as either sexually or domestically useful to men, but they also operate as clandestine creators. On the one hand, Sugar's manuscript is described as a "rag-bag of a thing, made up of many different sized papers" in an envelope upon which are "many titles, all crossed out" in an "inky roll-call of erasures" but "one thing survives": Sugar’s authorship (Faber 245). Sugar derides archetypically “feminine” writing such as the "Reader, I married him" trope, confessing that she would rather kill every man in her novel than marry a single one of them (246). Agnes, on the other hand, writes with a feminine flourish and then some, detailing her time in a girls’ prep school and then her exploits with potential suitors, eventually offering play-by-plays of her courtship with William. (And of course, dear reader, she married him.) By providing both Sugar’s anti-heroine narrative and Agnes’s more traditional confessionals, Faber demonstrates that women’s writing is varied and should not be overly aggregated. Further, Agnes’s later drafts containing “life lessons” transcend her relationships to men and adherence to gendered norms, offering a nuanced look at her development as a writer and the plethora of content women plumb through their authorship.
Metatextuality & Intertextuality
Agnes and Sugar have each composed secret, autobiographical writings. Both of the women must operate as either sexually or domestically useful to men, but they also operate as clandestine creators. On the one hand, Sugar's manuscript is described as a "rag-bag of a thing, made up of many different sized papers" in an envelope upon which are "many titles, all crossed out" in an "inky roll-call of erasures" but "one thing survives": Sugar’s authorship (Faber 245). Sugar derides archetypically “feminine” writing such as the "Reader, I married him" trope, confessing that she would rather kill every man in her novel than marry a single one of them (246). Agnes, on the other hand, writes with a feminine flourish and then some, detailing her time in a girls’ prep school and then her exploits with potential suitors, eventually offering play-by-plays of her courtship with William. (And of course, dear reader, she married him.) By providing both Sugar’s anti-heroine narrative and Agnes’s more traditional confessionals, Faber demonstrates that women’s writing is varied and should not be overly aggregated. Further, Agnes’s later drafts containing “life lessons” transcend her relationships to men and adherence to gendered norms, offering a nuanced look at her development as a writer and the plethora of content women plumb through their authorship.
(Photo by Lauren Randall)
Access to Knowledge
While much of women’s knowledge is dismissed by men in the novel, certain liberties are also taken with what men take for granted as “women’s knowledge” in the first place. William, for example, assumes that Agnes knows about menstruation, but doesn’t dare ask her because of ideas about impropriety, even among spouses. Sugar, however, freely speaks about her “monthly courses,” and is also aware of how one might experience a miscarriage after falling down a set of stairs (849). Through this contrary juxtaposition, Faber illustrates how a woman’s utter ignorance of her own body is taken not as a gap in knowledge, but as a sort of “politesse,” while a firm and frank understanding of one’s own workings is considered crass and lowly (889). William is as astonished by Sugar’s transgressive intellectual pursuits as he would be if Agnes suddenly declared that she was menstruating, which produces quite the conundrum: a woman of low-class who is deeply informed in both body and mind is impressive, no matter how she came to possess that knowledge, while a wealthy woman who hides books under her bed and is deeply misinformed about her bodily experiences is a lunatic, despite the fact that such knowledge has been actively kept from her.
Invasive Male Authority
Dr. Curlew is one of the most insidious characters in the novel, as his brand of misogyny is especially steeped in moral superiority. He is responsible for both Sugar’s and Agnes’s eventual absences from the Rackham home, as he informs William of Sugar’s pregnancy and convinces William that Agnes is simply delusional and not a victim of Curlew’s grotesque molestation under medical guises. Interestingly, Curlew's own daughter, Mrs. Fox, is relatively exempt from his dangerous, abusive invasions. I have to think that this is because Curlew is content at effectively having “given away” Mrs. Fox to her late husband. Other men’s daughters, wives, and mistresses are fair game for him, but his own daughter became someone else’s charge long ago.
While much of women’s knowledge is dismissed by men in the novel, certain liberties are also taken with what men take for granted as “women’s knowledge” in the first place. William, for example, assumes that Agnes knows about menstruation, but doesn’t dare ask her because of ideas about impropriety, even among spouses. Sugar, however, freely speaks about her “monthly courses,” and is also aware of how one might experience a miscarriage after falling down a set of stairs (849). Through this contrary juxtaposition, Faber illustrates how a woman’s utter ignorance of her own body is taken not as a gap in knowledge, but as a sort of “politesse,” while a firm and frank understanding of one’s own workings is considered crass and lowly (889). William is as astonished by Sugar’s transgressive intellectual pursuits as he would be if Agnes suddenly declared that she was menstruating, which produces quite the conundrum: a woman of low-class who is deeply informed in both body and mind is impressive, no matter how she came to possess that knowledge, while a wealthy woman who hides books under her bed and is deeply misinformed about her bodily experiences is a lunatic, despite the fact that such knowledge has been actively kept from her.
Invasive Male Authority
Dr. Curlew is one of the most insidious characters in the novel, as his brand of misogyny is especially steeped in moral superiority. He is responsible for both Sugar’s and Agnes’s eventual absences from the Rackham home, as he informs William of Sugar’s pregnancy and convinces William that Agnes is simply delusional and not a victim of Curlew’s grotesque molestation under medical guises. Interestingly, Curlew's own daughter, Mrs. Fox, is relatively exempt from his dangerous, abusive invasions. I have to think that this is because Curlew is content at effectively having “given away” Mrs. Fox to her late husband. Other men’s daughters, wives, and mistresses are fair game for him, but his own daughter became someone else’s charge long ago.