"Orion"

This short story by Jeanette Winterson was first published in 1988.  It dramatizes contemporary gender wars by retelling one version of the myth of Orion, a mighty hunter, in which Orion meets Artemis, a mythic female hunter, rapes her, and is killed by her with a scorpion. 

Sounds like a feminist revenge fantasy, or at least a representation of an ancient, and ongoing, gender power struggle.  But it’s more than that.

Winterson knows the mythological literature in which heroes are typically male, often hunters or warriors, on a quest for an object or place in the world, or, in the case of religious heroes, for eternal life in another world.  Women in mythology, though they might be goddesses, are typically objects of desire (distractions from the quest), mothers, wives, or helpers to the male heroes.  While the men are out performing feats of strength and courage, women are more often at home tending the hearth.

Winterson explicitly presents the story of Orion and Artemis as “the old clash between history and home. Or to put it another way, the immeasurable, impossible space that seems to divide the hearth from the quest.”

If it’s a simple feminist revenge fantasy, then why is the story entitled after the male “hero,” and why is it Orion who gets immortalized in a constellation, where to this day “he does his best to dominate the skyline”?

If it is simply a representation of the ancient gender binary between quest and hearth, then how is it that Artemis rejects marriage, childbirth, and home-making in order to be a great hunter?  While the original story itself challenges this binary, it also reinforces the polarity as an either-or choice.

By invoking the myth Winterson also reinforces the ancient difference between male and female social roles, but she challenges it by having Artemis, not simply reject the traditional female role, but redefine it in terms of self-knowledge:

“She found that the whole world could be contained within one place because that place was herself… What would it matter if she crossed the world and hunted down every living creature as long as her separate selves eluded her?”

Artemis comes to realize that “Leaving home meant leaving nothing behind.  It came too, all of it, and waited in the dark.”  Quest and hearth are one.  The ultimate quest is the journey to the self.

This wisdom eludes Orion.  For him the quest is all about hyper-masculinity, power, and domination.  Thus his rape of Artemis.

Yes, Artemis kills him in his sleep, and while this act of revenge suggests a struggle between feminist power and masculine power, it is more than that.  After Orion rapes Artemis, he falls asleep, but after Artemis murders Orion, she wakes up:

“Artemis lying beside dead Orion sees her past changed by a single act…She is not who she thought she was.  Every action and decision has led her here.  The moment has been waiting the way the top of the stairs waits for the sleepwalker.  She had fallen and now she is awake.”

When she sees Orion’s body becoming food for lizards, she covers him with rocks to create a high mound, which, when she views it from a distance looks like a monument. 

By rejecting the social norms of her day, Artemis begins to awaken to self-knowledge and to recognize the false binary of quest and hearth.  The gender power struggle overtakes her, but, again, she awakens to new self-knowledge.  Her “burial” of Orion demonstrates respect for his humanity, despite his cruelty to her.  This act of redemption takes her to a new level: “Finally, at the headland, after a bitter climb to where the woods bordered the steep edge, she turned and stared out, seeing the shape of Orion’s mound, just visible now, and her own footsteps walking away.  Then it was fully nigh, and she could see nothing to remind her of the night before except the stars.”

The story offers three larger contexts in which to view the myth and the story that Winterson draws out of it. 

First there is the context of history: the ancient myth transformed into a modern feminist story in 1988.  What future transformations will unfold in history?  “Monuments and cities would fade away like the people who build them.  No resting place or palace could survive the light years that lay ahead. There was no history that would not be rewritten…”

Second is the context of medieval alchemy: “Tertium non data. The third is not given. That is, the transformation from one element into another, from waste matter into best gold is a process that cannot be documented.  It is fully mysterious.”  Artemis’s transformations from gender rebel to self-conscious individual to stargazer could not have been predicted, nor can future transformations to come.

Third is the context of astronomy:  “Every 200,000 years or so the individual stars within each constellation shift position.  That is, they are shifting all the time, but more subtly than any tracker dog of ours can follow.  One day if the earth has not voluntarily opted out of the solar system, we will wake up to a new heaven whose dome will again confound us.  It will still be home but not a place to take for granted.”  For now, Orion still dominates the skyline (though “he glows very faint, if at all, in November.  November being the month of Scorpio.”) But what of that “new heaven” to come?

This past November it seemed a new transformation was on the horizon, but it was not to be.  Orion still dominates the skyline.  But what of that “new heaven” to come?

Go Set a Watchman

-->

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Whether you’ve read this recently published “sequel” to To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, you’ve no doubt already read about the “ugly.”  Yes, Atticus Finch, the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird, who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman in the 1930s, is exposed as a segregationist and a racist in the 1950s.  Some have deplored and mourned this toppling of the white Southern hero; others have defended Go Set a Watchman’s representation of white supremacy in the Civil Rights era South as much more realistic than its well known, popular predecessor.

In either case, the novel, actually written before To Kill a Mockingbird, offers a historical explanation for the difference in character.  It seems that in the segregated South of the 1930s it was perfectly possible for a white man to be on reasonably good terms with his black servants (young Scout was raised by a black maid, as well as her single father, after her mother’s early death) and other African Americans, since in those days “Negroes” knew their place and mostly stayed in it.

With the rise of the NAACP and the Civil Rights movement, however, white paternalists such as Atticus Finch were threatened enough to assert their racial “superiority” and resist all efforts to achieve integration and equal rights of the races.

This ugliness, however realistic, is countered by the outrage of 26-year-old Jean Louise (Scout), when she discovers a racist pamphlet in her father’s desk and witnesses his attendance at a Citizens’ Council meeting, which is hosting a virulently racist speaker.  Jean Louise’s horror when she discovers her father’s racism, her willingness to confront him, as well as her boyfriend (who also attended the meeting), and her support for Civil Rights could be considered the “good” that somehow redeems the novel’s ugliness.  At least that is one way to read it.

There is another example of ugliness, however, at the end of the novel that goes unredeemed, and another way to read the novel as a whole that may disappoint those wishing to somehow salvage Harper Lee’s reputation.  More of that later.

What about the “good”?  For all the talk about race, no reviewers I’ve read have mentioned the feminist plot of Jean Louise rebelling, not only against the small-minded racism of her hometown and her family, but also against the traditional small town expectations for how women should dress, speak, and act.

Go Set a Watchman takes the form of a coming of age narrative in which the protagonist is a woman, who, after graduating from college, has left the South and moved to New York City.  She returns for a family visit some time after the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. the Board of Education, which ruled segregation unconstitutional.  She wears slacks instead of dresses, talks back to her aunt, and resists attempts by her father’s law clerk to get her to marry him and settle down into a small town, Southern, domestic role.

As is typical in a coming of age story, Jean Louise encounters “evil” in the form of the racist pamphlet and speaker that her father and boyfriend seem to be supporting.  As in such stories Jean Louise’s shock and outrage at the evil in the world can lead her to cynicism and despair or into some kind of healthy maturation, in which she comes to terms with and makes her peace with the world as it is without sacrificing her own values and principles.

Although Jean Louise, having strung her boyfriend along, finally and firmly rejects his offer of marriage, she does make peace with her father.  It is not clear whether she will return to New York or stay in Maycomb and make her peace with the small town provincialism that she despises.

Her Uncle Jack encourages her to stay, not to “join em,” probably not to “beat em,” but possibly to improve them with her more enlightened point of view.  Paraphrasing “Melbourne” (presumably Queen Victoria’s prime minister), Uncle Jack says, “the time your friends need you is when they’re wrong.”

Uncle Jack emerges as the wise, if somewhat addled, sage, advising Jean Louise, “…it takes a certain kind of maturity to live in the South these days.”  Perhaps it is the same kind of maturity that enables us all to put up with the racist uncle who always seems to show up for Thanksgiving.

In any case, it is no doubt healthier for Jean Louise to come to some semblance of peaceful terms with her family and community, even if she doesn’t stay there, than to become isolated and estranged from them.

Scattered through this coming of age narrative are three flashbacks to Jean Louise’s childhood, episodes that reinforce the youthful innocence from which she must “fall,” as in all coming of age stories.  These flashbacks, taken by themselves, are hilariously entertaining, though not necessarily well integrated with the narrative as a whole.  Reading them, one can understand why her editor suggested she rewrite the manuscript from Scout’s point of view as a young child.

So much for the “good.”

The “bad” is simply the rough draft quality of the text, structurally, as suggested above, as well as in content and language.  For one thing, 26 seems a bit old to be discovering that her father is not the paragon of virtue she had thought him as a child.  Most of us experience this disillusionment with, not only our parents, but also our family and community, during our late teens or early twenties.  It doesn’t seem very credible that Jean Louise doesn’t discover her father’s racism, even if it was more paternalistic than aggressive, at an earlier age.

When she does confront her boyfriend and father, she is far more virulent than one might expect.  Having just heard the Sunday preacher speak from the text of Isaiah 21: 6 (“For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth”), Jean Louise melodramatically declares that she needed someone to “set a watchman” to warn her of the bigotry lying in hiding beneath the moralistic façade of her father, family, and community.  Having grown up in the South, surely she can’t be that shocked to find Southern racism and even the KKK lapping at her own door.

The structure of the narrative is also flawed.  The plot doesn’t really begin to thicken until half way through, when Jean Louise discovers that pamphlet, and, as suggested above the flashbacks are not well integrated.  Much of the second half is taken up with long inner and outer monologues and diatribes, as Jean Louise confronts herself and others.  Uncle Jack, a Faulkneresque eccentric, tops all with his meandering, barely coherent, orations.

It is Uncle Jack that calls Jean Louise “Childe Roland,” quoting parts of Robert Browning’s poem, lifting Jean Louise’s coming of age to the mythic level of a hero’s quest narrative.

But it is also Uncle Jack who, shockingly, slaps Jean Louise near the end, drawing blood and then plying her with whisky to ease the pain.  The ugly racism in the book is countered by Jean Louise’s outrage, but this ugly act of violence is presented uncritically.  It is presented as literally slapping some sense into an irate Jean Louise, and, more shockingly, she accepts it.  The only thing lacking is her actually saying, “Thanks, I needed that.”

After this act of violence Jean Louise suddenly calms down, accepts her uncle’s advice to make peace, apologizes to her father, and seems to resign herself to the moral imperfection of her family, community, and the world in general.

This resolution is consistent with the coming of age story, but another, uglier, way to read the ending is as Harper Lee’s apologist treatment of Southern racism.  Atticus attended a KKK meeting, not to participate, but to see who was under those hoods.  He attended the Citizen’s Council meeting and listened to the racist speaker in order to maintain working relationships with his fellow citizens.  He had the pamphlet in his desk in order to study the rhetoric and reasoning of the segregationists.  He holds racist opinions, but is still a kind and forgiving father.  Hank, as an up-and-coming lawyer who started out as “trash,” cannot risk his upward social mobility by bucking the powers that be.

Is this realism or is it apologism?  You decide.

In any case, Go Set a Watchman is not of the same caliber as To Kill a Mockingbird.  While there’s some “good,” there’s more “bad,” and a lot more “ugly” than in the well-known classic.

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Speaking of individualism, Emersonian Transcendentalism, and women’s rights (see previous post), Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) should surely be noted.

When Emerson wrote “Self-Reliance” one senses he was writing for men.  Self-reliance is “manly” and dependence is “effeminate.”  Margaret Fuller, however, taking her inspiration from the Transcendental roots of Emerson’s essay, called on women to develop their independence and on men to treat women as equals.

However gendered the traditional concept of God, the Transcendental “Oversoul,” suggesting as it does the Hindu concept of Brahma, was more abstract and universal.  Emerson’s theory of two selves, the social self and the “aboriginal self,” made it possible to separate gender, a social category, from the Transcendental selfhood or “soul.” 

Thus Margaret Fuller undergirds her call for women’s social and legal equality with an appeal for Woman’s need “as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers as were given her when we left our common home,” that “home” being our source in the Universal “One.”

At times, Fuller sounds like an essentialist, capitalizing “Woman” (and “Man”) , referring to “Femality,” and presenting “male and female” as a “radical dualism.” Yet, she argues that the “feminine element…is no more the order of nature that it should be incarnated pure in any form” and asserts that “There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.” Even the ancients are invoked as recognizing the fluidity of gender identity:  “Man partakes of the feminine in the Apollo, Woman of the masculine as Minerva.” 

As transcendental souls, women are the equal of men and as capable of self-reliance (which Fuller also refers to as “self-dependence,” “self-respect,” and “self-help”) as any man.  As for relationships, she says, “Union is only possible to those who are units,” and she strikes a modern note when she calls for the wife to be an “equal partner” with her husband.

Fuller’s faith in transcendental individualism, however, while it gave her the confidence to pursue her own independence, did not prevent her from speaking out for social justice, not only for women, but also for slaves, Native Americans,  the poor, the sick, convicts, and immigrants.  Her own freedom was not to be enjoyed at the expense of her fellow Americans.  As the first American “foreign correspondent” she openly supported the revolutionary movements in Europe in the 1840’s.  Her life and writings, unlike those of Emerson and Ayn Rand (see previous post), offer strong testimony to the compatibility of individualism and communitarianism.

The Awakening

It makes sense to read Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899) as a feminist novel of female emancipation, both sexual and spiritual, especially given its biographical and social context.  Yet it also fits into the 19^th century tradition of the novel of adultery and its predecessor, the seduction narrative, in which the female transgressor must, of course, be punished in the end, whether it be by abandonment, disgrace, death, or all of the above.

The novel of adultery could, perhaps, be traced back to the “courtly love” tradition of the European Middle Ages, but Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850), Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856), and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1870s) established the 19^th century tradition.  The Awakening, however, is the only one that was effectively removed from public circulation because of its negative reviews as an immoral book, perhaps because it is more open in its depiction of a female character who enjoys sex or perhaps because it was written by a woman or both.

 Hawthorne’s novel begins after the fact and focuses on Hester Prynne’s transformation from “sinner” to “saint,” but like Flaubert’s and Tolstoy’s heroines, Edna Pontellier in The Awakening commits suicide in the end.

 It might have been possible to read Chopin’s novel as a cautionary tale, relating the sad fate of a sinful woman, but no one did, again perhaps because Edna’s sensuality is too openly represented.  Though the price of pleasure is suicide, she indeed seems to experience pleasure in her forbidden affair and admits to herself that she would, no doubt, seek out more such affairs once the current one ends.

 It didn’t seem to matter to reviewers at the time that a primary motive for the suicide is concern for her children.  Edna seems to foresee how her transgressions would harm her children.  Neither Chopin nor the reviewers lived in a time when the harmful effects of a parent’s suicide on the children were well understood.

 Since the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 70s Chopin’s novel has been received as a feminist classic, portraying a heroine who defies the restrictive Victorian conventions of the 19^th century and pursues her own emancipation, not only from an unhappy marriage, but from an oppressive society.

 Perhaps the conflicting attitudes toward the book rest on the same textual characteristic, namely that Edna is largely presented sympathetically and the reader is invited to identify with her.  The strict sexual moralists of the 19^th century were, no doubt, more shocked by the sympathetic portrayal of an adulteress than they were mollified by her suicide at the end.  Feminists of the 20^th century, however, did identify with Edna’s oppression and her quest for emancipation.  For them, her suicide merely underscors the injustice of a society in which a liberated woman cannot survive.

 From a more universal perspective, the novel could also be viewed in conflicting ways: either as a cautionary tale of crime and punishment or as a tragic quest for freedom and fulfillment.  The key seems to be whether readers identify with Edna as a sympathetic heroine or whether they view her as a selfish narcissist, who is a dangerous threat to marriage, motherhood, and social stability.

 Who is the enemy: the repressive society or the rebellious individual seeking liberation?

 One is tempted to dismiss the conflict as an anachronism in the 21^st century.  Surely most readers today would be most likely to view Edna as a victim of sexist oppression who struggles heroically against social injustice.  But consider the debate that can still get quite heated over stay-at-home moms vs. working moms who put their children in day care.  While contemporary readers may be more willing to forgive Edna’s adultery, they may not be so willing to forgive her neglect of her children.

 The conflict between motherhood and women’s emancipation may be as universal as any story of crime and punishment or tragic quest.

Trifles

Susan Glaspell’s 1916 play was later rewritten as a short story, “A Jury of Her Peers.” Part detective story, part realistic drama, part feminist critique, the story raises serious ethical issues about domestic abuse, justifiable homicide, mental illness as a criminal defense, the withholding of evidence, and the protection of a murderer, not to mention male supremacy.

In an isolated farmhouse, John Wright is found dead, having been strangled to death in his bed with a rope. The only other person present at the scene is his wife, Minnie. The sheriff, county attorney, and the neighbor who discovered the crime search the farmhouse for evidence to confirm that Minnie murdered her husband. The wives of the sheriff and the neighbor are brought along to gather personal belongings to take to Minnie in jail.

The men overhear the women discussing Minnie’s domestic items, including her sewing project, wondering if she was going to “quilt it or knot it.” They mock the women for concerning themselves with “trifles” at a murder scene and fail to search the kitchen, which they dismiss as too unimportant a part of the house to contain any evidence.

While they search more important sites, like the barn, the women discover evidence in the kitchen that enables them to piece together a theory of how Minnie’s cold and heartless husband killed (by strangulation) her beloved pet songbird, causing Minnie to become unhinged.

Knowing Minnie’s history of loneliness in a loveless marriage with a cold, distant, possibly abusive husband, the women struggle over revealing the evidence to the men. In the end they conceal it, even as the men continue to dismiss their concern with “trifles.”

The story effectively exposes male superiority and prejudice against women and the domestic sphere as self-defeating bigotry. Yet it also appears to some readers to condone, not only the concealing of evidence, but also the commission of murder. By creating sympathy for Minnie and the women friends who understand her plight, does Glaspell also create sympathy for their actions, murder and the cover-up of murder?

Do Minnie’s friends have sufficient evidence that John Wright was abusive? That Minnie was “temporarily insane” and/or morally justified in taking her husband’s life? Can we be sure that John Wright killed the bird? Even if he did, does the killing of a bird justify the killing of a person? Or was the killing of the bird merely the last straw in a long marital history of cruelty that finally broke the camel’s back of Minnie’s mental health?

Given the textual evidence of the story, it is hard to imagine Minnie would not be convicted of the crime. There is no evidence of forced entry or of anyone else being in the house at the time of the murder. The manner of death would have ruled out suicide. Minnie clearly had the means and the opportunity. What is not clear is motive, and the women conceal the evidence for that.

However, it could be argued, they are also concealing evidence of John’s cruelty and Minnie’s mental instability, which could conceivably have been used in her defense. Perhaps this is splitting hairs. The story clearly creates sympathy for the murderer and the women who protect her.

So, our judgment may rest with whether we agree with the theory the women concoct based on their observations and whether, based on this theory, we agree the murder was either a justifiable homicide or a case of “not guilty by reason of insanity.”

If we disagree with that theory and that conclusion, then we might find the story to be morally disturbing, though it is worth asking if sympathy with a criminal equates with condoning their crime (see next blog post).

In any case, if we dwell on these questions, we may overlook what is, perhaps, the main point of the story—that the men who dismiss women’s work and women’s sphere as “trifles” make colossal fools of themselves in their efforts to build a complete criminal case.