1. Madame Bovary (January 26th)

2. The Devil (February 2nd)

3. Still the devil (Febraury 9th)

4. shh… I’m trying to hear you think (February 9th)

5. Group Discussion (Febraury 11th)

6. Secondary Source for To the Lighthouse (March 3rd

7. Myra and Social Critique (March 3rd)

8. Myron (March 3rd)

I take a great interest in the social and political critiques each novel has made. Also, I’ve closely examined the emotions portrayed through each character in relation to their sex or family role. What I’ve seemed to be always drawn to is the purpose of the lesser characters in each novel (Homais, Mrs. McNab, Letitia). I find that authors veil underlying meanings to their texts in these characters, which either compliment or challenge their larger charaster counterparts. I am also prone to use a religious lens while reading any piece of fiction. It is easy to see the influence of the religious expectation (on the current society being represented) that litters itself through the texts. I have to say though that I think the examination of gender roles is like beating a dead horse (an act I am obviously accountable for since most of my blog posts talk about the female psyche in each of the novels.) My biggest interest in the projection ofhuman emotion on the written page. Our novels have opened the doors to human conditions like envy, pride, lust, greed, sympathy, and anger. With all these emotions, they are usually directed toward other characters as well as to the chracter who is experiencing them. This is a social critique of human interactions. Although all the novels have produced some sort of representaion of society, it was Myra Breckinridge that openly criticized the American dynamic. I hope to see more of this, since this is what I am personally most interested in.

My favorite line of diction: “However, as a lesson, I shall ball you.”

I closely followed the interruption of Myron’s thoughts in Myra’s act of raping Rusty. There is a time when she substitutes Myron’s opinion of homosexual delight as her own. “I was now afforded my favorite view of the male, they heavy rosy scrotum dangling from the groin above which the tiny sphincter shyly twinkled in the light.” I am making assumption that this is Myron, but on first reading, I did atrribute this snetiment to that part of the character’s psyche. Agree?

The character of Letitia is a tool Vidal uses to reaffirm all the accusations Myra previously made about heterosexuality (that I quoted in the previous post regarding sexual violence.) If Letitia’s love for Rusty’s sexual violence was not in the book, then Myra’s assumptions would have been completely false. I don’t know what the author is trying to achieve with this character. It seems that he is trying to support Myra’s characterization with the appearance of a similarly minded character. Without Letitia, Myra would have lost all credit once she chose to become Myron again.

In the beginning of chapter 37 you witness a complete switching of opinion made by Myra. In referring to Mary-Ann, “Of course, she is unique in her charm, her beauty, her womanliness.” She earlier claimed that Mary-Ann’s opinions of womanhood reiterated every expected societal role of the woman. Now she praises those qualities. It is here that my curiosity reached its climax. Why, when Myron was ‘alive’, did he pursue an interest in men, and then, as Myra, did she pursue in women? There is an obsession with the same sex from this character. 

In the end, Myron is heterosexual and married. Does this reaffirm the roles of the sexes? This would mean that Myra failed miserably in re-creating them, and I don’t think she did. As a woman, she was stripped of the pressure to maintain the stereotypical  masculine roles of identity and in turn realized she could be a man without them. Her tenderness towards Mary-Ann in the end is not her adaptation of a womanly role but the re-creation of man’s. She asks at the end of 37, “For what true purpose have I smashed the male principle on ly to become entrapped by the female?’

The middle ground that she praises at the end of the novel is the summation of her view the role of the sexes should play. Men and women should have both masculine and feminine qualities in order to create a happy balance of self. (I realize my statement is still separating sex roles, but I do believe this book to be an attempt at disproving them.)

“There is a crash outside my window– was a crash.” I really enjoyed this acknowledgment of tense change. The form of this novel is presented as ajounral entry, which authenticates Myra’s thoughts as every present and every truthful since she is writing every thought as quickly as it enters her brain. (This of course is impossible because she would have to pause in her conversation with Buck to write everything down, but she gives the allusion here that that is exactly what she’s doing.)

“I have been drawn lately to television commercial, which, though in its rude infancy, shows signs of replacing all the other visual arts.” Could you imagine if we only watched commercials? This was a keen observation to make in the 60s because today television is indeed overrun by commercials, but to me, commercials are strictly tools of capitalism, so however artistic they might be, it is only a veil for their purpose, which Myra acknowledges in chapter 9. “I believe, without false modesty, that I proved conclusively that the relationship between consumer and advertiser is the last demonstration of necessary love in the West, and its principal form of expression is the television commercial.” I love that she, or rather Vidal, italicizes necessary. The advertiser must make the consumer love the product, and I find it fitting that she did not say manufacturer but rather pointed the gaze at the person who promotes capitalism: the advertiser. This relationship is a comparison to religion. (I’m sort of obsessed with television)

Ch. 8: “I would put nothing past a man who traffics so promiscously in love, not knowing that it is hate alone which inspires us to action and makes for civilization.” I’m really loving Myra’s acute cynicism. There is validity to the comments she makes like this one. Hate inspires war, which inspires control, which breeds colonization. However, I do not think it is only hate that inspires action.

Ch. 11: “But envy is the nature of the human beast”… no. Capitalism promotes envy, but I don’t think it is in our nature to be so. I expected Myra to figure that out, so I believe this statement is an unveilment (sp) of herself.

“Without precise notation and interpretation there is only chaos.” Thanks for the credibility to writers, Vidal, you self- promoting bastard. (kidding… about the bastard part.)

Ch. 12: Sometimes I don’t know where she comes up with this stuff… “the hard fact that American women are eager for men to rape them and vice versa; and that in every American there is a Boston Strangler longing to break a neck during orgasm. Ours is a violent race.” Is she talking about race as a whole or the race of Americans? To this day, in American culture,  there is stilla suppression of sexuality: could this be the reason for violent outbursts? To generalize that the race as a whole has a violent streak is hefty to say the least. Why does Myra constantly make this large assumptions?

(This applies to Mr. Ramsay and the presentation of his neurosis in a domestic household) “One way in which Part One reverses hierarchical opposition of masculine/feminine is by removing the masculine “sphere” of activity from the novel” (219)

(This is the premise to Emery’s thesis.)”"Time Passes” breaks the pattern whereby Victorian sex/gender hierarchies are reversed and, in doing so, breaks the ground for Lily’s reconfiguration as the Modern Woman” (220)

(This supports premise) “However, the “airs” and “darkness” that invade the Ramsays’ house in “Time Passes” are personified and militarized forces, “advance guards of destruction.” In the midst of trees like “tattered flags”, the airs ask, ” Were they allies? Were they enemies?” (220)

(Mrs. McNab is the “center” of this article.) “Mrs. McNab and Mrs. Bast labor distinctly as females, but not as fully human females, rather as forces disassociated from Mrs. Ramsay’s creative, harmonizing maternity… they seem to partake of the female, the inhuman, the natural, and the mechanical simultaneously and indeterminately” (221).

(Evidence of Mrs. McNab’s role in the novel) “But Lily cannot see Mrs. Ramsay with new eyes until Mrs. McNab has entered the house violently and occupied it in two appraently contradictory ways: as a natural and therefore dehumanized yet feminine force and as a militarized and therefore human, dehumanizing, and masculine force. Following Mrs. McNab’s occupation of the house and of these contradictory metaphorical positions, the Modern Woman can have it all (or most of it): androgyny, or the dissolution of masculine/feminine oppositions; female bonding with the domestic, maternal woman; and artistic vision that may grant her public identity” (226).

(Thesis) “The future of Lil’s painting and of Lily as meaning-giver depends on the servant unable to bestow meaning either through her voice or her gaze. Neither Mrs. McNab’s bedroom nor the working-class public sphere where her voice once meant something will hold a meaningful audience for Lily’s creativity. Rather, Lily makes her triumphant line “there, in the centre,” the space analogous to the center of the novel where Mrs. McNab has worked. Thus her “work” of art makrs over and supplants the work performed by Mrs. McNab. Much more than Lily’s painting, Mrs. McNab , her coworker, and their labors have become invisible, while Lily’s “attempt” remains forever, and Lily is the “one” who decides it is so. The servant’s central place in the novel has been reoccupied, and her gaze, as well as her voice, has been robbed of meaning” (231).

(Explanation of Thesis) “The theft from Mrs. McNab that renders her voice and her gaze meaningless is the condition for Lily’s completed painting and for the positioning of the middle-class English woman as arbiter and artistic value and the individual owner of meaningful vision” (231).

(Summary of Mrs. McNab’s dsicredit in the novel) “Mrs. McNab as a stereotype is not a character but a process of subject-positioning. She “works” structurally at the center of the novel to reposition an ideological dichotomy of private and public so that a new female subject may be negotiated in contest but also in compromise with dominant representations of women’s “nature” (233).

The title of this article “Robbed of meaning” refers to Mrs. McNab. As a working-class figure, her character is presented one dimensionally. She is not really a person but a tool used by Woolf to sweep out the old ideals of womanhood and usher in the new idea behind the middle-class woman.  Emery maintains that Mrs. McNab embodies both the masculine and feminine roles when she becomes “a force working” to clean the house for the return to the Ramsay’s. Metaphorically, she is cleansing the house of Mrs. Ramsay’s old ideals. However, since her character is deemed “witless” she is not given the credit of actively paving the way for the new womanhood, rather, she is the representation of the discredited class of women, who maintain the old role of women being the cleaners of house. She is, in essence, the forgotten woman of this text, and in so, her class of women of disregarded. Like the masculine elements that surround her in “Time Passes”, Woolf uses her as a mechanical object that carries in the representation of the working woman and sweeps the idea of the woman of luxury. Without Mrs. McNab representing the otherside of the woman sphere, Lily could never find her place in the middle, in the role of the compromising woman.

We discussed how gender roles are slightly reversed, in that Mr. Ramsey is needy and prone to fanatac fits while Mrs. R is calm and reserved. However since she takes a constant point as a supporter of Mr. R; her support alludes to her steretypical gender responsibility as the subordinate.

In TIME PASSES, we sensed a kind of haunting to the house. The language was, for lack of a better word, creepy. The house becomes the central character in this section and thus producing a life of its own. Language is the most convincing here that the house takes on a breath of its own, eyes of its own, touch and smell.

These characters of ours don’t talk, even though they speak outloud often about mundane things. The first great irony is that it seems like they never shut up, as Woolf writes long, broken, incoherent thoughts that lead to other thoughts that don’t have anything to do with the before thoughts but somehow bring us to another character that is busy thinking themselves about everything and nothing, no one and every one. The point? Every one is obviously very self involved, but most of them also seemed to be convinced that they hold an immensely strong inuitive power. Lily thinks she knows Mr. Ramsay’s suffering, and she also thinks she knows why and how wrong Mrs. Ramsay is as a person. Mr. Ramsey connects to his wife in silence, and she with him samely. Bank’s ponders Mrs. Ramsay’s thoughts and Lily’s Mr. Banks regarding same topic, but nothing is ever said. 

As Time Passes:

Lights out, darkness, silence, light, air, night. [Mrs. Ramsay's dies.] Empty house. Mrs. McNab. Air. Light. Shadow. Loveliness and Stillness. Silence. Light. Mrs. McNab. Mortality. Spring. [Prue weds] Nature and order. Rain. [Prue's dead] Summer. Light. Silence. Night. [Andrew's dead] Nature. Beauty. Nature. Beauty. [Carmichael makes popular poetry] (VII, repeat all the obove, excepting of human deaths, over long period of summers and winters). Mrs. McNabb, possessions, the aging of house and woman, death contemplation, flowers, abandonment. Decrepidation of house/man’s possession overtaken by nature. Then redoing or undoing (depending on personal outlook) of house for the preparation of the owner’s return. (Lily returns) People return: guests. House has a being? End.

The silence of life without humans can make appreciative sounds. Following air as though following a child that aims to tuoch everything. Everything that had to do with our main characters was bracketed and swiftly thrown at us in intervals between long descriptions of either darkness, light, nature, the physicality of the house and time. Maybe I’m not explaining why I think this is so cool, but I think it speaks for itself: The language Woolf uses is familiar and still mindboggling.

The conversation he has with the priest, in which he denounces religion, also states that he has some fear of the priest. (381) When the fight escalates, the priest finds it hard to breathe (391) Just before this deabte occurs, but after Madame’s death, Homais receives some pleasure from Charles’s misery. (380)

On page 347, Homais encourages Emma to let her tears flow, and he does likewise to Charles on page 385, to weep.

A funny little play on theory, on page 377, the priest shouts “what the devil” and refers to the actions of Homais.

Homais’s language and “immoral” encouraements to Leon in Chapter 6.

If he isn’t the devil, he’s at least the antagonist. Homais had pride and vanity: he did not want to be shadowed by Charles’s medical talents when he first arrived, and he did not want his family to be richer than his. On page 404, Homais has a ”deep, cunning, criminal vanity.” It propels him and destroys Emma, as she, in her dying wish, asks for a mirror. (383). Homais encourages people to exploit their wants, escalating their vices.

Earler in the chapter she has the brief conversation with Lhereux (336-338 ) concerning her debts. After scolding her he throws expensive lace at her, let’s her write new notes, and dismisses telling her the cost of anything. I can’t put this transaction out of my thoughts. He tells her that he would never say one thing and do another but that seems to be all he does. On page 357, he tells Emma that “pretty things never do any harm.”  Obviously, they’ve done the most harm. I think he and Homais are in cahoots.

Her debts send her down a sprialing path of immoral actions. On page 351, “There was a demonic desperation burning in her eyes”. The old saying money is the root of all evil I feel is appropriate here. Throught adultery and gluttony she lost her soul.

The beggar interested me a great deal. Firstly, I loved that her harrassed the apothecary, Homais. The pharmacist calls him ” the poor devil”. And as we later find out at teh book’s end, the beggar tries to discredit Homais’s abilities to cure people. At first I thoguht the beggar a representation of Emma’s monetary situation, but he sings the song that echoes Emma’s woes when she is on her deathbed. Why is he there? He gives face to Emma’s poor state, and he challenges Homais’s supposed good nature. (His quarrel with Homais to which he is sent the the asylum (404-5))

When Emma goes to the tax collector to plead her case and we only see the interaction through spying eyes, he “suddenly recoiled as though he had seen a snake.” This is another Biblical reference to evil, and although it is referenced to Emma, it represents the hold it has on her.

You may say hindsight is 20/20 but once I read the first line I quoted in this post, I knew the book was going to end with Homais. Imagine my surprise when it was so blatant to say that “the devil himself doesn’t have a greater following than the pharmacist.” I really think Flaubert is being obvious here in his intentions with his character Homais. Why wouldn’t he just end with the poor fate of Berthe? Who would possibly be interested in the pharmacist winning an award aftewr reading about Berthe’s cruel future? Homais could be the devil, Lhereux his henchman and expensive possessions his manipulating tool, but who knows.

In regard to my previous post, did you notice how many times the word “pale” was used? Everyone lost color in the end, even Rodolphe. It almost became a very over-used description.

1. illness

2. the impact of novels and religion

3. the physical and emotional dynamics of both sexes.

4. reoccurring mention of pride

At the end of part two, after Rodolphe leaves Emma, she becomes very ill. A theme I’ve analyzed in a past Victorian literature class discussed the inclusion and use of illness with woman characters. In this time period, a woman of leisure like Emma didn’t do much. Therefore they had little to fret or worry about. They used their health as a device to bring about attention or as a barrier to politely divert attention.  I;ve taken note in this novel how many times the color of Emma’s complexion gave away her emotions. (148, 182, 217,243: all of these pages refer to the color of Emma as pale or white.) Each paleness is a result of some sort of emotional overwhelming. As readers, we are constantly told of Emma’s current emotion through her physical description and mannerisms. I believe that illness is used in these types of novels to delay the plot but keep the reader interested in the main character. However I’m not saying that the illnesses are not believable. Many people have fallen physical ill from emotional heartbreak, but in this time period, it is usually only women who use it to their advantage.

      -> Going off of the structure of females and male’s in this novel, and I can’t help but notice how many times Chalres ‘weeps’.  “Charles sank into his chair, crushed, wondering what her trouble was, fearing some nervous illness, weeping, and vaguely aware that the air about him was heavy with something baleful and incomprehensible” (218). I quote this line to point out that the fact of his weeping is usually short, almost non-chalant. He weeps when she eats her first piece of bread and jam too. He’s always letting out a quick set of tears to the point where it almost becomes expected. This ‘feminine’ quality (if I can be so bold to call it that) is what Emma hates. Although she does not realize, Charles’s actions towards her reflect the way she acts towards all her other men. Charles is eager to please; he is constantly worrying over her every need; he consistently professes his love for her, yet she is repulsed by this unwavering admiration. Hello Irony.  Charles is the male/female character and Emma is more female than she can handle, so in her mind, the two just don’t mix. Poor, poor, Charles.

It is the elder Madame Bovary that declares novels to be anti-religious (148). And, when Emma has thoughts of her past life after she reads her father’s letter, she admits that she was full of illusions during that time. I don’t want to come off as a atheist, but I can’t help but sniff out the irony. Books are full of illusions but religion isn’t? When Hippolyte’s gangrenous foot reaches a life-threatening point he is visited by a priest who condemns him to death but consoles not Hippolyte but himself with his religion. “declaring, however, that he should rejoice in it, since it was the Lord’s will, and lose no time taking advantage of this occasion to become reconciled with heaven” (211). Everyone in town convinced this poor wretch to have the surgery, but once it went wrong, no one was willing to share blame. Instead they used the illusion of God to give reason for such a horrible event.

    -> When Emma has a religious experience it is obvious there is a clear connection to her feelings and her past feelings created by novels. She found the same extreme love represented in Christianity that she had been obsessed with that was inspired by her novels. On page 250, she talks about her pride being soothed by Christian humility. I found this sentiment extremely fascinating, and I almost gave her credit for such insight. By directly on the next page, Emma becomes bored with religious literature, expecting to find some self-confirmation but failing from lack of patience. Moreover, the christian ideal only plays into her conviction of martyrdom.