This depiction of those without the walls, and those within the walls of privilege has been interpreted reductively, seeing Somerville and Ross as writers of the Ascendancy, but these three novels show that this is to simplify their representation of the destiny of women.
So calling S+R 'ascendancy writers' is be reductive and to simplify the way women are treated in their novels?
t is significant that the settings of these tragic-ironic fictions are all rural, whilst being at the same time highly civilized, for the Big House inhabitants, and also rooted in ancient customs, for others.
!!!!
Being rich might make women more attractive as marriage objects, but does by no means ensure a truly supportive loving relationship: on the contrary, both Sarah’s mother, and Sarah herself are the object of resentment on the part of men for the independence that wealth bestows.
even being rich can't always help a woman's situation
it is the more socially privileged women, Susan and to a lesser degree Slaney, who, unlike Maria Quin, have the best chance at some level of self-determination
higher class status helps a woman's agency--but I don't really see this in TRC? All the women seem to have an equally hard time of achieving any sort of autonomy or spiritual growth, even if they're of the highest class
Whilst this growth through suffering (tragedy) and through increased self-knowledge (irony) is a factor in the delicate balance of tragedy and irony which enables some form of spiritual growth for Hugh, Susan, Slaney and Bunbury, but is the doom of the Quin family, Glasgow and his wife, it is at the same time contingent upon the societal expectation that women will maintain psychological strength under disadvantageous social conditions
women can have a sense of spiritual growth, but they do so within the strict confines of the feminine condition in society
“Major Bunbury was reading a newspaper with that air of serving his country that belongs to men when they read papers. No woman can hope to read the Times as though it were a profession; it is a masculine gift, akin to that of dining.” (87)
awesome quote
Slaney’s own intuitive understanding of native Irish mentalities, inscribed in epic mode, is significantly further increased with knowledge gained through suffering, as is the very purpose of tragedy
reminds me of Julia Duffy in TRC, the old spinster living alone on her crumbling farm
the novel ends on Norry hiding her eyes, like the Fates, from catastrophe
connection between the fates and spinsterhood
There is pathos as well as humiliation in the thought that such a thing as a soul can be stunted by the trivialities of personal appearance, and it is a fact not beyond the reach of sympathy that each time Charlotte stood before her glass her ugliness spoke to her of failure, and goaded her to revenge.
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After Martin’s death, Edith continued to write, believing that Martin continued to write with her and putting Martin’s name as co-author.
So similar to Michael Field--didn't one of them die and the other one think she could converse with her spirit and therefore that their writing partnership was still active?
Somerville became the first woman Master of Foxhounds in the world, as M.F.H. of the West Carberry Fox Hounds
Links back to the chapter on fox-hunting and Anglo-Irish sentiment in the Anglo-Irish literature book
Charlotte’s personal tragedy is that the man she loves, who did express love for her, married another, and no-one else has wanted to marry her. This is a social, more than an emotional reality in this period, where marriage is a dynastic and an economic matter, not simply an affective process
!!!
Many of their heroines are strong-minded and forceful, and evoke resentment by being lively and active.
the tragic elements of many of S+R's female characters is that they are "too-much" and are incapable of staying inside the boundaries of a respectable woman's place in society
Typically she does not act, or cannot move, or is under the governance of another
It's harder to identify with a tragic heroine because she is generally incapable of autonomous movement or action--and therefore can't reach self-knowledge?
Morin, Christina. 2008. “Preferring Spinsterhood? Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent, and Ireland”. Eighteenth-Century Ireland (Iris an dá Chultúr). Vol. 23. 36-54.
READ THIS
Jeffreys, Sheila. 1985. The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality1880-1930. London: Pandora Press.
READ THIS
Clarkson, L. A. 1981. “Marriage and Fertility in Nineteenth-Century Ireland”. Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History of Marriage. Ed. R. B. Outhwaite. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 237-55.
READ THIS
Byrne, Anne. 2008. “Single Women in Ireland”. Eds. Rudolph M. Bell and Virginia Yans. Women On Their Own: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Being Single. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 16-39.
READ THIS
Thus the negative spinster stereotype can be seen as a narrative device used by Irish female writers to expose to a strategy used by society as a means both to intimidate women who intend to stray from the confines of the marriage enclosure and to condemn women who fail to accomplish this goal in life.
I'm a little confused as to this final statement--not sure what the author is saying about Irish female authors? Are they exposing a bad tool of society? Or are they condoning it?
The expectation of selflessness fostered by the Madonna ideal reinforces a perception encouraging women to become martyrs willing to sacrifice themselves in various ways for such an ideal.
this article provides an interesting idea about womanhood being likened to the Virgin Mary in Irish culture
However, the negative connotations attaching to the use of the term “spinster” in respect of an unmarried woman do not seem to be transferred in the same way to the term “bachelor” when applied to an unmarried man
of course not--a man's body carries more significance than that of a purely reproductive machine
parasites because they are selfish enough to run away from their predestined childbearing responsibility to family and society
so so so hetero- and chrononormative
her withered appearance with grizzled hair and her bulging muscles due to years of hard work on the farm.
the physical bodies of spinsters are systematically devalued and defeminized due to their "failure" to have children, the one proper purpose for a female body
he Virgin Mother was worshipped as the role model for Irish women.
be a mom but don't have sex
Women’s staying single for too long is seen as a kind of prolongation of adolescence and avoidance of the responsibilities of adulthood
this comes back to the use of the term "old maid"--also reminds me of that lecture on witchy adolescence
However, Beckett’s spinster figure suggests that her social dislocation may rather be connected to a trauma from a time she “spent running from some ominous background” in which “incest is suggested”
Right, because there has to be a place where someone's life went wrong, and that's the reason they don't want to be married to a man and have lots of babies.
‘[tell] your reverend sister to get herself raped,’...‘Ha, she never did. That was her trouble’, Val [Ellie’s husband] said”
gross
There is an anxiety inherent in a woman’s loss of her own identity including her name which will be replaced by that of her husband after marriage.
"coverture" is the term that can be employed here
The societal ideology functions here to encourage (or conform) men and women into families, the purpose of which is to reproduce and support the prevailing social system. Thus, single women who do not make this specific kind of contribution to society are likely to be condemned as people without authenticity.
yes yes yes yes yes
hysterical
also has cool and trippy implications in the historical diagnosis that a woman's uterus had decided to float around her body and cause all sorts of medical and mental issues
ise to a climax
so much sexual language lol
The “revolting nature” of Isabel’s thoughts suggests potential sexual activity in which the housemaid attempts to seduce her father, since Isabel thinks her father as an old man has become “unaccountable” for his behaviour “subject to [old men’s] peculiar physical disturbances”
why are men past baby-making age still seen as capable of sexual activity, while women who may still technically be biologically capable of child-bearing but either are unmarried or have no interest in it are erased of all sexuality??? PATRIARCHYYYYYYY
Somehow this daughter’s selfless devotion is adulterated by a sense of legitimate authority over and possessiveness towards not only her father but also his financial investments.
reminding me of The Real Charlotte
her company was worth cultivating”
fertility implications of this phrase
dried-up,
a phrase that keeps coming up in relation to spinsterhood--look into it
little space for single women,
interesting choice of phrase given the liminality of spinsterhood--is she "given" little space or does she exist within the margins of society, lingering between, outside of, and around perceived notions of femininity--also links back to the temporal liminality of the phrase "old maid"; a spinster exists in-between old age and childhood without ever really belonging in either category
people either dislike or fear them.
So interesting that this author sees spinsters as having the agency taken away from them--it's not that a spinster WANTS to be alone, but that people don't like her enough to want to be near her--what about the spinsters who actively choose to be alone? I'm thinking specifically about Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse, although there are many others
witch,
I read something in another book about the word "witch" in relation to spinsterhood--another case of a "dangerous" woman who is feared and therefore stigmatised by society
serve their parents at home.
stuck in perpetual childhood as well
selfish
Men are so rarely called selfish, I think. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just fired up.
eccentric
eccentricity, while not necessarily a word with negative implications, here translates to "socially deviant", as if fitting in to societal standards for normal behaviour is the only appropriate way of existing
sell-by date”
This kind of grosses me out--like women who are past their years of fertility have "gone bad"? So interesting that the female body is something that has such a specific societal purpose (having loads of babies) that as soon as a woman's body is deemed unfit to give birth, she in effect expires--using the term "expire" both as going bad like fruit and as in dying
or single women, to use a less negatively loaded term
NO! Use the word! It is such a cool word! I understand why people are hesitant to use/reclaim words that may have been used in a derogatory way, but there's such a power in taking the sting out of a word. Also, "spinster" ties single womanhood back to the occupational root of the term; there are so many cool implications for the word--it marks single womanhood as financially independent and capable of "spinning" a whole new understanding of identity, womanhood, and sexuality into being.h
Single women [in fact and fiction] are a threat to family
this argument is used in "From Old Maid to Radical Spinsters", the book edited by Laura Doan on spinsterhood in literature--because spinsters represent an identity that exists outside of the heteronormative family unit, they are dangerous, feared, and more intensely policed
Women on Their Own: Inter-disciplinary Perspectives on Being Single(2008)
read this article by Anne Byrne
do not stay celibate or single by choice but do so under duress
highlighting the unattractiveness of spinsterhood, even to a person who is actively inhabiting that role
On the other hand, the ideologically based sexual repression supported by Irish politics and Catholicism was actually a contributory factor in the patterns of late marriage and permanent celibacy which seemed to “become the norm in Ireland” until the second half of the 20th century
the church/state working against itself
“Fertility, Bodies and Politics: The Irish Case”, Reproductive Health Matters, No. 2 Nov, 53-6;
read this!!
gradual change
but what is the change? it seems to only mention the whole "oldest-son-gets-the-lot" inheritance scheme without saying what it's changing from or to
self-sacrifice
think back to Prof. Laird's paper proposal and the self-sacrificing Irish mother
This paper focuses on a group of female characters who have never been married and whose role within Irish society is, therefore, not defined by marriage or child rearing.
Important to study because of the fraught link between Ireland and motherhood--1937 Constitution and that nasty bit about mothers never having to leave the house
Single women also tend to be forced to adopt a surrogate mothering role as carers, which once again limits women’s scope to pursue the same life or career options as their male counterparts.
This is what Katherine Holden writes about--spinsters in literature often become pseudo-mothers to children without mothers or without particularly good mothers. They're also depicted often as "bad substitute mothers" as a way of helping a children identify with and appreciate their biological parents