Sabbath Witches

There was a popular notion that poetic language is the language of “images” and this conception was accepted by the theorists of Symbolism. “The Summer Solstice” is considered to be a sort of revelation of women empowerment through the use of gothic and barbaric images. In the last part of the story, a reader is introduced to the idea of man’s submission to woman by the image of a “man crawling on the floor like an agonized lizard, his face flat on the floor, as his lips touched her toes.” This act could be considered as a form of worship to a god or to someone whom you see as a powerful and superior being.

The woman, on the other hand, portrays the image of a woman under the power of the Tatarin being a form of witchcraft, as depicted in the story. A reader is then given a hint by a rich description of the ritual of the Tatarin.

“…they covered their heads with their black shawls and began wailing softly, unhumanly-a hushed, animal keening…”

The description of Amada’s husband and lord being silent all along while she was naked and screaming in bed is also a powerful scene in the story.

The writer never mentioned about sexual submission, whipping and women dominating in the bedroom, the reader is only being provided with images.

The emphasis of the independent value of words extended to the creation of “nonsense” language into a new form of creation. The story is able to submit itself as to what Roman Jakobson called “organized violence” in which a writer is able to roughen up an ordinary language into “formed speech.” Instead of merely narrating the events in the story, Joaquin was able to capture the finest and important moments because of his careful use of his language.

“…her hair flung back and her loose hair streaming out of the window-streaming fluid and black in the white night where the huge moon glowed like a sun and the dry air flamed into lightning and the pure heat burned with the immense intense fever of noon…”

And so, somehow, a reader is introduced to such words which deliberately suggest enchantment and a sense of magical realism. The tone of the story is veiled with sexual desires, superiority and fear.

Then came the idea of foregrounding. Dona Lupeng’s characterization in the end becomes a strong central figure in the story so as to draw out the repressed desires of women and they are being released from such repression through men’s ultimate submission.

The transcendental effect, therefore, is achieved following the idea that literature is always metaphorical and symbolic. Though its goal is not to deliberately reveal issues such as feminism, etc, the content is able to stand with the effective elements of the form. After all, the form s always the main focus of Russian Formalism.

Note:

Tatarin- a pagan ritual to the moon led by female priestesses

Source (from my main blog)

Sabbath Witches

Gender and Literature

Attics do not house humans. They are wasted space. Women are considered half monsters — and they are wasted. A woman inhabits the attic; literally and metaphorically, she becomes a madwoman, both as a writer and a character.

The fact is, Nathaniel Hawthorne is male; and men don’t glorify women.

Nathaniel Hawthorne did not directly say that Georgina is a monster. Only by the way she is presented in the story will it then become clear that literature had always been confined to male writers and male characters. Georgina’s birthmark embodies the unforgivable flaws of the female body and her position as a woman. She is not any different from Dr. Frankenstein’s monster; and the only way to kill the female monster is to destroy male literature.

Georgina is portrayed as a passive character overpowered by her own husband, while Aylmer is a man of science who represents knowledge and invention. Georgina is depicted as a woman who will do anything to earn her husband’s love and fulfill her responsibility as a wife. Since a woman’s intellect is not for invention, she is merely placed in the house to practice domesticity. She even told Aylmer, “I know not what may be the cost to both of us to get rid of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself.”

The reader is, thus, introduced to the fact that women are trained by the patriarchal society to become submissive wives and submit to the idea that men are in control — not the ones being controlled. Thus, there is this concept of mastering the “art of pleasing men”. Even when she was about to die, Georgina tried to be the sweet angel that she was expected be. “My poor Aylmer,” she repeated, with a more human tenderness, “you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!”

Given this, the idea of women being selfless, a rather Christian concept, is then highlighted in the story. In literature, it appears to be a norm that the women characters are always the ones who must die and the protagonists must be the males.

Georgina’s birthmark signifies Aylmer’s insecurities. This reminds us of Freud’s castration complex in which the birthmark becomes the figure of a penis in the eyes of Aylmer – and, thus, he wants to remove the birthmark and have the power all to himself. Most male writers never consider writing as an act of women. This is, perhaps, because female authorship would mean female authority. Women, on the other hand, cannot get out of their shell being domesticated beings who, supposedly, have no right to invent and create another world. If a woman shows resistance, she becomes a madwoman in her society. It appears that only the men have the right to be creators.

Georgina becomes Aylmer’s failure because of the birthmark and her death, even when he was confident of his success.

Male writers write only for themselves. Therefore, women writers are the only ones who can write for women. To restate poet and activist Audre Lorde, only the oppressed could understand oppression, not the oppressors. A female writer must get out of the glass coffin or sleep for a thousand years and wait for the prince to kiss her. We’ve been sleeping for more than a thousand years. Perhaps it’s about to time that more women wake up and shake masculine literature.

Source (from my main blog)

Gender and Literature