Romance, Sex, and Family in Literary Works - Essay Example

Romance, Sex and Family in Three Literary Works Introduction Romance is not necessarily inclusive of a physical relationship, nor even an exchange ofaffections between two people. Romance can consist of an admiration from afar; an idea of another who, because one person may not know the most personal habits and intimate idiosyncrasies of the other’s nature, then there is little to disillusion thoughts of that person’s largess in the mind of the admirer. In three selected works, The Birth of Venus, by Sarah Dunant; Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood; and Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders; stories are told from the perspective of the author’s female protagonist, and define romance in a way consistent with the perspective of the main characters. Romance is for each character a state of mind and emotion that dominates the women’s affections toward another person; even one of the same sex. In each of the works, the protagonist’s perception of romance is subject to the views formed by each woman based on her own experiences. It is secondarily formed by the environments that each woman lives in. The notion of romance changes on the whole as the protagonists move from adolescence, into young womanhood, and into maturity. This essay examines the notion of romance, and the experiences of the protagonists in each of the works as their perceptions on romance evolve with their own sexual and family experiences. Grace In Atwood’s book, Alias Grace, the story opens with a lengthy poem/song about the young servant girl, Grace Marks, who, along with her lover, James McDermott, murdered their employer, Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper/lover, Nancy Montgomery (pp. 11-15). It is a poem/song that is typical of the day, when tepid and sordid and often gruesome gossip was turned into poetic sing-song, which would survive in infamy down through the ages. Much like the poem about Lizzy Borden: Lizzy Borden took an ax Gave her mother 40 whacks When she saw what she had done, She gave her father 41. These kinds of poems or sing-songs become obscure as to their origins, but the stories with which they were born out of are pieces of American history. This is the case with Lizzy Borden, and this is the premise upon which Atwood built her story of Grace Marks. The story that is about to unfold is told in the poem: “Now Grace, she loved good Thomas Kinnear, McDermott he loved Grace, And ‘twas these loves as I do tell That brought them to disgrace. For Atwood’s story, the experience of unrequited love that leads to the double murder of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery at the hands of Grace and McDermott relies upon the reader’s interest in the tabloid-like story that surrounds the arrest and trials of Grace Marks and James McDermott. However, the attention, like the poem, is more focused on Grace because any time a woman commits murder – for whatever reason – there is a much better story to follow since it is so rare – at least for the period of the story – that women committed murder. In fact, Grace becomes such a novelty that she is the center of attention for the prison warden’s wife’s tea guests; whether or not she is in the room. In other words, the notorious Grace is food for fodder, even, in some sordid sort of way, envy for the warden’s wife and her guests. After all, Grace is a woman who is experienced with men in a way that they will never be – but wouldn’t they like to be free enough in mind and body to have those experiences; albeit sans the murder conviction. By the time Grace Marks is working for Mr. Thomas Kinnear, she has experienced little true kindness in her life. To the extent that she has, she vividly recalls those experiences; the experience of the landlady who once gave her family a break, shared her goat’s milk with them and baked bread for the family. By the end of the story, Grace has experienced the kindness – the ultimate kindness – of a man who came to care about Grace as a human being, and who wanted to see justice served. This was a life altering kindness, for which the character would be forever in debt to the man for; but the man had no such expectation of Grace. This was, in the end, the lesson learned. Alessandra In Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus, Dunant’s protagonist, Alessandra, is from a privileged family and decisions about “romance” are made for her. Meaning, of course, that her father has the right to choose her husband that Alessandra’s duty is to be accepting of her father’s choice and make the best of it. This is exactly what Allesandra does, only to discover that her husband is in fact less interested in her or any woman for that matter; and is much more interested in Alessandra’s brother, Tomaso. Alessandra is perhaps the last person to learn of the relationship between her husband and her brother, and her disappointment is that her marriage will not fulfill her physically or emotionally as a woman. Alessandra’s husband, Cristoforo Langella, is her freedom, her way out of her mother’s house, and it is not until after she agrees to marry him, on their wedding night in fact, that Alessandra makes sense of many things that had been curious to her, making no sense. With Cristoforo’s confession as to his sexual preference and his interest in Alessandra’s brother, it all falls into place and makes perfect sense. Cristoforo advises Alessandra that so long as she gives him an heir, and the sooner that be done, the sooner they can go discreetly about their own pleasures and benefit from the arrangement with one another to both their satisfaction. Good as the arrangement might sound and seem to Cristoforo, Alessandra is nonetheless disappointed. She did have romantic notions about him, and was very disappointed to learn that he was more interested in men than women. She is also very resentful of her brother’s manipulations of her, and dislikes that it is he who is the object of her husband’s affection and desire. Thus, Alessandra turns her thoughts away from what cannot be hers, her husband’s genuine affection and love, and focuses her fantasies on the painter she had met earlier, while living at home. Anna Geraldine Brooks’ heroine, Anna, is a woman who has suffered physically and emotionally before being married. Marriage meant being saved from the cruelty of her father’s house. Anna was satisfied with her life and especially with motherhood, and when her husband died, Anna took in the tailor-border, who became her lover. With him, Anna found romance, even love, but it was not long before the plague that arrived on imported materials used by the tailor claimed not only his life, but the life of many other villagers. Once again, Anna’s life changed and her affections took on a different sort of romance. The Anna formed a bond of affection, trust, admiration and love with the minister’s wife, Elinor. When Elinor, too, is lost to the plague, Anna transfers her affection and love for Elinor to Elinor’s husband, the Viccar. Comparing the Three Works Each of these works has a main theme of romance, from the perspective of the protagonists, who also have experienced complex family and social dynamics that have a profound impact on their respective lives. Year of Wonders protagonist, Anna, suffered emotional and physical abuse at the hands of her drunken father (Brooks, p. 209). The character shares this in common with Grace Marks, Margaret Atwood’s protagonist in Alias Grace (p. 22-23). In The Birth of Venus, Alessandra differs from her counterparts in that she is of a wealthy family, but shares with them the emotional suffering, only in her case, the source of Alessandra’s suffering is her mother and her brother (Dunant, p. 24-25). These family dynamics helped fashion the perspectives of each of these women as they moved from adolescence into young womanhood. These family and early life experiences serve as the basis for each character’s individual perspective on romance, sex, and life in general. Other significant social themes help to form the characters’ perspectives. Just as in Brooks Year of Wonders, when the villagers, who might have avoided spreading the plague by burning imported materials used to make their clothing, but instead chose to disregard the infected material until it was too late and the plague had spread; it was about greed, and the lack of susceptibility that accompanies greed during those moments (pp. 47-49). So, too, was the spread of greed and gossip in Alias Grace (pp. 19-36), and the spread of religious panic and fear amongst the obsessive masses in The Birth of Venus when, for instance, there is a move to ban “offensive” works of art (Dunant, p. 211). Each of the three stories share a common thread in their depiction of the masses being mislead and misguided by persons of authority and in whom the people place their trust. When the masses surrender their good judgment and sense of right and wrong to the will of the elite, they are ultimately led astray in their thinking and suffer for it. The theme of the young women subordinating their wills to that of persons of authority is a dominant one. Young Alessandra’s story takes place in the sixteenth century, while Brooks’ and Atwood’s story take place in the eighteenth century. It serves to show that the span of 200 years did little to advance the power of women in their own lives; and that were continued to subordinate their will and rights to the men in their lives. Certainly these men did not always make choices on behalf of these women that were in the best interest of the women. Each of the three works set up for the reader the distinguishing factors between affection, sex, lust, and love. The characters move in and out of these experiences, within the expectations of their societies and the expectations often become traps for the women who succumb to their desires and who are held to a higher standard of accountability than are the men with whom they satisfy their desires (Brooks, pp. 92-93) (Atwood, p. 223) (Dunant, p. 153). There are other similarities between the books; the imprisoned population of Brooks little village whose residents allow themselves to become isolated martyrs to contain the plague – perhaps even causing unnecessary deaths amongst themselves (Brooks, p. 280). In Dunant’s story, it was the terror which seized Florence in the form of change in social norms and acceptance (Dunant, p. 181). Grace, in Atwood’s story, is incarcerated from the outset of the story, and her prison has taken the form of the institution as opposed to that of Alessandra’s being, first, her mother’s house, and Anna’s, her father’s house to her husband’s house, ultimately subordinating her will to that of the parish vicar. Romance, for Alessandra, is the young painter who comes to live with them (p. 1-10). First, the romantic notion of the painter have to do with the unknown about him; the mystery of him as a man, not a family member who has come to live in their home; and second, for Alessandra, the mystery of his art (p. 11). There is a parallel to Alessandra’s early notions of romance for Grace Marks, Atwood’s protagonist. That is when Grace is living in the home of Thomas Kinnear and becomes curious about Thomas when she has an opportunity to go into his room and serve his breakfast tray and to view the artwork on his walls. The works are tasteful nudes, which cause Grace to be more curious about Thomas Kinnear than the artwork (p. 222). Each woman in the three stories are let down by men they should have been able to trust. The breach of trust figures prominently into their disillusionment with romance, and works into their more mature outlook on relationships between men and women. For Grace, it was when she was a child and suffered the abuse of her drunken father; Alessandra, when she married only to find that her husband had a lover – Alessandra’s own brother. And Anna Firth, when, in an effort to reconnect with Elinor, who had died from the plague, Anna allowed Elinor’s distraught husband, the Vicar, to sleep with her; only to find that the Vicar’s ideas of relations between men and were women were embroiled with his irrational religious fundamentalism that had probably caused his own wife to stay in the village where she contracted the plague and died. Each of these failed relationships helped these women to the mature phases of their lives; even though their lives continued to be subordinated to the prevailing authorities of the societies in which the women lived. Conclusion The three stories reveal that women were perceived by the male societies in which they lived as objects, and not individual people. The women in the three stories had no control over their destinies, or even over their own bodies. Decisions concerning life and death were made for these women by men, who acted often times without the best interest of the women in mind. At the end of each story, there is resolution for the women, which leads them to find peace in their lives. This peace, too, is facilitated by the figures of authority in their societies, who are in fact men. By the time each woman finds peace in her life, she has learned it has to come from within herself, a reconciliation of her own life. For Grace Marks, it comes after having been exonerated with the help of the diligent efforts of Dr. Jordan, who helps Grace recover her memories of the events that occurred for which she had been imprisoned. For Anna Firth, peace comes from fleeing that which she was adhered to all her life; the faith that bound her to her community. In the end, she found something much greater than the authority of the village elders and the Vicar; the life of a child, who, when she rescued her from the hand of death at birth, would become her own. Anna fled to the far corners of the earth, and although she was not able to find a society where women did not subordinate themselves to the will of men; she nonetheless found one where she could, as a woman, become part of society where she could find amongst women the same bonds that she had formed with Elinor. For Alessandra, it is the convent where she, like Anna Firth, found a place in where women are bonded by their subordination and their likeness to one another. Grace Marks, in her closing comments sums up the notion of romance that for each of these women was dispelled with the events in their life, saying, “I have been married to Mr. Walsh for almost a year now, and although it is not what most girls imagine when young, that is perhaps for the better, as at least the two of us know what sort of bargain we have got into (Atwood, p. 453).” It is, then, perhaps the disillusions of young romance that helps women forge their way to their true destinies; motherhood and the bond that exists between women. Each of the characters in these stories came to their own destinies, into their maturity, having outgrown the illusions of romance and having found the meaning of love. They learned that love is not necessarily about sex and lust, but is about sharing and that it is not necessarily that which is exchanged just between a man and woman; that it can be shared between two men and it can be the bond between women. Atwood, Margaret (1996), Alias Grace, Doubleday Publishing Group, New York, New York. Brooks, Geraldine (2001), Year of Wonders, Penguin Books, New York, New York. Dunant, Sarash (2003), The Birth of Venus, Random House Publishing Group, New York, New York. Read More