New Women

Posted on April 15, 2015 by bnichol2

The character of Sally in The Berlin Stories helped me to gain a better understanding of Modernism’s New Woman. As I was reading I began to see the essence of Sally in several of the female characters in modernist literature. I thought of Sally Seton from Mrs. Dalloway, Daisy Buchanan from the The Great Gatsby, Kitty Baldry from The Return of the Soldier, Lily from The House of Mirth, Lady Brett Ashley from The Sun also Rises, Petronella from “Till September Petronella.” (Although not within the modernist time frame, I also thought of Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s because of the parallels in the relationship between Holly and the narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the relationship between Sally and Chris.)

Notwithstanding the individuality of these women, to varying degrees they share very similar characteristics and personality traits. They are sexaully liberated and are very aware of the power of their bodies to their male counterparts and even to themselves. They are explicit in their desires. They are outspoken. They are at times selfish. Their personalities are sometimes dramatic and purposely exaggerated as if they constantly have to perform to an audience. They are also clever and skilled at manipulation if not checked by other characters. One thing that is important to note is that they are also all seemingly white.

Is Emma Lou a New Woman? Are there Black female characters in modernist literature that are New Women? We have discussed in class the supposed responsibility put upon Black writers to be representative of their race. There were damaging stereotypes that plagued Black women at the time. These writers must “uplift” the race. Does that mean not including women characters that share the characteristics of New Woman? I think Emma Lou is a type of New Woman.

On the “New Woman” of the Modernist Era

Posted on February 26, 2015 by ogonzale

From Marianne DeKoven, “Modernism and Gender”:

Shifts in gender relations at the turn of the century were a key factor in the emergence of Modernism. The period from 1880 to 1920, within which Modernism emerged and rose to preeminence as the dominant art form in the West (it remained dominant until the end of World War II), was also the heyday of the first wave of feminism, consolidated in the woman suffrage movement. The protagonist of this movement was known as the “New Woman”: independent, educated, (relatively) sexually liberated, oriented more toward productive life in the public sphere than toward reproductive life in the home.

The New Woman was dedicated, as Virginia Woolf passionately explained in “Professions for Women,” to the murder of the “Angel of the House,” the notorious poetic idealization of Victorian nurturant-domestic femininity. This New Woman inspired a great deal of ambivalent modernist characterization, from Hardy’s Sue Bridehead and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler to Chopin’s Edna Pontellier and Woolf’s Lily Briscoe. (174)

Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918) is an interesting text to read alongside the notion of the New Woman.

How so?

Excerpts from Lt. Col. Charles Myers, MD, “Contributions to the Study of Shell Shock” (1916)

Posted on February 26, 2015 by ogonzale

(Part IV.)The Lancet. 9 Sept. 1916. 461–467.

“The usual direct result of the shock [from a shell or bomb explosion] is ‘loss of consciousness’ or ‘loss of memory’ ” (461).

“Such disorders … are not immediately attributable to violence, gas poisoning, or other physical causes. They are the result of a functional inhibition, which is usually traceable to intense fear or horror, but which may … occasionally arise in circumstances where consciousness has been so instantaneously lost that the emotional effects of the shock have not been actually experienced by the patient” (466).