Prue, My Heart is Broken, and feminism

Prue is treated as less than a mistress by Gordon - he lives with Prue when his wife leaves him, and freely messes around with other females although he is living with Prue. Despite this terrible treatment, Prue ostensibly doesn’t get offended by Gordon’s behavior, but shows her friends that “she doesn’t take herself too seriously” and lives in a likable and light-hearted manner. This side of Prue reveals a subtle contradiction to another side of her that resulted in strange behavior at the end of the story, where she is depicted as completely indifferent to her stealing. “…she doesn’t seem to be under a compulsion. She just takes something, …(and) forgets about it.” Such lukewarm representation of Prue’s personality is totally different from that delivered previously in the story.

Stealing, especially the one taken place without existence of the stolen thing’s owner, should give a sense of dominance to the stealer over the owner. In Prue’s case, the absence of Gordon is due to his improper affair that certainly gives a sense of inferiority to Prue, if not she is his wife. The affair also reflects social oppression and disregard on women. But paradoxically, Prue is rather implicitly despising Gordon’s personality and mental maturity by stealing his things when he is not at home. Thus, Prue’s odd behavior represents a nontrivial rebellion of a socially oppressed woman to the discriminatory society.

 Jeannie experiences a society in which most members have a similar perspective towards gender. Mrs. Thompson, although she herself is a woman, has a fixed idea about how women should act and think. She rebukes Jeannine for her erroneous behavior, and argues that she must not have gone out with such a showy appearance. What’s worse, Mr. Sherman tells Vern, Jeannie’s husband, that “…she’d invented the whole story,” Furthermore, people’s perspective on Vern’s attitude toward his wife is completely different from their perspective on Jeannie’s attitude. Jeannie is demanded to be obedient and restrained – there is common acceptance of a notion that Jeannie is raped because of her lack of self-govern. But when it comes to Vern, his care for Jeannie is considered as undeserved. To Jeannie, Mrs. Thompson says “… He sure is loyal to you,” a notion that emphasizes the value of Gordon’s additional –not fundamental- consideration for his wife. The fact that he gives up two jobs for his wife’s security is highly valued, while the rape is almost wholly attributed to Jeannie.

Going through the society’s disregard toward women, Jeannie also participates in having such tendency. At the end of the conversation, Jeannie accepts that she provided reasons for the rape, and excuses herself by nonsensical words, “If he’d liked me, I wouldn’t have minded… I wouldn’t have gone wandering up the road, making all this fuss.” So Jeannie’s self-respect, or her heart, is horribly broken by discriminative viewpoint of society and her own perspective which feebly concurred with that of society.

Two protagonists from two different stories form an interesting contrast. Prue and Jeannie are similar in the point that both of them ultimately acquiesce in the unreasonable prejudice of the society against women. Mrs. Thompson’s request that Jeannie not say the criminal’s name is found to be not for Jeannie’s psychological health or security – the demand implied that who raped her is not important, since she triggered the rape herself and any men could have conducted the crime. Instead, Mrs. Thompson worries about the men; “…it might have been anyone else, because you had them all on the boil. …let’s hope they can get their minds back on the job.” This extreme discrimination cleverly criticizes the reality. Jeannie does not disagree with such notion, but feels resentment for some unknown reason and ends up crying. Prue’s case is pretty the same; she steals small things for some unknown reason. But interestingly, the narrator somewhat justifies Prue’s behavior: “Prue doesn’t have to be at the shop until ten… she’s not responsible for approving the plans.” Such expression cancels the wrongness of Prue’s odd action – since Gordon misbehaves, Prue doesn’t have to keep from misbehaving. So this nuance successfully indicates the iniquity of gender prejudice.
 

 

 

 

References
1. the bodies of the book <Prue> and <My Heart is Broken>
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_literary_criticism
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-wave_feminism
4. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/11/

What Optimism means to Anton Chekhov: The Student

 At my first glance, Anton Chekhov’s <The Student> was merely a sole enlightenment of a clerical student through one short experience. Ivan’s narrative voice that concluded an epiphany from his own interpretation of the situation seemed a lot hasty to me. Highly pessimistic was the historical event that Ivan told the widows in that Peter could not keep his belief against a bad, dreary reality, and a religious theme of the story continually distracted me with no background in such a field.

 But foremost the story is short, and while inspiring complex thoughts to its readers, <The Student> has a clear and concise composition. These features enabled me to ponder over an only subject on which the story focuses: the development of Ivan’s viewpoint on his world.

 Ivan, at the beginning, “did not want to go home.” He hated the “desperate poverty and hunger” of his life, and the future that would not bring about any change. The expression “…the same darkness, the same feeling of oppression” reflects that Ivan had an absolutely pessimistic perspective. However, after he witnessed the widows impressed by the story of Peter, he grasped that truth and beauty of human life had continued without break to this day. Then Ivan sweetly expected contentment in life with youth, health, and vigor. As I thought earlier, it might be considered impetuous that Ivan immediately brought a revelation from his personal interpretation of an experience. Nonetheless, the point is not the validity of his realization, but that he started to consider lofty values of his world. No one would know the true meaning of Vasilisa’s tears, yet Ivan discovered an evident relation between the past and the present by appreciating her reaction. Maybe it was Ivan, rather than Vasilisa, who really quivered when he touched one end.

 True, nothing changed in Ivan’s bad, dreary life. A cruel wind was still blowing, his finger numb, and he to see his mother, barefoot, cleaning the teapot. Therefore some might think that this part lucidly reveals the author’s dark viewpoint. But for Chekhov, it was an effort to convey his optimism to readers. The progressive world view of Anton Chekhov is obvious in his quote: “I say ’…see how bad and dreary your lives are!’ The important thing [is that] they (readers) will most certainly create another and better life for themselves.” Also, at least one thing changed: Ivan’s attitude towards his reality. It could be cold to-morrow, but the matter is how he faces his life with such challenging obstacles. “Everything is in the mind.” The story got even more sanguine when he gradually found his life to be rapturous, wonderful, and full of noble values.

 In the story, Ivan told the widows an event that represents bitterness of an unescapable hardship in reality. But in fact, the real listeners of his story are us the readers. We, if not weep, appreciate the story and contemplate the theme. Then, how exactly should we do so? I strongly believe that Chekhov wanted us to undergo a process similar to that of Ivan’s perspective change. For much of his life Chekhov suffered from the debilitating disease of tuberculosis, and eventually died from it. But he managed to achieve an enormous amount – a large number of short stories, a scientific treatise on prison conditions, and the plays for which he is best known. Thus, Anton Chekhov himself was an epitome of such an eventual progressive viewpoint. And he asks us through his short story – that wouldn’t we quiver if he touches one end.