A quest is a tale that celebrates how one can
cleverly and resolutely rise
superior to all
opposition. Yet as fresh prospectives on
history now suggest, in this
search for
freedom and order, the masculine craving
for adventure, demanded
restrictions upon
women, forcing her into deeper
confinement, even within her
limited
province. Thus the rights of a man are
separated by the expectancies of a
woman. Each subsequent story deals with a search
for truth that is hidden by the
facades of social
convention. This search is often
hampered by the conventions
that are part of
the outside and inside domain.
For a
female's quest is best
displayed in the
sphere of domestic life, which drastically diminishes her diversity of
action, compared
to men who are expected to live public, successful lives.
The Homeric journey for males is a physical
adventure in the external world.
Odysseus is a man
who pursues his objective against all opposition. He absolutely
refuses to give
in, whatever happens to him en route for
home. Constantly, he
reinforces the
principle that will guide him throughout his struggles:
"For if some god batters me
far
out on the wine-blue water, I will
endure it,
keeping a stubborn spirit inside of me,
for already I have suffered much
and
done much hard work..." (The
Odyssey 9. 12-16)
So the hero of
The Odyssey displays the manifold ability to overcome beings of all
kinds, one after
the other. Always he comes to fore as
the master, and by his
extraordinary
greatness, leaves all others behind
him. From Odysseus, the readers
can learn to
conquer life. But there is an issue of
uncertainty within the Greek-value
system, for it places far greater emphasis upon
successful performances in the
external world
than of inner consciousness of right and wrong.
The outside domain
thrusts the hero
into countless situations that are difficult to endure. But Odysseus
"rich in
ingenious ideas" and even richer
"in devices to gain end" (9. 53-55) realizes
that he is no
longer free, but must be eminently
tactful when necessary. The male
journey is a
struggle wholly different than the internal world, and the Odysseus learns
to respond
flexibly if he is going to survive.
In contrast to the male quest of combat, is a women's voyage of domesticity.
Virginia Woolf
discusses a world where women have been denied external
opportunities and
consequently become internal. For if it
was indeed possible for all
women to
obtain A Room of One's Own, they too, would have the opportunity for
cultured,
artistic, talent.
"For women have sat indoors,
all these million of years...for
this creative
power differs greatly from the
creative power
of men. And one must conclude that it would be
a thousand pities if it were
hindered or wasted....
for there is nothing to take its
place (87).
All of her life,
Woolf struggles with this sadness that threatens to overwhelm and
annihilate her. In many ways, her thoughts are an attempt to challenge the
unearned
privileges of men who are permitted to explore the outside world.
Moreover, in contrast to the world of nature, is
another symbol of domesticity in the
cloistered and
confined home for Louise Mallard. In her own room, she looks
through the open
window. Mrs. Mallard indeed has what
Woolf stresses is so
important, yet it is only a temporary and eventually
insufficient refuge. She leaves it
as she must, to rejoin her sister downstairs, and in
unlocking the door, she
paradoxically
confines herself to the prison of her own home.
Now death is her only
salvation. Instead of
"soaring free like the birds" (The Story of An Hour 31), Louise
escapes the only
way open to her. But this women, similar
to so many of her time, is
an atypical
heroine, and her adventures, are contrary to the typical male heroic.
Consequently,
this era of repressive spirit
provided material for female
authors to
discuss the anger that has been sealed off by men. By the end of the 18th
century, the novel came to be seen as a powerful
educational tool for young women.
Woven into the
narrative of Virginia Woolf's internal experiences are the threads of
her comments on a
women's external capabilities. "I
thought about how unpleasant
it is to be
locked out, and I thought about how worse it is worse perhaps to be locked
in (A Room of
One's Own 25). In this crucial
passage, Woolf emphasizes her
prescription for
change: she prophecies that although men are the sources of power
in society, they are extremely threatened by the
emergence of female writers in their
disciplines, for
only then will
the truth surface. She looks forward to
the golden age when women will
have what "...so long has been denied to them -
leisure and money, and a room to
themselves"
(27). Moreover, Woolf praises and
admires Jane Austen, for her gift
of writing and
her circumstances match eachother completely.
But in particularly, if
Jane Austen
suffered in any way, Woolf suggests that
"...it was the narrowness of
life that was
imposed upon her. It was impossible for
a women to go about alone...
What genius, what
integrity it mush have required in face of all that criticism, in the
midst of that
purely patriarchal society, to hold fast
to the thing as she saw it without
shrinking"(75). Jane did endure and shattered all the
criticism that undermined her
writing. She looked at her judges and laughed at
them, and continued to write.
Austen understood
that it is only in the novel
"...in which the greatest powers of the
mind
are displayed, in which the most thorough
knowledge
of human nature, the happiest delineation
of its varieties,
the liveliest effusions of wit and humor,
are conveyed to the
world in the best chosen language"
(Northanger Abbey 502).
So although the
preceding stories may be a battlecry,
there is a great deal of
disguised
autobiography of the author's own experiences in the internal realm.
Behind their
protective masks of irony, Austen and
Woolf are attempting to create a
spirit into the
novel by altering the established values of what it means to be a
woman in
patriarchal society. Their first source
are their stories as outsiders,
females who have
been taught from birth that women must struggle for their role as
outsiders. Their final source, one that has shaped
future generations, is to
controvert the
social myths embedded among society , and to escape the life in a
marginal province
by writing literature and letting the truth be known.
These stories,
like all good stories, are more than just sharing an
experience. Each one touches the audience, creating tiny
epiphanies for the reader.
The Odyssey, A Room Of One's Own, and Northanger Abbey are novels of
education. Their classrooms are locales where the
characters, who are the
inexperienced and
easily misled, are put through the test
of self-definition and
realization. Yet in some unspecified way, a women's segregation was presumed to
compensate for a
man's expanding universes in the outside world.
Thus the rights of
a man are
separated by the expectancies of a women.
A female's quest is best
displayed in the
sphere of domestic life, which drastically
diminishes her diversity of
action, compared
to men who were expected to live public, successful lives. Hence
the real
struggle, the most intensive of
adventures, is to tear the guise of
alien.
Thus we may learn
a fresh respect for courage and why so much is necessary. Only
then can we
appreciate how gallant, how witty and yet how compassionate that
quest was.
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