http://web.archive.org/web/20061028014102/http://www.robinmckinley.com/Essays/Newbery1985.html)). My entire life my appetite has always been for fiction that has an active heroine who gets busy making her life happen, instead of waiting around at home for life to come knocking on her door. I feel just as Amanda does and echo her sentiment: “If isn't about a woman, I don't want to read it.” So even though The Lamplighter was written in the 1850s and we are living in 2009, there is much to admire about Cummins work and indeed, we are indebted to women writers like her. Thanks to them there are many more novels about “girls who do things” and the things we do today are even more diverse and varied than in 1850.
First of all, let me talk a little bit about Robin McKinley and why I admire her writing. She writes fantasy novels that feature strong female protagonists. I am not sure which one of the five girls in my family first discovered her, but we quickly shared all her novels amongst ourselves and literally ate them up. My favorite is The Blue Sword. A romance in the true literary sense, it is the adventure story of a social misfit who discovers that she has a magical gift and saves her people from annihilation. McKinley borrows heavily from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and sets her story in a familiar British colonial landscape. Her writing is fresh and engaging, her heroine is flawed and real, and the adventure story is one that girls and boys alike can relish. One of my sisters loves McKinley's heroines so much that she has even named one of her daughters after her (Aerin). The Blue Sword is a book I read again and again—just for the thrill of seeing a girl have all the adventures typically ascribed to her male counterpart. McKinley talks about her writing in this speech when she got the Newbery medal and refers to Tolkien's one fully developed female character, Eowyn. Let's pause here and revisit this character as portrayed in the cartoon version—just to refresh our minds about what a girl who does things looks like.
It is because of authors like Maria Susanna Cummins that we now have contemporary fiction like McKinley's that features these strong female protagonists. The girl power of the nineteenth century is the mother of the girl power in the twenty-first century.
We see this girl power clearly in Gerty. She is a strong and resourceful middle class girl who saves herself, a marked shift from the seduction narratives of the eighteenth century that featured passive and easily seduced maidens. The contrast between Gerty and Eliza Wharton in The Coquette is striking. When a man like General Sanford, Ben Bruce, tries to entice Gerty into a life of indolence and wastefulness, she gives him the cold shoulder and eventually drives him off by her strength of character and words. If Eliza Wharton had been able to do that, there would be no tragic ending. Bravo for Gerty, the girl who does things! I do recognize that she must be helped and mentored along this journey of self actualization, but once she is on the path, it is her choice to continue that makes it all happen. Uncle True picks her up out of the gutter, but she first puts herself into the position of being noticed. Her physical effort to embrace the light he carries and escape the dark represented by Nan Grant starts Gerty's journey.
Gerty then makes many more choices that take her through trials and tribulations that make her into the independent and empowered woman we see at the novel's conclusion. These choices I see falling into four main categories: 1. education; 2. domesticity; 3. religion; 4. self-control and identity. Education first of all provides Gerty not only with a career, but it also teaches her self control and focus. Her intellectual gifts bring her satisfaction and independence. When she is given the command by Mr. Graham to travel with them, she instead chooses her own course: to work in the school as an assistant teacher and to care for Mrs. Sullivan and Mr. Cooper. She says, “I believe it to be my duty, and am therefore willing to sacrifice my own comfort” (146). This education also empowers Gerty to give her financial and familial independence when many young women orphans of her time and social standing would have had little other careers open to them. Secondly, Gerty chooses domesticity. She learns homemaking skills from Mrs. Sullivan and then creates a home space for herself and Uncle True. Knowing how to run a home and care for people are valuable skills and important for a woman on the marriage market, but also allows Gerty to create a family of her own choosing. This family eventually includes her childhood friend Willie, now a grown man, her recovered father, and new stepmother/mentor, Emily. Thirdly, Gerty chooses to create a personal relationship with God after receiving instructions from Emily Graham. She is empowered by this relationship when she suffers terrible personal losses. The narrator tells us that, “In many a time of trouble did she come to God for help; in many an hour of bitter sorrow did she from the same source seek comfort and, when her strength and heart failed her, God became the strength of her heart” (41). And finally, Gerty is able to master her temper and submit to circumstances. Every time she does, situations favor her and she comes off the winner. Time and again she puts up with insults and bad treatment, but eventually her Christian patience rewards her with the marriage and financial situation she so deserves. The novel ends with Gerty and Willie watching the lamps lit by God (the stars) and all former enemies are now her friends.
So while our lives in 2009 are different from Gerty's in the 1850s, there is much to learn about power and choice. We can thank Cummins and McKinley alike for inspiring us all to be girls who do things.
I don't even remember saying the thing about only wanting to read about women, but I'll own it since it's what I think and certainly sounds like something I would say! And I'm with you: I love reading novels featuring heroines with whom I identify-- the girls who like to get things done! I was obsessed with Nancy Drew as a kid, and I'll still watch Charmed reruns (a guilty pleasure)on TNT or Gilmore Girls on ABC Family because I love with the powerful, female characters. Thanks to authors like Cummins and other authors of Baym's "women's fiction," the image of the strong woman has evolved into a solid part of our cultural narrative. We identify with the characters, so we read the novels. And because we read the novels, we want to be more and more like the characters every day.
ReplyDeleteI like thinking of it as "girl power," though, especially as I keep thinking of developing a girl's studies/american lit. syllabus. I've been doing some more research of girl's studies as an academic discipline and found this great recourse from the U of AZ: http://www.creativephotography.org/education/educatorsGuides/girlculturefacultyguide/index.html. Very cool.
I agree that Gerty's demonstrates strength through submission to duty, but I wonder how your view of her as a woman who does things (a "useful" woman in 19th-century terms) holds up when you compare her narrative to the men's narratives conveyed at the end of the novel? What is the relationship between Gertrude's, Willie's, and Philip's stories? What conclusions can we draw about gendered narratives of development in the nineteenth century?
ReplyDeleteI remember you saying it, Amanda!
I just found your post when I was searching for that essay by Robin McKinley, which I read back in college. Like your story, she's a family favorite that I reread regularly and keep loaning to friends when I try to explain something key about myself.
ReplyDeleteIt's always lovely finding other like-minded people out there reading for similar reasons... I realized one day shortly after reading McKinley's essay for the first time that very few of my books had male main protagonists and (a circumstance which might be related) very few had male authors. It wasn't even a conscious choice, but as you say, that was the appetite of my life, and I can easily think of nineteenth century heroines that fit easily in that mold of "girls who do things."
Sometimes I enjoy reading these older novels even more because these girls had to have much stronger core identities to go out and do the things we take for granted too often.
At any rate, I've enjoyed reading this post and I'm going to come back and read more. Thanks for writing it!