Thoughts: Salomé and Kate Chopin

Thoughts on Salome in relation to the New Woman

Herod: The moon has a strange look tonight. Has she not a strange look? She is like a mad woman who is seeking everywhere for lovers. She is naked too. She is quite naked. The clouds are seeking to clothe her nakedness, but she will not let them. She shows herself naked in the sky. She reels through the clouds like a drunken woman…I am sure she is looking for lovers. Does she not reel like a drunken woman? She is like a mad woman, is she not? (Wilde 212)

 When I first read this passage, I was immediately reminded of Kate Chopin’s Emancipation: A Life Fable and our class discussions about the New Woman. I drew a parallel between the symbol of the animal for the New Woman used in Emancipation and the symbol of the moon as the New Woman in Salomé. Herod describes the moon, a female, as “naked,” (yet not allowing herself to be covered) “seeking everywhere for lovers,” and “[reeling] like a drunken woman.” As we discussed this week in class, the “freed” woman, the woman who has been let out of the cage so to speak, is extremely excited and vulnerable and prone to making mistakes with her newfound freedom. Herod’s passage (above) seems to convey a similar idea. The naked woman is an image of vulnerability, and yet Herod states that “the clouds are seeking to clothe her nakedness, but she will not let them.” This relates to our discussions about the way in which society often looked down upon the New Woman and poked fun at her in order to diminish her power or control. The New Woman, like the moon in Salomé, refuses to be stifled, or in some cases, reuses to be protected from the dangerous and unforgiving society she faces, for to close the equality gap, the woman must be able to find her independent niche in real society. Additionally, I interpreted Herod’s assertion that the moon is “seeking everywhere for lovers” as the way that the New Woman, or the animal in Emancipation, frantically seeks/pursues what she desires without the inhibitions of the status of women at the time. Lastly, I saw the drunken woman or the mad woman as very similar to the freed animal in Emancipation—Kate Chopin describes the animal by saying, “on he rushes, in his mad flight, heedless that he is wounding and tearing his sleek sides – seeing, smelling, touching of all things; even stopping to put his lips to the noxious pool, thinking it may be sweet” (Chopin 307). The image of the drunken woman evokes the sense that she doesn’t quite know what she is doing, that she does not quite know how to act properly, just like the freed animal that is so excited and eager that it makes mistakes and appears foolish.

Personally, I found the New Woman, Herod’s description of the moon, and Chopin’s animal to share a lot in common. They are vulnerable as they navigate through new social territory and experiment with their roles, yet embrace the hardships that accompany the territory because they are eager for social progress.

 

-SM

Salome Images

Salome in the 19th Century: The Femme Fatale Stereotype

Ella Ferris Pell

Gustav Klimt

Henri Regnault

Juana Romani

   

Gustave Moreau (2)

  

Aubrey Beardsley (illustrations to Wilde’s Salomé)

Franz von Stuck

Edouard Toudouze

Compare the hypersexualized 19th-century Salomes to the theme in the 16th century:

Caravaggio

Andrea Solaro

Emotional And Modern Significance of “The Buddhist Priest’s Wife”

I initially intended to respond to this week’s readings about “The New Woman” through the lens of Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morals”. Nietzsche describes man’s fundamental envy for women’s ability to create (through reproduction) as motivation for man’s creation of art. In this 1887 polemic he indirectly addresses the women’s movement (in Douglas Smith’s Introduction “Political feminism is denounced as a life-denying form of the ascetic ideal” (xxix). “Central to this debate” (debate being Nietzsche’s place in feminism) “is the relationship between Nietzsche’s figure of truth as woman and his denial of the existence of truth—does this double move free women from fixed and essentialist definitions of identity, or simply reinforce already entrenched stereotypes about feminine fickleness and unreliability?” (xxix)). If subconscious fears and desires surrounding creation underwrote debates on the woman’s role and rights (an argument Showalter seems to support), then female novelists such as Kate Chopin and Olive Schreiner, who used art to shape political action, may have cut to the heart of creation-driven anxieties. Did the creative form serve as an effective protest tool because it demonstrated female parity in both form and function?

I put this line of inquiry on hold, because our in-class analysis of the late nineteenth century British female novelist’s role in the women’s movement focused more on the emotional power of their work than their philosophical consequences. My affective response to the readings, particularly “The Buddhist Priest’s Wife,” surprised me. As I returned after class to the apartment I share with my loving and supportive partner, preparing to dive back into my medical school applications, I thought of how much easier it would have been for these women to simply “stay in the cage,” and how different my personal and intellectual life might be if they had. With a gender equity landscape shaped by events like Sheryl Sandberg’s recent “Lean In” movement and the Supreme Court’s debate on the legality of gay marriage, it is easy to forget the men and women of the past whose passion for progress made modern marriage expectations (and so much more) possible. Olive Schreiner’s protagonist in “The Buddhist Priest’s Wife” is so intelligent, curious, and compassionate—how could she not be rewarded with an equally wonderful life partner? The story is heartbreaking in the way it subtly builds its emotional stakes. The deer metaphor adds to the reader’s understanding of the female protagonist’s immense vulnerability, but also makes a powerful argument for the equality of men and women (both must be treated with kindness, as their need for love is equally felt). This parity is immediately undercut with the revelation that in this society a woman, even a progressive, smoking woman, cannot openly seek the love she wants (which is itself starkly, succinctly contrasted with the male protagonist’s literal “seeking out” of his new wife in America). Internal limitations are revealed as more powerful than social forces in keeping the late nineteenth century woman from her happiness. The combination of characterization and metaphor created my sense of identification with the young woman and thus my immense sorrow at her situation. I’d like to look into the responses of Schreiner’s contemporaries, and whether they felt similarly moved or expected others to be.

As part of the Modern Thought and Literature program, I am predisposed to seek out parallels in present and past art/culture, in hopes that history may inform modern life. The New Woman may have been portrayed as a caricature, defined in popular media by cigarette smoking and pant-skirts rather than by their hopes and values. Leaders such as Schreiner emphasized that their movement for equal partnership was not about these superficial changes, and need not come at the cost of love, masculinity, or marriage. Gay marriage advocates often make similar arguments emphasizing equality and shared values over aggression, and may attempt to mediate or deflect from gay stereotypes. I wonder whether strategies, such as the emotional, artistic approach, that were effective in promoting women’s rights could be effective today—and if they have been employed but in a modern cultural context of television, movies, and plays more than literature. I am also taking a one-unit course on why feminism is relevant in the world today, and I think the slice of history we see through “The Buddhist Priest’s Wife” so beautifully captures both the specific challenges women faced in the past and how the emotional stakes are still resonant today.

-MW