Women's Social Revolution

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Archives for 10 Nov ’13

The mothers of the world

I didn’t really get to finish everything I wanted to say in my last post. Sure, Dorine is an amazing character, and yes she is my favorite character, but we can’t forget Elmire. Elmire is the wife of Orgon, and another strong female lead. Unlike Dorine, who is the leading voice of reason at the start, Elmire shines during the second half of the play. It’s almost as if she sees Dorine’s failure in convincing Orgon through reason, so she decides to follow a different route. She is obviously well aware of her own existence as a beautiful woman, and what that means in society – a dangerous temptation. She is cunning enough and proud enough to use her ax-like beauty to do what Dorine could not. She seduces Tartuffe in front of her husband in an attempt to show him the truth. Even though she has the intelligence and the evidence, she needs to use more if she wants to get past the societal wall labeled “woman”.
In the end she succeeded in revealing Tartuffe’s true nature, but the credit was not given to her. This really made me think of how mothers work so hard for their family and are just taken for granted without proper appreciation. She, the mother of the house, offered up her body to save her family, and yet all the thunder is given to the prince.

It got me thinking of how patriarchal our society is and brings to mind the ending of Lu Xun’s “Medicine” where the mother of the revolutionary and the mother of the sick child meet. Even though they were complete strangers and one of them had even used the death of the other’s child to save her own, somehow a bond between the two of them formed. They were connected simply from their mutual existence as mothers. It was as if Lu Xun was saying that only mothers could achieve such a kind of togetherness in times of strife and violent revolution.

Both cases also really call my attention towards the fact that in both works, the women do not involve themselves in the violence or greed that men seem to engage in. Elmire acts with the family’s safety in mind while Orgon acts out of vanity. The mother acts to save her son while the men are enthralled by the revolution.

A nice opening to the semester

What was very interesting for me is that the first work we read as a class was Moliere’s Tartuffe. This play is written by a male during a time in which women were, basically, still property of the men. However, there is an amazing female character in this play; she is the one who stays level-headed while working to save the family from ruin.

The first of the two is a wet nurse of the house, Dorine. She is my favorite character in the entire comedy. She is the funniest, sassiest, and most intelligent person around. Without her the comedy would be more of a tragedy. Back on point, she is the first person we see who voices opinions against the con artist, Tartuffe. At first it might seem that she is just being paranoid, but we find out that Tartuffe actually is after Orgon’s (the head of the household) money and wife. Dorine, a simple and low class servant is able to see the liar for who he really is from the very start! It must take some level of intelligence and cunning to be able to do that, especially considering those standing at the very top of the food chain couldn’t.
I must admit that there were others who doubted Tartuffe just as much as Dorine. These are the other men of the house. However, there is a clear difference between the two. The men are swayed by their emotions causing their messages to become weak and deluded, while Dorine exemplifies the enlightenment ideals by speaking rationally and using evidence as backing for her claims. Even though she speaks to clearly and eloquently she is ignored because she is a servant, because she is of lower standing, because she is a woman.

I loved this opening to the class. I am always so worried when it comes to entering a new semester of English; you never know what the professor will choose to cover, or how he/she is going to teach it. After reading this and talking about it in class as our first work, all my fears dissolved. It was perfect because it immediately brought up the question regarding women in society. I was able to breathe and had a little celebration in my head that the class was going to be interesting after all.