Maia Anjolie

Reading Between the Vows

May 9, 2025 Maia AnjolieLeave a comment

Maia Turman Cooke

Dr. Margie Burns

Engl 364

9 May 2025

I enjoyed writing this one 🙂 1 essay down, 4 more to go.

Before I even read Pride and Prejudice, I knew this line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good furniture, must be in want of a wife” (Vol. 1, Chapter 1, pg 5). It had been etched into my consciousness long before I understood my love for literature. This line appears everywhere, from Wikipedia to pop cultural references, and yet its resonance rushes deeper than mere recognition. Perhaps it stays with me because it speaks to something deeply embedded in the cultural imagination: the enduring belief that a woman’s story is anchored by her ability to be chosen. In every age and every form of romantic narrative, there remains a quiet but powerful emphasis on marriage as a destination, especially for young women.

Jane Austen’s opening is not simply a witty observation; it is a pointed critique of the assumptions that structure female lives. This “truth universally acknowledged” is presented with irony, but the weight of its implication is anything but light. It exposes the societal script that defines men by their wealth and women by their desirability. What lingers in this line and perhaps why it engraved itself so easily into memory is the way it reveals how even love can be co-opted by societal expectations. The idea of waiting, passively, positively, and persistently, is not romantic; it is rehearsed. The young girl in me did not just dream of love; she was taught to anticipate it as the defining plot of her life. Austen sees this, and she doesn’t just mock it, she dissects it. Her characters often feel so familiar, not because they are drawn in precise techniques, but because as Price writes, “we see characters in Jane Austen’s novels as we see many people in life, recognizing them as familiar but hardly able to enumerate their features” (263). Austen crafts these women as if we know them intimately, even when we can’t articulate why. By opening her novel with this line, Austen invites the reader to question whether the desire for marriage originates from the heart or from the weight of social design. And for those who are reading Austen centuries later, the question remains disturbingly relevant: is this quote unforgettable because it is brilliant literature, or because it continues to reflect the way women’s lives are imagined, shaped, and constrained?

Only two chapters after Austen’s iconic opening, Mrs. Bennet confesses her ultimate desire: ‘“and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for’” (Vol. 1. Ch. 3, pg 12). It is a statement that seems superficial at first, and comic in its bluntness, but buried within it is something deeply sobering. Marriage, for her, is not about romance. It is about securing health, status, and stability for her daughters, as if it’s a social insurance policy sealed with two wedding bands. And her wish is not whimsical, it is strategic. And one is left wondering if she had only sons, would such a desperate, singular wish really would have been necessary? Likely not. Because daughters, unlike sons, carry futures that hinge on being chosen, on marrying well, and on being desirable.

No one truly blames Mrs. Bennet, and neither does Austen. She, too, was once a young girl trained to survive by surrendering to the rules laid out for her. Austen treats her with the same critical empathy she extends to many of the female characters. In Sense and Sensibility, she writes, “One’s fortune, as your mother justly says, is not one’s own” (Ch. 2, pg 7 ). The line is soft in tone but sharp in truth: regardless of their hopes or intelligence, they rarely possess full control over their own futures. Even if they believe they do, as Marianne and her mother do, that belief is built more on imagination than reality. “[W]ith them to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. She tried to explain the real state of the case to her sister” (Ch. 4, pg 15). Hope is its own kind of inheritance, passed down from mother to daughter like fine china or family worry. For women denied power, hope is made to feel like agency.

This is where Austen’s critique is both subtle and devastating. The women in her novels: Mrs. Bennet, Marianne Dashwood, and even Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, do not wish idly. Their dreaming is not foolish, but it is shaped by a system that limits their choices. Catherine clings to her fantasies not only because she is naive, but because in a world where young women are rarely permitted full independence, imagination becomes a form of resistance. Hope, however fragile or misdirected, becomes a way of reclaiming narrative power in a society that would otherwise write their endings for them. Austen is deeply aware of this, she shows us women who adapt, women who comply, and women who quietly rebel. Yet in each, there is a yearning: for security, for love, but more than anything, for the right to want something of their own without shame. That longing, so often disguised as simple romance, is where Austen locates her fierce commentary. It is not the wish to marry that binds these women, but the reality that marriage remains the only socially sanctioned wish available to them.

Pride and Prejudice is not the only novel in which Austen exposes both the vulnerability and the relentless expectations placed upon women, often through characters who are deeply complex, emotionally rich, and at times startlingly real. Though they are fictional, the women feel achingly familiar, reflections of questions and quiet reckoning every woman, in some form, has confronted. Marianne Dashwood, for instance, is introduced in Sense and Sensibility with warmth but also with a cautionary tone: “Marianne’s abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor’s. She was sensible and clever; but eager in everything: her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable, and interesting: she was everything but prudent. The resemblance between her and her mother was strikingly great” (Vol. 1, Ch. 1, p. 4). In these lines, Austen captures the fullness of Marianne, her depth, her contradictions, and yet underscores how dangerous unmoderated feelings can be for a woman. It is not that Marianne is irrational or unintelligent; it is that society punishes any woman who dares to live without restraint.

Austen’s brilliance lies in her refusal to flatten women into types. She does not offer the “strong woman” or the “silly girl” as binaries, but instead creates women who, like Marianne and Elinor, contain multitudes. In today’s world, womanhood is often dissected through labels and qualifiers: Are you queer or straight? Cisgender or not? A feminist? And if so, of which wave? Identity becomes a taxonomy, a checklist. But Austen writes beyond labels even in the past. She strips her characters down to their essence, not in a reductive sense, but in a revelatory one. Her women are minds and bodies navigating systems that constantly ask them to choose between survival and selfhood. And these are not abstract ideas, they are not case studies in femininity. They are women trying to think, feel, and endure all at once. What makes Austen’s work especially radical, then and now, is how she allows her heroines to resist moral finality. There is no clear lesson to learn, and no resolution that “fixes” them. As Galperin notes, Austen’s criticism often clings to a “spectacle of a Girl Being Taught a Lesson,” as though readers crave the reassurance that growth must look like obedience or that wayward girls must be corrected (363). But Austen’s narratives push back. They refuse the kind of resolution that reduces a woman to her repentance. What Austen offers instead is ambiguity, the space for contradiction, for longing that doesn’t always lead to clarity, for transformation that doesn’t mean submission. Her women do change, but not always in the ways readers are conditioned to expect. And perhaps that is Austen’s quiet rebellion: her refusal to let her heroines be instructive. They are not fantasies or warnings. They are women, and that is enough.

These women do so in a world where politeness is a weapon, and silence is often a form of self-defense. Considering this line from Pride and Prejudice, when Jane is praised for her goodness: “‘…to take the good of everybody’s character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad — belongs to you alone. And so, you like this man’s sisters too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his” (Vol. 1, Ch. 4, p. 17). This is meant as a compliment, but Austen subtly reveals the danger of such behavior. To suppress one’s judgment in favor of social harmony is not kindness, it is learned self-erasure. Similarly, in Sense and Sensibility, Elinor responds to a situation not with protest, but with resigned calculation: “Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition (Ch. 36, p. 194). That phrase, “The compliment of rational opposition,” speaks volumes. Even disagreement is a gift a woman must choose carefully. For Elinor, silence is not passive; it is protective. In Austen’s world, a woman’s restraint is often her armor.

What connects Marianne, Elinor, Jane, and so many other female characters is not just their femininity, but their negotiation of a world that constantly tells them how to feel, how to speak, how to want. Whether impulsive or composed, hopeful or cynical, Austen’s heroines are never simply reacting, they are navigating. They are reading their worlds, and themselves with as much rigor as any scholar or social critic. And through them, Austen exposes the impossible demands placed upon women: to be desirable but modest, intelligent but never threatening, emotional but always composed. These expectations are not fragments of the Regency era, they echo in every era, including our own. Austen’s irony isn’t just cleverness, it’s a survival strategy, a means of both protection and exposure. As Shaw notes, her irony often grew not from stylistic talent but from, “the author’s intimate involvement in her heroines and their feelings,” revealing not just social absurdities but the quiet tragedy of women estranged from the very world they’re trained to serve (282). This irony operates like a double lens: it lets Austen mock the systems that confine her characters while also showing us the emotional cost of that confinement. Her heroines are not above their society but they are not fully of it. They are constantly translating themselves between duty and desire, silence and speech, public mask and private truth. And that tension, that quiet refusal to surrender fully to the world’s demands, is where Austen’s most devastating insights live.

Mary Bennet, often overlooked and dismissed for her stiffness, offers one of the most incisive lines in Pride and Prejudice: “‘A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us’” (Vol . 1, Ch. 5, p. 21). In this brief moment of clarity, Mary articulates the tension at the heart of not just Austen’s novels, but of womanhood itself: the delicate balance between internal worth and external validation. What does it mean, then, when so many women, across centuries measure their value whether or not they are chosen, married, or settled? To what extent is this desire shaped by pride, the wish to feel secure in one’s own path, and to what extent it is governed by vanity, the fear of appearing unsuccessful, unwanted, or left behind in the eyes of others?

Austen’s characters are not simply longing for love; they are bracing themselves against the shame of being seen as unfulfilled. The anxiety of returning home “another year older, wedless and childless” is not just the dread of loneliness, but of scrutiny. Family gatherings become silent courtrooms where a woman’s personal timeline is put on trial. The unspoken question is, when will you settle down? — cuts through centuries. Austen wrote in the early 19th century, and yet here in the 21st, her women still live inside us. That same tension between pride and vanity haunts every woman who has ever paused before answering a relative’s probing question, who has ever wondered if ambition will make her appear cold, or if singleness will be mistaken for failure.

And what does this say about women today? That even with more freedom, more rights, and more visibility, we are still unlearning the centuries old script that connects a woman’s worth to her marital status. We are still resisting the idea that fulfillment must take a particular shape (husband, children, household) and we are still negotiating the gaze of others, trying to distinguish what we truly want from what we’ve been told we should want. The myth of the ideal woman may have changed its costume, but it never lost its grip. As Yeazell notes, even historical roles often erased the lived realities of women, recasting them as “sacred virgins, vestals who whom childbearing is apparently unknown,” defined not by their agency, but by how well they could fit into tidy domestic categories like daughter, wife or sister (148). In this framing, women become symbols rather than subjects, preserved and silenced. Perhaps we are still in the middle of an Austen novel, still somewhere between self-definition and societal expectation, still longing for a kind of pride that is private and not performative. Austen saw us coming. She left us maps in the forms of Elinor, Elizabeth, Marianne, and Catherine, women who do not offer easy answers, but who ask better questions. Their struggles are not behind us. They are beside us, still unfolding in the choices we make today, the scripts we reject, and the lives we are slowly rewriting on our own terms.

Now shifting to the perspective of Marianne and Elinor’s widowed mother, we find another woman shaped by her relationship with marriage, not just as a participant, but as a witness to its social consequence. With a sigh of relief, she declares: “She had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world” (Ch. 8., p. 28). Marriage, for her, is not joy or romance revealed in this declaration. It’s an obligation. A duty. A relief. It has consumed her life, three marriages in, and only now, as an aging woman alone, is she free to engage with the world on her own terms. Austen, with her characteristic irony, hints at how marriage becomes a threshold a woman might cross before being allowed to exist as herself. And really what does this say about marriage in Austen’s world? Is it about love, or simply attention? Is it about security or the appearance of it? Does it offer women real emotional reciprocity, or is it simply a promise to be protected, spoken through a legal vow, and sealed with a ring? Charlotte Lucas, the realist, offers one of the clearest answers: “‘Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance’” (Pride and Prejudice, Vol. 1, Ch. 6, p. 24). In Austen’s time, this wasn’t cynicism, it was logic. A woman’s choice was rarely free of economic calculation. Even now, in a supposedly freer world, women still navigate the pressures of choice within a society that offers “freedom” with conditions: race, class, queerness, and gender identity still shape who is allowed to love without scrutiny. Charlotte, in securing her marriage with Mr. Collins, is not giving up on happiness, she’s redefining it as stability. And what’s more feminist than survival in a world that offers you so few tools to build it?

Meanwhile, men like Darcy hold court on what makes a woman worthy of admiration. He proclaims: “‘A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking and the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved’” (Pride and Prejudice, Vol. 1, Ch. 8, p.39). In other words, a woman is not born complete, she must be crafted, shaped, and adorned until she becomes a spectacle of perfection. She must be everything, accomplished, charming, poised, or she is nothing. In one of the most satisfying moments of the novel, Elizabeth responds with irony, “‘I never saw such a woman, I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united” (Ch. 9, p.39). Her mockery punctures Darcy’s absurd checklist of womanhood. She knows the impossible standard is not only ridiculous, it’s dangerous.

Yet, when men are described, their portraits are often startingly vague. Considering this line from Sense and Sensibility: “‘Brandon is just the kind of man, … whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; who all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.” (Ch. 10, p. 39). There is no scrutiny of his voice, no track of accomplishments. He floats through society with ease. And while that might seem like a minor detail, it is, in fact, everything. Women in Austen’s world, and in our own, are examined from head to toe, from manners to marriagebility. They are expected to prove themselves worthy of attention, while men simply exist. This is not to say that men are bad, Austen is far more nuanced than that, but rather that society is careless with men in a way it will never be with women. A man can be forgettable and still respected. A woman cannot even be mildly inconvenient without risking condemnation. As Wright notes in her commentary on Pride and Prejudice, even in moments of high emotion. A man is granted the full “prerogative” of expression, while a wife is expected to receive it in silence, her body and attention folded neatly around his (422). The entitlement to be heard, to be unfiltered, is gendered. Writers like Austen live in a world where the only path to independence is through satire, where the only way to criticize the system is to write it out, one line at a time. Where women must study the very structures that hold them down, simply to survive inside them.

A striking line in Sense and Sensibility is: “She was without any power, because she was without any desire of command over herself” (Vo.l 2, Ch. 15, p. 64). It’s a line that sits heavy, not because it condemns the woman, but because it exposes the subtle violence of a world that never taught her how to want something other than what was handed to her. So then, what determines a woman’s command? Is it being wedded? Is it bearing children? Or is it the rare and radical ability to say no to all of it? In Pride and Prejudice, Austen writes, “…Should you think ill of that person for complying with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?” (Vol. ., Ch. 10, p. 49). There’s an implicit tension here, between instinct and social training, between passion and pressure. Because the truth about society is that you don’t have to argue most women into marriage. This argument has already been made. It’s been whispered to them through bedtime stories, reinforced by mothers who want “the best,” and repeated through every cultural script, from Jane Austen’s heroines to Isabella Swan’s love-struck stares in Twilight. As Hopkin notes, Austen was often “forced to read mainly romantic novels” (402), a quiet coercion that shaped what they thought they could want, what they believed they should become. Even pleasure, reading, loving, and dreaming, were regulated. And still, women read on, looking for themselves between the lines.

This indoctrination begins long before a girl even understands what marriage is. Before her body has matured, she is told what it’s for. Little girls are taught to dream of wedding dresses, of rings, of being chosen, and that dream is presented as both aspiration and salvation. Austen knew this. Her novels expose the quiet, lifelong rehearsal of womanhood as performance. But even now, centuries later, modern media has not gone far from the same template. The faces have changed yes, but the message hasn’t; love will complete you, marriage will fix you, and someone’s desire for you is your ticket to safety. And the cost of resisting that? Power. Or at least, that’s what women are led to believe. Yet, as Morris argues, Austen’s young women mediate the “energies of social change and shifting values,” becoming the very agents through which a new, more progressive social order is imagined (32). These heroines don’t resist the script, they revise it. Through, them Austen transforms womanhood from a fixed role into spaces of possibility, where survival is not submission but a strategy.

Though Marianne shows us that love, for many women, is far more than a physical, tangible piece of jewelry. It’s an emotional bind, something that lives in memory, gesture, and the quiet hope that affection is mutual. “But from such vain wishes, she was forced to turn for comfort to the renewal of her confidence in Edward’s affection, to the remembrance of every mark of regard in look or word which fell from him while at Barton, and above all to that flattering proof of which he constantly wore round his finger” (Sense and Sensibility, Ch. 17, p. 79). Marianne is trying to actively believe that Edward cares for her, she’s replaying in her head the moments at Barton Cottage. Her main significance comes from a ring, which he wears always. This ring serves as a constant reminder and in her mind a proof of his love. Marianne is not being silly or naive, she is doing the emotional math women have been taught to do: gathering glances, remembering sentences, and turning moments into evidence. Her belief in Edward’s love is brought together through small gestures, and the ring he wears becomes more than a token. It is proof, comfort, and validation all in one. It’s the only thing she can hold onto in a world where women have so little control over how they are chosen, or discarded.

Yet, Sense and Sensibility also gives us Elinor, who lives on the other end of the emotional spectrum. She is steadier, quieter, and deeply aware of the cost of visible grief. “She was stronger alone, and her own good sense so well supported her” (Vol. 3, Ch. 23, p. 107). But Elinor’s strength doesn’t make her immune. It makes her silent. Her composure is not a lack of feeling but a desperate containment of it, because she knows the world won’t give her the luxury to unravel. Later, the narrator tells us, “Elinor could no longer witness this torrent of unresisted grief in silence” (Ch. 29, p. 142). Elinor’s breaking point comes not from her own sadness, but from watching Marianne break under the weight of hers because women are always expected to contain, repress, and present themselves with grace, even when their lives are falling apart. The emotional surveillance, this constant demand for women to manage not just their feelings of others but the feelings of others, bleeds into Pride and Prejudice as well. Elinor’s silence echoes in Elizabeth’s Bennet’s clarity: “‘The world is blinded by his fortune and consequences, or frightened by his high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen’” (Pride and Prejudice, Ch. 16, p. 77). Both Elinor and Elizabeth are women who know how much is hidden beneath the surface. They live in a world where appearances rule, where a man like Darcy can control the narrative of his character simply by wealth and presence. But women like them, like Elinor and Elizabeth, must negotiate between public perception and private truth, constantly deciphering who they are allowed to be, and what the world is willing to see.

To move through Pride and Prejudice is to trace the slow burn of a woman growing sharper in her insight and more defiant in her truth. Austen’s evolution as a writer mirrors a woman’s evolution in the world, incremental, often invisible to others, but fiercely felt within. Her novels, while beloved by many, speak in a particular frequency to women, whose lives are still shaped by the same pressures her characters faced: to be pleasing, to be chosen, to be silent. There is no universal reading of Austen because her stories live differently in women’s bodies. They are not just literature, they are lived reflections. With each novel, Austen grows less concerned with pleasing and more invested in revealing. That shift is the quiet legacy of a woman writing under constraint and still managing to make the whole world listen. And yet Austen’s sharpest truth is that women have always known. Known how to read a room, how to protect themselves with politeness, how to hope and pretend it’s practicality, and how to shrink themselves so their loved ones can expand. Austen understood that the most radical thing a woman can do is to refuse to be flattened by society, family, or by fiction. That’s why the male characters are mostly absent here, not by accident, but by design. They are not the point. They are not the engine. The women are and they always were. Women do not orbit anyone else’s gravity. They move the narrative themselves. Austen did not leave behind instructions. She left women who are complicated, unfinished, and unapologetic. And perhaps that is the truest inheritance: not a heroine who learned her place, but one who claims it.

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Published January 28, 1813

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Published 1811.

Galperin, William. “‘Describing What Never Happened’: Jane Austen and the History of Missed Opportunities.” ELH, vol. 73, no. 2, 2006, pp. 355–82. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30030016. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

Hopkins, Annette B. “Jane Austen the Critic.” PMLA, vol. 40, no. 2, 1925, pp. 398–425. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/457230. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

Morris, Pam. “Sense and Sensibility: Wishing Is Believing.” Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and Worldly Realism, Edinburgh University Press, 2017, pp. 29–54. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1g09tv4.5. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

Price, Martin. “Manners, Morals, and Jane Austen.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 30, no. 3, 1975, pp. 261–80. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2933070. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

“Pride and Prejudice.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Apr. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice.

Shaw, Valerie. “Jane Austen’s Subdued Heroines.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 30, no. 3, 1975, pp. 281–303. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2933071. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

Wright, Andrew. “Jane Austen Adapted.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 30, no. 3, 1975, pp. 421–53. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2933078. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. “The Boundaries of Mansfield Park.” Representations, no. 7, 1984, pp. 133–52. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2928460. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.

Culture of Silence: Women in the 19th Century

December 6, 2024 Maia Anjolie1 Comment

Engl 305

Oh my gosh, I haven’t posted here in so long. Enjoy this essay that I am about to submit. May finals begin and end successfully.

There is a pervasive culture of silence that both women and men navigate, one that manifests not only in everyday life, through unequal pay and domestic roles, but also in the media, literature, and cultural norms that perpetuate this silence into this present day. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a groundbreaking novel by the brilliant English author, delves into these dynamics. The story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates an extremely conscious creature through an unconventional experiment, serves as a intense analysis of the patriarchal structures of Shelley’s era. Written in 1818, Shelley’s work goes in hand with the revolutionary ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which advocates for women’s education and autonomy while condemning systemic silencing. Even today, Frankenstein remains a valuable piece of work, offering readers a viewpoint to examine enduring societal inequities and the power structures that sustain them.

Though Frankenstein is shaped by two male figures, Victor Frankenstein and the creature he brings to life, it is written by a woman who delays introducing even the concept of feminism until midway through the novel. This choice not only mirrors Mary Shelley’s own life, often shaped and silenced by men but also underscores the absence of women’s voices in the fictional world she creates. The women in Frankenstein are portrayed as passive, self-sacrificing, and even voiceless at times, reflecting the societal expectations of the past time. As Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar argue in The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Ninteenth-Century Literary Imagination, 19th-century women writers often faced significant constraints and were forced to carry out strategies to express their ideas within the confines of patriarchal society. Despite being far removed from the 19th century, the modern day world still struggles with the lingering limitations of gender inequity. By centering the narrative on male characters, Shelley criticizes a patriarchal structure that suppresses women’s perspectives and autonomy while intelligently navigating a culture that might have dismissed her work outright if it did not conform to male-dominated norms. Her deliberate decision speaks volumes, and an intellectual understanding of the “culture of silence” and the strategies required to challenge it from within.

Elizabeth Lavenza is portrayed as the epitome of the idealized, selfless woman in Frankenstein. Elizabeth holds intelligence and warmth though these qualities seem to exist solely to support Victor Frankestein’s emotional needs as his fiance. Elizabeth’s letters are filled with genuine care and concern, yet her own fears and desires remain absent, overshadowed by her devotion to Victor. For example, she writes, “…if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness..” This statement highlights her unwavering selflessness and willingness to define her happiness entirely in relation to Victor’s well-being, silencing her own needs and identity. Throughout the novel, Elizabeth never directly challenges Victor’s decisions, even when they endanger her life. This is most evident when Victor is impulsive in planning their wedding despite knowing that the creature, warped on revenge, poses an extreme threat. Ultimately, Elizabeth’s murder at the hands of the creature is a direct consequence of Victor’s secrecy and choices, a fate she has no power to resist or influence. Her tragic end underscores the dangers of subordinating women’s voices and agency, a theme that resonates beyond the novel and into real-life patterns of silenced and self-sacrificing women. Elizabeth embodies the cultural expectation that women prioritize others over themselves, reflecting the oppressive gender norms of both Shelley’s time and even at this present moment.

Turning to Justine Moritz, another tragic female figure in Frankenstein, her fate is a direct result of Victor’s reckless and selfish decisions. Justine becomes a victim of silence and systemic injustice when she is wrongfully convicted and executed for the murder of William Frankenstein, Victor’s brother — a crime actually committed by the creature. Despite professing her innocence until her final moments, the oppressive societal structures leave her powerless, forcing her into a state of hopeless resignation. Justine states, “I did confess; but I confessed a lie. I confessed, that I might obtain absolution; but now that falsehood lies heavier at my heart than all my other sins.” Her confession forced bu coercion rather than guilt, underscores her inability to effectively advocate for herself. Victor’s silence throughout her trial, despite his knowledge of the truth and his authority as a man, amplifies this tragedy. His inaction highlights the societal systems that not only silenced women but actively condemned them, especially those in subordinate positions like Justine. Her story reflects the broader theme of how patriarchal structures suppress and marginalize women which leads to tragic consequences.
Moving on to Safie, who stands out as a fascinating female character who resists the passive, submissive archetypes typically assigned to women in Frankenstein. Introduced midway through the novel, she becomes a symbolic representative of feminism, as Shelley gradually unfolds her story after the audience is already invested in the narrative. However, Safie’s voice is mainly mediated through other characters, primarily the creature, who observes the De Lacey family, where Safie resides. Her father, a Turkish merchant, enforces patriarchal norms by attempting to dictate her life, particularly by trying to prevent her union with Felix De Lacey. When Safie is introduced the creature reveals, “Safie related, that her mother was a Christian Arab, seized and made a slave by the Turks; recommended by her beauty, she had won the heart of the father of Safie, who married her. The young girl spoke in high and enthusiastic terms of her mother, who, born in freedom spurned the bondage to which she was now reduced.” This moment highlights the societal biases of the time, which dehumanized and marginalized women, especially those outside of European cultural norms. Safie’s mother becomes a poignant symbol of contrast representing the so-called “civilized” Christian values juxtaposed with the oppressive portrayals of Eastern culture.

The dehumanization presented in Frankenstein echoes a broader pattern of silencing women, rooted in fears of the disruption they might bring to male-dominated systems. Shelley is not alone in evaluating this silence. In Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, a satirical analysis of class oppression and systemic neglect, women are similarly reduced to passive, dehumanized roles. The proposal suggests that impoverished families sell their children as food, reducing women to “breeders’ whose societal value lies solely in their reproductive capacity. Swift’s exaggerated depiction of women’s objectification underscores the cruelty and absurdity of societal norms that suppress women’s agency, stripping them of individuality and humanity. Like Swift, Shelly examines these oppressive structures, though her approach is much more nuanced. While Safie resists traditional passive roles, her voice is filtered through male narrators, maintaining the novel’s patriarchal framework. Both Frankenstein and A Modest Proposal highlight how women are often reduced to silenced figures, their individuality and agency overshadowed by societal expectations. Through Safie’s story, Shelley analyzes the persistent marginalization of women, reflecting the systemic control of their voices both in literature and clearly in society.

And last but not least, the female creature who exists solely as an idea before being destroyed by Victor, serves as a striking example of silencing in Frankenstein. The creature pleads with Victor to create a female companion, his request stemming from intense loneliness, a longing for acceptance, and a desire for connection — longings inspired by Paradise Lost by John Milton. Identifying with Adam in Milton’s epic, the creature yearns for an “Eve” to alleviate his isolation and provide solace. Initially hesitant, Victor agrees to create this companion but ultimately destroys her before she can come to life. This act is an earnest denial of the female creature’s potential existence, erasing the possibility of a female voice or perspective within the narrative, a perspective that might have provided the companionship and acceptance the creature so desperately needs. Victor’s reasoning is steeped in fear: fear of female autonomy, the disruption she might bring to male-dominated order, and the loss of control over creation and reproduction. This anxiety reflects broader patriarchial fears, reminiscent of the concerns surrounding Eve in Paradise Lost. Eve’s own desire for independence foreshadows her fall in Milton’s narrative. She questions the value of faith and virtue untested, stating, “And what is faith, love, virtue unassay’d / Alone, without exterior help sustain’d? / Let us not then suspect our happy state / Left so imperfect by the Maker wise, / As not secure to single or combin’d.” (Paradise Lost, Book IX, Lines 335–339). Here, Eve expresses a wish for autonomy, reasoning that independence would strengthen her eventual temptation by Satan. An audience could interpret this as Milton portraying female independence as dangerous or disruptive, a fear that is echoed in Victor’s rationale. Victor’s dread of the female creature asserting her independence is clear when he imagines her becoming “… ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness.” His destruction of the female creature therefore reflects not only his personal fears but also societal anxieties about women’s autonomy and the perceived threat it poses to patriarchal order.

To support my claim, Amy Watkin’s essay, “Women Who Should Be Pretty Pissed Off; Vindicating Mary Wollenscraft,” critiques the systemic silencing of women, particularly through the lens of Mary Wollstonecraft’s life and groundbreaking contributions to feminist thought. Despite her transformative ideas, Wollstonecraft’s personal life was weaponized against her, overshadowing her intellectual achievements and perpetuating the cultural silencing of women. Watkin writes, “Wollstonecraft’s ideas lurked in shadows for a long time because after she died her husband tried to do a nice thing. Damn him, anyway.” This refers to Wollstonecraft’s husband, William Godwin, who inadvertently tarnished her legacy by revealing intimate details about her life, such as her motherhood while she was unmarried and her unconventional relationships, which society at the time defined as scandalous. These confessions without the acknowledgement of Wollstonecraft’s feminist philosophy, marginalized her voice in both intellectual and social spheres. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft writes, “If women are educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?” This quote captures her argument for female autonomy and equality, emphasizing the dangers of societal structures that enforce submission and suppress women’s voices. Ironically, Wollstonecraft herself becomes a victim of this silencing and this is not because of her ideas, but due to society’s rejection of her personal choices. Her life reflects the very oppression she sought to dismantle.

Watkin further highlights that the culture of silencing women is neither new nor unique stating, “This is not to discount other feminist voices, only to emphasize that Wollstonecraft was perhaps the loudest and best-known, therefore any backlash against her would certainly make others shy away from making similar arguments, lest their own personal lives be trotted out for everyone to judge.” This phenomenon, judging women by their personal lives rather than their intellectual contributions reflects a broader societal trend of dismissing women’s voices and downgrading them to subordinate roles. This insight directly connects to Frankenstein’s portrayal of female characters like Elizabeth and the female creature, whose narratives are shaped and silenced by the men around them.

The silencing of women in Frankenstein parallels the culture of silence Watkin discusses in Wollstonecraft’s life. Elizabeth Lavenza, Justine Moritz, and Safie, like Wollstonecraft, are intelligent and strong women, but their voices are largely absent in regard to the domination of men. Furthermore, the destruction of the female creature symbolizes deep silencing, a deliberate refusal to allow any female presence to challenge the established patriarchal order. Victor’s actions throughout the novel echo the cultural silencing Watkin reviews in her essay: the male fear of losing control over women’s autonomy and the perceived threat of independent female voices. Watkin’s analysis frames Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s novel emerges as a sharp textual examination of societal structures that perpetuate women’s silence. Just as Wollstonecraft’s groundbreaking feminists were nearly erased from public memory, the female creature in Frankenstein is denied her voice before she even exists.

Mary Shelley creates an intelligent criticism of the pervasive culture of silencing women, a theme echoed in both literature and society. The novel’s portrayal of female characters, Elizabeth, Justine, Safie, and the non-existent female creature demonstrates how women are denied agency, a voice, and autonomy in a patriarchal world. Victor’s actions reflect a fear of female independence that mirrors the anxieties that persist both in the 19th century and today. This silencing extends way beyond fiction, as Amy Watkin’s essay on Mary Wollstonecraft highlights how women’s personal lives are often weaponized to overshadow their intellectual contributions. Wollstonecraft, like Shelley’s female characters, faced systemic marginalization, illustrating the omnipresent and enduring oppression of women’s voices. By connecting Shelley’s narrative to border cultural patterns of silencing, Frankenstein becomes not just a gothic tale but also a powerful commentary on gender dynamics and patriarchal fears. It challenges readers to face these systemic inequities, underscoring the urgent need to amplify marginalized voices and dismantle the structures that silence them. Through its layered analysis, Frankenstein remains a timeless reflection on the consequences of suppressing female agency and the enduring struggle for equality.

Diolch Arachnid

June 20, 2024June 20, 2024 Maia Anjolie2 Comments

Diolch Arachnid translated to ‘Thank You’ spider in Welsch

Her reflection held her captive, a stranger in a familiar frame. “Not coming back,” she whispered, the words a chilling echo in the silent room. They said mirrors stole beauty, a cruel trick on souls already bare. But what good was inner beauty if it couldn’t fight it’s way out? Her hair, a tangled mess, mirrored the storm within. Dark circles bracketed eyes that held a question: how did I get here? Every neglected corner of her reflection – the disgusting fingernails, the cracked lips – a testament to a journey gone astray.

Her head held impossibly high, she strutted down the street, a performance for an audience that didn’t exist. Each click of her heels echoed the hollowness inside. In the solitude of her room, the act crumbled. Memories flooded back – nights consumed by a suffocating darkness, the desperate urge to escape the world’s harsch valuation that had shrunk her worth to a mere pittance. The confident click of her heels on the pavement now felt like a desperate plea for a different kind of attention, a yearning for a value she couldn’t possibly manufacture on her own.

The grand staircase spiraled downwards, a monument to forgotten hierarchies. She was its neglected bottom step, the one that tripped you up, and sent curses flying as you nearly met the floor. Eating shit. But the descent never ends, does it? Soon, she’ll be the top step, bathed in the light of achievement. A silent welcome to those who’ve navigated the darkness. Welcome home, you made it. You. have made it.

He left, and a part of me did too. But from the ashes, a phoenix. This isn’t a mistake, a chance occurrence, or some stroke of luck. I was forged in the fires of his absence, a shield to protect the girl who once was. A shield she can hide behind, a wall no touch can penetrate. But this fierceness, this anger…. It burns for her, not him. She’ll stay hidden until she’s ready until the embers of pain cool and a new strength emerges. Until then, I stand guard. This rebirth wasn’t for me, but for her.

The wait stretches before you, a desolate landscape, yet a single, precious breath escapes her lips. You love her, fiercely, unquestionably. But this woman beside you — a stranger draped in a familiar form. Her laughter, a ghost of its former joy, chills you more than the shivers that wrack her fragile frame. Buried secrets weigh heavy in her eyes, a cemetery of unspoken pain. You yearn to know who she is now, but a deeper truth resonates – your love transcends this fractured version. It stretches back to the woman you knew and embraces the one she’s yet to become.

The world used to be a kaleidoscope of anxieties, each fragment a worry for someone else. Now, a stark focus remains – her own reflection staring back, carved with lines deeper than sleep deprivation. ‘Enough water?’ The question hangs heavy, a stark contrast to the symphony of concerns that once filled her mind. A pain of guilt stabs at her – is self-centeredness a betrayal of empathy? Though perhaps tending to her own needs, she can one day return, stronger, to the world that needs her.

The walls rose with each heartbreak, each betrayal, a fortress built against the world. Even her own reflection feels like a stranger, a consequence of a life lived at a distance. No one can get through even, me, myself, and you. The thought of letting someone in terrifies her. But the echo of “you” in her empty space mocks the hollowness of her self-imposed isolation.

I love you for the secrets you whispered, the dreams you held close. But a bitter wind blows through the space you left behind. You walked away, and I slammed the door, locking out not just you. Now I stand here, a prisoner of my own anger. Hate simmers, a counterpoint to the love that refuses to die. “You” echoes in the emptiness, a constant reminder of what I’ve lost and me that chose to leave too.

My Peace of Mind

May 17, 2024May 17, 2024 Maia Anjolie1 Comment

“‘I like this idea that a piece of writing is never finished, just abandoned.’” (Sommers 384).

Individuals desire to be known and loved, yet they fear being found unworthy. Individuals yearn to be heard and listened to, to find tangible pieces of art, and to finally see their difficulties within despair. People want to be found, and not by their own selves, they want their lives to be acknowledged, they want someone to witness their lives as they will do to the other person. But truly, we can only be known perfectly by some ultimate holy creator, and the rest of us on the ground continue to relearn and reinvent our identities, souls, and egos every single day. We want to be found and owned in love, yes, but when will people learn that in order for this to happen we must find our own peace of mind, alone? From a gender-conscious perspective, Lauryn Hill uses her voice to counteract dehumanization and the patriarchal society Black women live in to utilize self-love as a feminist act.

There is no we, or us in the song, “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind” written by the artist Lauryn Hill. It is purely a self-act to find your version of what your peace of mind truly is. In strictly nine minutes, filled with a room full of strangers, Hill shares a textual analysis of the fall of her ego and her rise to respect within. Having already been declared “brainwashed” and “emotionally unstable,” Hill decides to carry her own story into a room where every inch of her body is judged and watched as a Black woman. Still, despite the innate prejudice that is omnipresent toward Black women, Hill’s voice silenced every single person in that room, to hopefully, at last, be truly understood. Live performances have the ability to unite people, fostering a sense of belonging and a comfort level that allows them to share their most intimate ideas and feelings. Hill shares her story of how she once searched for wanting to belong to someone, to be owned by love, by a man, preventing her from finding her peace of mind, she sings, “He says it’s impossible, but I know it’s possible” (Hill). Black women, including Hill, have historically been conditioned by societal messages to define themselves through connection to others. This is a narrative they are actively rewriting, and “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind” embodies this act.

Lauryn Hill, who not only has contributed brilliantly to the genre of neo-soul, is also a dedicated activist, who utilizes her songs to shed light on black feminism. Who doesn’t want to be wanted, right? And to be wanted doesn’t necessarily mean flashing a diamond ring, or replacing your last name with someone else’s. Though all of this, to feel wanted and be owned by love means absolutely nothing if that respect and love are not rooted from within. For Black women, that can be so entirely hard if the world already does not respect and love them. The Combahee River Collective pleads for mercy for black women, “to be recognized as human, levelly human.” From the minute Black women are born into this world, they are acknowledged as having the lowest value in the power hierarchy. For black women to be owned signifies the double oppression of dehumanization and the patriarchal society, where women are constantly told to find a man to love and protect them and create a family, as well as the pressures of being marginalized to fit into the world that hardly gives them any space to thrive, to begin with. Hill utilizes her music by rejecting the need for external validation and empowers Black women to find their self-love and worth from within. Lauryn Hill sings, “To finally be in love / And know the real meaning of / A lasting relationship, not based on ownership” (Hill). At the age of 26, Hill was just learning what it meant to finally be in a healthy relationship with herself. It’s sickening that this world has failed to give Black women the true love that they deserve due to societal pressure and limited examples of healthy love. And this impact becomes so powerful and poignant that it makes it difficult for Black women to even love themselves.

Lauryn Hill had to become a black feminist herself because the world and society will never truly love, accept, and understand black women. Her art and music have evolved into a community of support and a framework for self-love. Though Hill listened once to how the world treated her, they would tell her “…there’s no me without him” (Hill). Becoming trapped in major systems of oppression intertwining, evidently Hill’s ego took over. Her ego, the false mental image that forced a desire upon her for validation and the desire to be wanted and loved, and so pressured by society to belong to someone she truly thought she was nothing. Her ego did not want to let go of her either, “Trapped in her memory/ constantly holding me” (Hill). Not only was Hill fighting against her ego, but she was also grappling with the nature of oppression, that had existed long before Hill even set foot into this world. Her life was run by her ego deeply rooted in the “racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression” (Combahee River Collective) birthed by our society.

Black women navigate a world where their very identity becomes a battleground. In one hour, they might confront a microaggression that chips away at their dignity, then face down prejudice embedded in a system stacked against them. Their singular identity compels them to fight on multiple fronts: battling racism, sexism, and the pressure to conform to limited expectations. In reference to Kimberlé Crenshaw’s published articles about what she describes as intersectionality that is, “Writing from an intersection of feminist antiracist, black antisexist, and critical race studies perspective” (Parker 179). Crenshaw emphasizes the idea that people are not tied down to just one identity. When you look at Hill’s performance of “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind”: she exudes effortless style with her natural untamed dreadlocks tucked into a scarf, topped by a hat adding a touch of mystery that also embodies her “tomboy” charm. The gleam of her hoops adds a hint of femininity, perfectly complementing her beautiful melanin skin. Her style is uniquely hers, a blend of comfort and confidence. When we gaze upon black women, it’s crucial to acknowledge their dual identity: as individuals of color and as women. These facets of their being are intertwined; they cannot be parsed apart, for just as they cannot selectively embrace their melanin skin or womanhood, the world outside has no privilege to do so either. Recognizing and respecting this intersectionality is crucial to truly seeing and understanding black women. Hill made a name for herself, despite the innate prejudice she experienced even before becoming one of the best-renowned singers, her voice was loud, crisp, and honest and she took the risk of being in the spotlight of the world to take on self-love and liberation as a true black feminist act. Ultimately, who else except a black woman would genuinely go to this length for other black women? Still, even despite Hill’s brilliant act, the world, the society, unsure of what to do with a Black woman breaking societal barriers, Hill was manifestly declared a “madwoman.”

“After all, to embrace madness is risky business for a black woman musician operating within those racist/ sexist milieus, where black womanhood is double-crossed by myths of female hysteria and myths of black savagery and subrationality” (Bruce 371). Being perceived as perfect can make you feel perfect. It can shut down any type of myth created that the world has falsely put on you. Remember that Hill begins this song by bravely admitting that she was in a relationship with someone to enhance her sense of self through the other person. Hill sings, “You love me despite myself / Sometimes I, I fight myself”. Women are socialized to seek love, and because she had no love rooted within and from the world branding her as a “savage,” she ran to discover her identity through another person. By Hill’s acknowledgment of someone else’s love for her sense of self hints at her reliance on external validation because she needed reassurance, or any type of support, to firmly believe that she is not what this world claims Black women to be. Hill holds strength in her vulnerability, telling the world that she even fights herself, which battles the stereotypes of “savagery” or “hysteria”. Her narrative defies the image of what some may claim to be a stoic or emotionless Black woman, even outside of Hill’s identity. Remember, that Lauryn Hill is human. Hill was seeking validation, yes, but it was also her search for love and acceptance, something this world has failed to provide to Black women. Hill learned in this particular journey that when discovering yourself through someone or something else also entails accepting it as a component of who you are. And the slightest worry of this person or thing abandoning you means that part of yourself is lost. Hill’s reliance on her partner for external validation left her powerless to find self-love on her own terms, and that will never be what true love means. Hill says, “Just tell me what to say, I can’t find the words to say/ Please don’t be mad with me, I have no identity/ All that I’ve known is gone, all I was building on.” In support of the Combahee River Collective, Hill was building her identity through other people and things because she had not become “conscious of the concepts of sexual politics, patriarchal rule, and most importantly feminism, the political analysis and practice that…women use to struggle against our oppression” (Combahee River Collective). Battling with multiple forms of oppression could easily strip away the love, support, and respect that you have inside. Black women are faced with meeting societal beauty standards that endorse white features, making Hill feel hopeless and powerless. As well as the racial stereotypes and false myths that portray Black women as holding strength yet emotional, making Hill and other Black women feel like it’s impossible to express vulnerability. Like any human with feelings and emotions, it takes away and undermines a thriving sense of self. Omnipresent exposure to false myths that devalue your own identity can make anyone question their value and abilities. Despite this, Hill was on a mission to heal her heart, but that could not be achieved until she was fully aware of the intersectionality of oppression, which would then bring her to true self-love. By recognizing and being educated on the impact of racism, sexism, and societal pressures, Hill can dismantle negative beliefs that she once internalized to find her true self.

Sometimes the only thing that gives us power is our unique selves, and the way we display that power determines who we are. Hill utilizes her song “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind” to take on the duties of a third-wave feminist. According to academic Valerie Chepp, third feminism has three main themes: “a relationship to history, to self, and to black men” (548). Its sole purpose is to create an inclusive environment for women of all races to shed light on racial and gender inequality, to condemn white feminism that excludes, to examine the paradoxes of black identity, redefine black feminity, create healthier relationships with men, and to connect back to their roots. Hill sings, “I know now I have to face, the temptations of my past…/ Now that I know the truth, now that it’s no excuse.” Hill makes the conscious decision to break free from past limitations and embrace the new version of her empowered self. Given that Hill has spent the majority of her life escaping from herself, she must decide to stop acting in accordance with her past delusions and false self-image. By reclaiming her identity and defining herself and her worth only on her terms, third-wave feminism has shown Hill the reality so she can pursue and embrace her sense of self through awareness and value. She genuinely has “no excuse” to revert to her former self now that she is aware of the intersectionality of her oppressions. In the words of Gloria Anzaldúa, she writes, “I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me… To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy. To dispel the myths that I am a mad prophet… To convince myself that I am worthy and what I have to say is not a pile of shit” (169). “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind” is a story about Lauryn Hill whose identity was built on myths created by the world’s dehumanization and patriarchal pressures that are targeted against Black women. At the beginning of this song, her identity is based on a false image of herself, rather than her true essence (as shown by the lyric ‘He says there’s no me without him’). But by the end of this song, she takes on self-love to banish the “double-crossed myths of female hysteria and myths of black savagery and subrationality” (Bruce 371). Black women have been placed at the lowest value for centuries, and Hill writes this song to put herself and other Black women on the top since they must fight from the bottom. What you find inside when you discover yourself will always be enough, but Hill selflessly decided to share it with the world despite the lack of support from the outside world for Black women who succeed. Hill finds self-love: “You are my peace of mind/ That old me is left behind”. Hill’s determination to achieve self-love is not just a passive yearning either, but it’s a conscious pursuit (‘I trust every part of you’) revealing a profound trust in her own intuition and judgment, independent of outside influences or expectations.

Hill sings, “You’re my peace of mind/ That old me is left behind/…. Oh what a merciful, merciful, merciful God”. Hill, not only a black feminist, was also very vocal about being a child of God. According to scholar Ebony A. Utley, many Black Christian women view their suffering as a way to become closer to God. In the past, Christian leaders portrayed women negatively as weak, which led to the very idea that women could redeem themselves through suffering and self-sacrifice. “Redemptive suffering is the belief that not only is suffering justified but it also should be coveted as part of a spiritual maturation process…Many black Christian women emulate this surrogacy when they perceive suffering as something that brings them closer to God (Douglas 1994).” (Utley 303). This implies that Black women were told to prioritize seeking forgiveness from God over self-forgiveness and healthy relationships. The very act of dehumanization towards Black women even led Hill herself to become a child of God. The false myths of women’s weakness and instability pushed women to go to God because Christian leaders found women unworthy of their own strength. Time and time again, individuals create these falsified identities of women despite their constant ancestry of protection and power. Through Hill’s feminist act of self-love, she reclaims what God means to her. The creation of God in Lauryn Hill’s life originated from the dehumanization of Black women, though the presence of God in her life is due to the self-love and sacrifices that she made for herself selfishly. Lauryn Hill declares that God is the source of her mental tranquility—the calm that exists behind and between obsessive thoughts enforced by our patriarchal society. At the end of the day, we all want to be found but what most don’t realize is that we have to find ourselves first, and whether if it’s through a feminist act or by an ultimate holy creator once you find yourself you must keep holding on.

Lauryn Hil dedicates her music not only to herself and the repossession of her identity, but she shares this with the world for all Black women to be the owners of their love and beauty. Everyone is capable of giving and receiving love. Everyone also fights their own demons; though, for Black women, these demons “have been programmed in [them] for centuries” (Bruce 385). The struggle of Black women against patriarchal control might seem like an innate truth, though the poststructuralist philosopher Michel Foucault argues that knowledge is not absolute. It’s shaped by the power structures of a particular historical period, which can be described as discourse (Parker 270). In this context, the concept of Black women fighting their demons is seen as a discourse reflecting societal anxieties about Black female power within a patriarchial system. So while young Black girls are forced to accept from early on that they need “to be quiet both for the sake of being ‘ladylike’ and to make [them] less objectionable in the eyes of white people” (Combahee River Collective), they must understand that this knowledge to be silenced was brought on by the systems of power putting them at the lowest value to be indifferent towards men, and the rest of the world. Hill sings, “I need to tell you all, all the pain he’s caused.” This is going against the patriarchal society and the knowledge that has been imposed on her. Hill’s self-awareness understands very well what Foucault has described as discourse, but in this particular situation, she will not abide and be silenced. Her knowledge of herself is brought on by the gender-conscious power she holds inside at this very moment.

It takes for black women themselves, and them alone, to conquer the falsified identities created by “insecure and inadequate men” (Bruce 385) to heal their minds, bodies, and souls to produce self-love. It took Lauryn Hill 26 years on earth to learn the feminist act of self-love. Hill sings, “Everyday’s another chance/ To get it right this time/ Everyday’s another chance”. Black women face a constant process of self-discovery. Every encounter and every experience shapes their understanding of themselves. But unlike many others, they navigate this journey against a backdrop of societal prejudice. The patriarchial system throws up fixed stereotypes and false myths that govern Black women. They must not only forge their own identity but also contend with a world that defines them in narrow ways. The weight of confronting dehumanization and a pervasive patriarchal system is immense, a burden Black women carry from birth, even inheriting the fight from their ancestors. Foucault believes that knowledge comes from the system of power relations, but the deeper truth that Hill has discovered is that what you need to find within yourself comes from no power, no greed, no insecurity, or patriarchal domination, it comes from the love you hold inside your heart.

Thank you for taking the time to read this 🙂

Works Cited

Anzaldúa, Gloria. “Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers.” This Bridge Called My Back, Writings By Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1981, pp. 165-174.

Bruce, La Marr Jurelle. “‘The People Inside My Head, Too’: Madness, Black Womanhood, and the Radical Performance of Lauryn Hill.” African American Review, vol. 45, no. 3, Fall 2012, pp. 371–89. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1353/afa.2012.0065.

Chepp, Valerie. “Black Feminism and Third-Wave Women’s Rap: A Content Analysis, 1996–2003.” Popular Music & Society, vol. 38, no. 5, Dec. 2015, pp. 545–64. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2014.936187.

Combahee River Collective. “The Combahee River Collective Statement.” American Studies at Yale, April 1977. https://americanstudies.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Keyword%20Coalition_Readings.pdf .

Hill, Lauryn. “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind.” MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, MTV Studios, 7 May 2002. Spotify, https://open.spotify.com/album/22tn8fUpD1lurSga9yuqhM.

Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. 3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 2015. Utley, Ebony A. “‘I Used to Love Him’: Exploring the Miseducation About Black Love and Sex.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 27, no. 3, Aug. 2010, pp. 291–308. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/15295030903583531.

In progress…

April 28, 2024April 28, 2024 Maia Anjolie3 Comments

(More is to come)

Individuals desire to be known and loved, yet they fear being found unworthy. Individuals yearn to be heard and listened to, to find tangible pieces of art, and to finally see their difficulties within despair. People want to be found, and not by their own selves, they want their lives to be acknowledged, they want someone to witness their lives as they will do to the other person. But truly we can only be known perfectly by some ultimate holy creator and the rest of us on the ground continue to relearn and reinvent our identities, souls, and egos every single day. We want to be found and owned in love, yes, but when will people learn that in order for this to happen we must find our own peace of mind, alone?

There is no we, or us in the song, “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind” written by the artist, Lauryn Hill. It is purely a self-act to find your version of what your peace of mind truly is. In strictly nine minutes, filled with a room full of strangers, Hill shares a textual analysis of the fall of her ego and her rise to respect within. Having already been declared “brainwashed” and “emotionally unstable” Hill decides to carry her own story into a room where every inch of her body is judged and watched as a Black woman. Still, despite the innate prejudice that is omnipresent toward Black women, Hill’s voice silenced every single person in that room, to hopefully, at last, be truly understood. Hill shares her story of how she once searched for wanting to belong to someone, to be owned by love, by a man, preventing her from finding her peace of mind, blinded by a false mental image (ego) caused by the world constantly telling them to belong to someone.

Lauryn Hill who not only has contributed brilliantly to the genre of neo-soul, is also a dedicated activist, who utilizes her songs to shed light on black feminism. Who doesn’t want to be wanted, right? And to be wanted doesn’t necessarily mean flashing a diamond ring, or replacing your last name with someone else’s. Though all of this, to feel wanted and be owned by love means absolutely nothing if that respect and love are not rooted from within. For Black women that can be so entirely hard, if the world already does not respect and love you. The Combahee River Collective pleads for mercy for black women, “to be recognized as human, levelly human.” From the minute Black women are born into this world they are acknowledged as having the lowest value in the power hierarchy. Facing sexism, classism, and racism all at once, Lauryn Hill sings, “To finally be in love / And know the real meaning of / A lasting relationship, not based on ownership” (Hill). At the age of 26, Hill was just learning what it meant to finally be in healthy relationship with herself. It’s sickening that this world has failed to give Black women the true love that they deserve and it becomes so powerful and poignant that it prevents Black women from even loving their selves.

Lauryn Hill had to become a black feminist herself because the world and society will never truly love, accept, and understand black women. Hill listened once to how the world treated her, they would tell her “…there’s no me without him” (Hill). Becoming trapped in major systems of oppression intertwining, patently Hill’s ego took over. Her ego, the false mental image that forced a desire upon her for validation and the desire to be wanted and loved, and so pressured by society to belong to someone she truly thought she was nothing. Her ego did not want to let go of her either, “Trapped in her memory/ constantly holding me” (Hill). Not only was Hill fighting against her ego, but she was also grappling with the nature of oppression, that had existed long before Hill even set foot into this world. Her life was run by her ego deeply rooted in the “racial, sexual, and class oppression” birthed by our society.

New York City DOE

March 1, 2024March 7, 2024 Maia AnjolieLeave a comment

Haven’t posted in a while 🙂 Here’s an essay that I am submitting right now.

Literacy in the New York City Department of Education Community

Graduation is what I dread the most, and the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) is responsible for this. “All New York City children are guaranteed a seat at a public middle school.” (New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE)). However, the DOE fails to mention that an equal amount of funding will be allocated to every school in New York City. The DOE does not explicitly state that resources are uniform. By the time NYC students completed the high school application process, they had become thoroughly equipped to handle any kind of application. Skills such as application submission, oral speech, essay writing, interview etiquette, and proficiency in Standard Written English (SWE) were competencies that NYC students successfully acquired. Though, this preparation also exposed them to experiences of rejection, sacrifice, stress, and feelings of inadequacy as early as age nine.

During my application process for middle school, I was uninterested, but I also realized how little I cared. My only concern at nine years old was the early curfew my mother imposed on me. I was aware that one middle school, in particular, was blocks away from my Dad’s house. Whenever I liked a school, my mother would try to find out why I liked it. I would answer, “MS 447— The Math & Science Exploratory School” is a name I like. Neither I nor any of my peers could independently achieve our goals of getting into a great school, even if we knew what attracted and concerned us. In the end, I did not get into MS 447.

The most outstanding schools “are open to all NYC students,” or so the “Citywide programs” put it (NYC DOE). When it comes to ensuring their children have access to the best educational opportunities—especially those that provide a high-quality literary education—parents are prepared to do whatever it takes. Gaining admission to the top schools provided families with access to the most efficient and all-encompassing learning possibilities. NYC institutions helped students succeed in their literary skills, which include writing, reading, and other forms of communication. Private sponsors with strong financial and political power are positioned to fund educational projects that provide resources and financing that impact the standard of education in each school; thus, the benefits of this extend beyond kids and their families. Despite the fact that all children should have access to the best education possible, applying even to be considered for admission to the best schools is disastrous, and stressful due to the “‘…jungle of rules and regulations’ (139)” (Brandt, 1998, p. 177), that schools and their sponsors impose. These education programs not only give kids a better opportunity to lead prosperous lives, but they also teach them about their civil rights. Learning the values of justice, equality, and fairness at a young age enables individuals to make educated decisions and take the initiative to create a more just world. Sponsors who support these opportunities thus get to enjoy their wealth, advantages, and influence while watching families beg for their children’s opportunities to achieve in the outside world.

The NYC DOE equipped me with the experience of facing rejection. Even though my mother was the one who essentially applied to middle school on my behalf, discovering that I hadn’t been accepted into MS 447 made me feel like my life had come to an end. Nevertheless, as life progressed, I grasped the significance of advocacy. Faced with rejection, my family became even more determined to secure a position at MS 447, and we succeeded. Upon my family’s realization, Maria, a fellow member of our local church with ties to the NYC DOE, advocated for my placement at MS 447. The communities within the NYC DOE demonstrate not just “the lengths people will go to secure literacy for themselves or their children,” (Brandt, 1998, p.169), but also how an older generation can pass down its literacy sources to a younger one. While these applications only featured my name, my family and friends contributed to my presence there in the first place.

Three years later, NYC students would need to apply to the “Specialized High School” application, complete a three-hour exam, and then have an interview to get admitted to the most renowned schools. The middle school application process was distinct, particularly because we were younger. However, my peers and I all initiated this process simultaneously at the age of nine. Together, we were introduced to the program’s rules and expectations. We were all “ordinary people largely through the mediations of more powerful sponsors” (Brandt, 1998, p. 173). However, when it came to gaining admission to specialized high schools, we quickly realized the disparities in economic and political privileges among students. Simply put, it became evident who could afford SHSAT tutoring and who could not, and which parents possessed the most effective skills and teachings to impart to their children. If a child didn’t inherently possess a brilliant, genius mind, families would pray for someone like Maria to come along.

On the day of the SHSAT exam and interview, I adorned myself in a white dress, wearing a smile on my face. I transitioned from telling my close friends and family, “I done told you this is important’” (Melix, n.d.), to expressing, “This is very important to my future” . When entering the building, the use of Black English diminished, and employing standard English seemed to pave the way for a successful future. Unfortunately, in the end, I did not secure admission to a Specialized High School, a fate shared by many of my peers, particularly those with lower economic status. At this juncture, it became apparent the efforts families exerted to enroll their kids in the most prestigious schools, the economic advantages every student possessed individually, and how elite schools served as pathways to “enhance [NYC students’] social standings” (Brandt, 1998, p. 168). Facing rejection was a familiar experience for NYC students by then, yet we remained optimistic about our successful futures, even if admission to the “Specialized High Schools” eluded us.

For the first time, I must honestly admit that I made a mistake during my interview—I interrupted someone. While it’s true that “…some errors are less serious than others” (Williams, 1981), this particular mistake unfortunately determined my fate. I made a consequential error, one that removed my only shot of getting into a “Specialized High School”. The literacy fostered by NYC DOE, trained students to become experts in interviews, proficient in formal writing, adhere to Standard Written English, achieve academic excellence, and recognize the significance of education. Although, due to the paramount importance of these literacies in today’s world, instead of fostering teamwork and collaboration among students in NYC, these institutions inadvertently fostered competition and it only continues to intensify. The discrepancies in resources and privileges between my peers and I led to significant disparities in our access to essential resources. Access to high-quality education has always been and continues to be the most critical asset. Deborah Brandt states, that there is a “‘literacy crisis’, that is, the perceived gap between rising standards for achievement and people’s ability to meet them…” (1998, p. 169). This raises the question of how young students, regardless of their access to education, can be expected to meet the increasingly high standards set by educational institutions. These standards (i.e. interviews, lengthy exams, rigorous applications) appear demanding and unrealistic for a significant portion of the student population, which contributes to the difficulties in attaining literary education. The feasibility and fairness of the educational standards set for NYC children warrant consideration of the damage they may do to young individual’s confidence, self-assurance, and optimism within.

The application processes offered by the NYC Department of Education were likely designed to provide equal opportunities for all students to secure admission to the best schools. However, as literacy becomes increasingly valued as a key to financial gain each year, “the pursuit of literacy feels so turbulent and precarious…” (Brandt, 1998, p. 169). Lacking economic privileges and without someone like Maria, my journey would have been significantly more challenging. Though, Maria demonstrated that success isn’t solely about financial resources; community support and advocacy are equally crucial. Navigating the challenges of an education system also requires collective efforts. In my initial exposure to the shortcomings of the education system, all my peers and I could do was observe—learn how to speak, dress, smile, walk, and even gaze appropriately. Despite the pain caused by witnessing disparities, rejections, and enduring anxieties, when the time came to apply for undergraduate programs, NYC students were more prepared than ever. Students were aware of what institutions desired to hear, and see, and the specific way they were expected to dress. Students knew how to align themselves with the faculty’s expectations, and for that, I am grateful for the experiences they provided.

Throughout my whole academic career, I have excelled in one area: adaptability. Since I was nine years old, I have moved environments every three to four years to further my schooling. I’ve learned how to speak up for myself, to find resources and communities when I know I am struggling, and to seek mentorship. I have learned independence because, yes, even though it has taken a village to get here, when I initiated the interviews, essays, applications, and tests, it was me who started and me who finished it. I have learned to find the people I need. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing about my journey, but I yearn to hug my nine-year-old self, as well as every child who has faced, or will face the “turbulent and precarious” battle for the best possible literacy education.

References

Brandt, D. (1998, May). Sponsors of Literacy.

Melix, B. (n.d.). From Outside, In.

New York City Department of Education. (n.d.) Specialized High Schools. https://www.schools.nyc.gov/enrollment/enroll-grade-by-grade/specialized-high-schools

New York City Department of Education. (n.d.). Middle School Enrollment. https://www.schools.nyc.gov/enrollment/enroll-grade-by-grade/middle-school.

Williams, J. M. (1981). The Phenomenology of Error. College Composition and Communication, 32(2), 152–168. https://doi.org/10.2307/356689

Joseph Chaikin – The Open Theatre

October 6, 2023October 6, 2023 Maia Anjolie2 Comments

Not even forty-eight hours after watching Open Theatre, I can still hear the lingering, “The judgment of your life is your life.” Again and again, I underestimate the power of art, and not just in theatre. Before experiencing the open theatre I was almost baffled at Joseph Chaikin comparing the power of life to a character on stage. But, here I am hypocritical, admitting that this performance is currently anchored with the reflection of my own life.

It isn’t that Chaikin put brand new ideas in my head because the scenes being portrayed were ongoing events that happened in our society during the time this performance took place, and now. So, it’s not that he placed these ideas in my head, but he expanded my perception like a flower blooming. I was able to experience this moment when one of the male actors articulated, “Make that man poor, so I can be rich. Make that man dead, so I can live.” Is this what it takes for neglected individuals to survive? Is this what no one is saying out loud, yet screaming inside? We live in the shadow of dominance constantly.

Authority doesn’t start or end with a performance, but I understand that experiencing a performance like this can be the start to the end of what we forcefully accept. Ironically though, Chaikin forces these moments of reflection with the presence of the actor; however, does not force us to create these inner truths in our heads. He finishes off this performance with “the judgment of your life is your life” for a reason. He wants us to capture our individualistic revolutionary voice and encounter that voice to the fullest extent.

Chaikin reaches into my core on how I want to carry out my own life and not serve the “capitalist machine”. Although Chaikin can only lead us to these explorations, I badly want him to tell me how to resolve and stabilize myself. In the same way that Chaikin has only learned how to not teach acting, I have only learned how to live my life by not repeating the same poor decisions. The lives we live and the things we try to achieve will always be slippery, uncertain, and uncomfortable. Yet, there is safety in our own personal discoveries from our transgressions within and the environments we are exposed to. We are always given such security in the realms of art and the open theatre.

Purpose of Theatre Statement/Thoughts

September 5, 2023September 18, 2023 Maia Anjolie1 Comment

I don’t nearly have enough knowledge or thoughts to explain the importance of theatre. I do, however, understand the impact art has on individuals’ lives, including mine. I yearn for the separation art gives from life. Though, I don’t immerse myself in art and all kinds of variety it provides as much as I should – especially given that we, as humans, get sucked into life with every breath we take.

I badly want to tell someone all about the purpose of theatre and give complex and intricate thoughts, but I am not educated enough about art as a whole. Ironically though, I have seen theatre more through motion pictures and television, yet I can name not even one of those examples because of how little impact it provided me on my life or even art. Theodore Shank rightly says, there is a distinction between motion pictures/television and live performances. My harsher and more biased input is motion pictures are less insignificant and even useless at times, while the live theatre performances I have experienced have been marked as some of the most monumental moments in my life.

When I think about the experience of live theatre performances, it is so much more than getting strangers to fill up seats to watch humans engaging in a sophisticated and well-thought-out version of “playing pretend.” It’s about the preparation from undeniably the characters and even the spectators themselves. It’s about the purpose of why these humans are in the same gathering to watch this performance. Individuals may be bored, or isolated, and some are there for the future of their own careers and professions, etc. There are different types of reasons and experiences waiting to be conquered after the closing act. Witnessing the performance may be the only common thing spectators hold but the impact and experiences gathered from it can vary from each person, including the characters. Humans hold so many different thoughts and opinions but the one thing we can share is that we sat down and watched this performance together. Theatre can be represented as a universal language, regardless of what brought people together.

When I’m preparing to see a live performance, I curiously want to be reminded of the characters’ humanity. I want to hear the strain of the person’s voice, see their tears fall, and witness anything I would not be able to attain through a blue light screen.

We deceive

August 10, 2023 Maia Anjolie1 Comment

Hiding, lying, and the imagination all make sense now. The exploration provided by Oscar Wilde and Paul in Six Degrees of Separation revealed that art is only in response to existence. These works expanded my ability to recognize my identity, individuals who deceive, and the acceptance we create on earth. In other words, I feel penetrable because of the art I have discovered in this class.

Oscar Wilde compares lying and poetry to an expression of art. As someone who strives to be honest but gets sucked into dishonesty at times, Wilde helps me to become more flexible towards myself. I am learning, “Sometimes you do not want the burden of having your particular idea attributed to your social identity.” Dishonesty and masking can be described as a humane response to the dismissal of our own existence.

Lying and hiding might always be viewed as obstructiveness towards the good that exists in this world. I acknowledge that to this day, “it haunts me in the moments of pleasure,” and although Wilde expresses this in a different context, with respect, it applies to me. Even though it is not advisable, these are accessible measures to avoid judgment and disparagement. I have accepted that we endure feelings of inadequacy because we feel we may not be suited for a specific circumstance in our lives. As stated in the script of Six Degrees of Separation, we can either “face ourselves” or use the imagination to make self-examination bearable. My insights are not to excuse or endorse dishonesty, but it does help me understand why people do it and how humans have a foreseeable pattern.

In contrast to the world of Gilead’s inhuman use of modesty in The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, I realized that I don’t always recognize the beauty attached when I examine myself, possibly because of my lack of modesty. I have an extreme bias toward myself, and yes, Wilde’s ambivalent perspective may be correct, “the only beautiful things…., are the things that do not concern us.” Wilde’s viewpoint makes me wonder if humans merely need to achieve neutrality, rather than confidence, or dislike when perceiving ourselves in a healthy judgment. Humility has the chance to prevent lying and hiding—art and the existence that creates this yearning for modesty. At the same time, my existence yearns for the beauty that I hold candidly. However, I believe my existence will never be considered ordinary; no soul will ever be. I want to feel more than ordinary; don’t we all? Perhaps a balanced perspective reveals intricate beauty.

I once found comfort in masking myself and still do when I’m not too fond of the reflection of myself, but art is helping me to discover the sovereignty of humanity. Art is complicated, but the self-examination it provides will always remain clear to me. Individuals’ expression of their ideas on nature and art through people’s eyes will always provide warmth and closure. Although life creates art, it should not be mistaken for the other way around. Art helps me to clarify the world were all in. One day, I endeavor to find beauty in the things that do concern me, and I’m confident that art will eventually lead me there. No one has ever stated that existence is easy, nor there’s a right way to abide by it, and art supports that. Art is complicated, but so are humans and the lying and hiding we execute. My perception will forever continue to be changed by art.

Unnamed Poem

August 7, 2023 Maia AnjolieLeave a comment

I am waiting to turn on. Must I always have to choose? 
My decisions are no companions or enemies. That is only my relationship with myself.
My soul becomes bitter and my heart remains conditional. Must it always have to be like this?
My head swirls to the middle of what I must be be
when will I turn on and grow?
When will I not give into my own persona molds.

Stop staring into me. I see you are damaged too
We stomp on the bodies of the dead, yet their distribution of souls are within us.

I weep with you. I lie with you.
I must not choose the vulnerability of your given sides.

This world is brighter for everything you gave it.”