For those of you who wonder what I'm attempting to write my thesis about, here is a fairly garbled and simplistic summary, which I emailed to my professor earlier today:
The focus of my thesis has become the solitary female reader. Improperly educated and unable or unwilling to fit into her allocated place in society, her identity becomes her reading material, in a sort of Lacan mirror phase. The women I am focusing on here are Maggie, Dorothea, and Rosamond. Better educated men are able to become engrossed with a subject without it becoming the main function of their identities (Lydgate, Farebrother, and I am also planning on including some excerpts from "A College Breakfast Party"). The right man- a reading compatible man- can facilitate the woman's education and save her from obsessive identity reading. Ultimately, George Eliot advocates a reading compatible relationship between a man and a woman. I think some biography about her and Lewes' relationship is appropriate here, though I don't want to go overboard. Textual examples are Mary/Fred and the Garths. I am also looking at the ways Maggie/Philip, Maggie/Tom, Dorothea/Casaubon, Dorothea/Will, Rosamond/Ned, Rosamond/Lydgate work and do not work.
My advisor's reply: "This sounds very promising." So, good. Okay then. Now I just have to finish writing it. And do a lot more reading. And maybe not use phrases like "I don't want to go overboard" in my scholarly communications.
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9 comments:
I don't want to freak you out - but I don't really get it... I have had less college than you also I have the attention span of a fruit fly. But I wish you the best of luck!
Did you coin the phrase "reading-compatible man"? It's no maturity rockstar, but it definitely has a ring to it.
On another note - is this paper really just a thinly veiled examination of your own neo-Victorian life? Aren't we all searching for our love story in the stacks?
I AM a total Neo-Victorian.
However, I don't feel I need a man to help me read properly. I also have no desire to pursue 'masculine knowledge'- which has a different connotation know then it did in the Victorian era. I find it interesting, though, that we still have types of knowledge associated with men and types associated with women.
Hmm, see I can't comment at all on masculine knowledge and/or how it relates to your these, because I don't know anything about your thesis, but I don't think you need or should want a man to help you read properly (is this what your thesis is about? Is this what Eliot is advocating? Because I veto that emotion!).
I think that reading in an expression of creativity and culture that is very unique to an individual. In finding their reading-compatible partner, a person is finding their own intellectual reflection in another person, which will allow them to reach the fullest potential of their relationship. Much like Owen Wilson said "true love is the soul's recognition of its counterpoint in another," (a truly awful line) in Wedding Crashers, you've got to find your reading soul mate, too.
I'm all about the gender partnership.
I think in an ideal world, in a world of gender equality, Eliot would be all in favor of a reading compatible partner. If you asked her (you know, over one hundred years ago) I think she would tell you that that is what she found in George H. Lewes. However, the women in her books are living (and reading) in a society without any form of gender equality, where different methods of learning are available to men. Women don't learn to learn, they don't learn to read properly, and therefore, these women need these men- the knowledge they can access and their way of looking at the world.
See you're talking about your paper and I'm talking about real life. My world is all about preference and whims and fancy, your world is all about access and expectations and drudgery. And corsets.
I like my world. I'm staying in my world.
And I still think that the underlying motive of your thesis is that you want to marry a dude who is well-read and therefore your intellectual equal.
Also, one question - isn't this really a matter of access? Women were taught to read, but then they weren't given access to the good works? It's like being taught to drive a car, but then being given one that can't move out of first gear. I guess I'm wondering if there's that much to really LEARN after one has learned the act of reading. Isn't it all really just capitalizing on the ability at that point?
It's not just a matter of learning to read, but learning how to process what you read and apply it to the general world. This second part is the disconnect, where these female characters are suffering. They don't know how to interpret, so they merely absorb what they're reading- they essentially become what they're reading. A religious book makes a woman pious and self-sacrificing. A romance makes her look for lovers, both legit and illicit.
They've been given an educational tool without being taught how to use it, and while this works for some female characters, though who feel out of place in society and long to escape over-identify with books, to their own detriment.
They're taught how to read, they're just not taught HOW to read, if you get me.
And yes, of course I want a well-read man. I also want books as love tokens (an entire section of my paper is devoted to this trope).
You guys are dorks.
i agree with rachel
now i'm going to go read
the next blog entry about
sweet valley high!!!
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