Sexual Frustration and the Helpless Woman

I just finished the play, 'A View from the Bridge' by Arthur Miller, and it is good enough to post to this literary blog. I'm not sure if it's a 'Classic,' as Penguin might not have publication rights on it, but its themes of sexual frustration and helpless women, though not the main point of the play, dovetail nicely on the characters in Anna Karenina, and I'd like to write about it. Both also explore characters determining their own downfall through unjust actions; these fates are not supposed to be surprising to us, but to force us to live out bad choices to the dirty end.

I originally saw the first act performed by a Carrol Gardens theater groupe at the Brooklyn Museum a few months ago, and just found a copy to read the full play. It didn't run long when it debuted in 1956, but recently it's been revitalized, that time as a mini opera, which I wasn't the hugest fan of.

Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood, in this 1940's setting, is a dominantly Italian neighborhood, very working class, and as Miller's narrator says of the main character Eddie Carbone, a home to simple people who work hard, make a paycheck, come home to dinner, and reach little beyond the joys of mere existence. But oh, can their lives be complicated.

Eddie lives with his wife and his wife's niece Katherine, who he overtly covets. He is a grown man who has a thing for his barely-post-pubescent adoptive niece, who he raised like a daughter, and can't handle her going out into the world, getting a job, and meeting boys. We see his wife sense this and become upset; we see Katherine sense this and get confused; and we see Katherine's suitor, the illegal Italian immigrant Rodolpho, who is living in their house.

What pains me is seeing Katherine struggle with her feelings of daughterly love for Eddie, too often choosing be ignorant of his inappropriate feelings and refusing to be the person in the house who takes charge of them. SPOILER: As we approach the final scene, she still hasn't moved out of the imploding household, doesn't try to tell Eddie to stop trying to break her and Rodolpho up. As a privileged, post-modern 21st century woman this is the most frustrating thing in the world to see.

Anna Karenina inspires much of the same feelings for me: Why can't Anna just go be with her man? Why doesn't she dash off into the night with her son, forsaking meaningless things like social status and money in favor of true love? Why do they let asshole men like Eddie and Aleksander Karenin rule their lives?

Well, first, because these stories were written by men to explore how the male characters handle and react to complicated love situations. But secondly, because being a woman really did limit these women's ability to determine their lives, whether within a relationship or monetarily. They didn't have the social mobility to stave off completely on their own, or at least didn't believe that they did. And this makes me sad.

Sorry RaeAnn that it took me so long to post something. Can't wait to read more of everyone's progress.

Brave New Year

First, I'd like to thank the wonderful little r for creating this blog. Secondly, I'd like to thank her for inviting me to contribute to it. And thirdly, I'd like to thank myself, for making it possible for me to be here today, reading and writing for this blog.

The Penguin Classic challenge is one will force us to span the breadth of known Western history in a way that we really should have in college but were likely too intoxicated to do so. Though it is a blatant marketing device meant to increase brand loyalty to the Penguin publishing business, it is a damn clever one, and one that I don't particularly mind participating in. However, as a last testament to my formerly anti-corporate ways, I will make a point to buy versions not published by Penguin throughout the duration of the challenge. This will be difficult for the more obscure texts, but we'll see.

I'll be honest, I haven't compiled my alphabetical list yet, but I work better in a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants sort of environment anyway. Breaking the mold, I've started in the T's with Anna Karenina, Tolstoy's oft-claimed best novel of all time.

Tracing the romantic and catastrophic exploits of multiple couples, Anna, according to the introductory text, is a moral statement about love, fidelity, and how shit just doesn't work out sometimes. The book's namesake, the super-high class woman Anna Karenina, ruins her life having an affair with the young hotshot Vronksy. At the same time, her brother is sleeping around with chamber maids, and two innocent lovebirds Levin and Kitty do a joyous and awkwardly cute lovedance that has lasted 400 pages so far. With truly brilliant insights into each character's thought process, we see a whole range of possible love situations for people living in 19^th century upper class pre-Soviet Russia. Oh, and I'm pretty sure Anna offs herself by the end, probably by jumping in front of a train (when Anna and Vronsky first meet, someone gets hit by a train and dies. I'm predicting this was a bit of foreshadowing.)

So yeah, it's about upper class people that have lots of time to mope, pine, think, and do whatever it is upper class people do when they aren't ordering servants around and waiting for the Bolshevik revolution to ruin their way of life. (Apparently a lot of that free time is spent philandering.) Tolstoy was upper-class-ish himself, and the inspiration for his main character came from gossip he heard about a woman in a nearby town.

I'm halfway through, and can have more thoughts later. Only 407 pages to go in my Oxford World Classic copy (look at my lack of brand loyalty!)

I look forward to what the Year of the Penguin has in store.

Says the Penguin: "2010! That's my shit."