The question of what two things the character of Avis was struggling between was asked sometime last week. I believed it to be art and beauty. Somehow it makes sense in my head that while Avis is seen by everyone else as a beauty she longs to create art. As if beauty is a surface condition but art is the employment of beauty and is based in reality.
It intrigues me to no end that the first criticism in the back of the book says that Phelps (the author) makes it obvious that her opinion is against marriage and then goes on to say that this is "a dangerous lesson to preach, and no less dangerous than untrue." yet it is this critics observation that Avis "against her instincts and contrary to her determination, [ ] allows herself to be beguiled into marriage." The word beguiled is where I take issue. It's funny to me that we noticed the same things only I, who am opposed to marriage in general, saw the main character as submitting to it for love, while the critic who seems bent in favor of unions assumes that deceit was part of the game. I'm extremely pleased not to have been a woman in those times.
My mother and I were talking about the book The Awakening recently and I told her that Kate Chopin also rights a short story that has been my favorite since I read it over two years ago. It's called The Story of an Hour. It seems to us that women in subservient positions within their marriage (and those in dominant positions) are the unhappy majority. It is the equal unions and only those that seem to be less inclined to complain. I'll have to finish these thoughts in a new notebook, this one is due today.
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I believe I was talking about equal couple and happiness. I shouldn't speak as an expert. I don't know many happy couples. Aside from my marriage and maybe one or two others, the rest just make a mockery of this so-called sanctity.
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