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CRITIQUING THE CLASSICS :A STUDY OF GENDER ISSUES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE WITH HIGH

SCHOOL STUDENTS

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the

Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Patricia Bums Zumhagen, B.A., M.A.

* * * * *

The Ohio State University July 30,2001

Dissertation Committee:

Anna Soter, Chair

James P. Phelan

Maia Mertz

Brian Edmiston

.pproved by

Advisor

College of Education

UMI Number: 3022611

UMIUMI Microform 3022611

Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against

unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road

P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346

Copyright by ums 2 2001

Patricia Bums Zumhagen

All Rights Reserved

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate the responses of high school literature

students to sexist gender representations and patriarchal ideology in selected early 20th

• century American literature. Addressing the need for the design and implementation of

a gender-conscious pedagogy for the study of literature commonly taught in the high

school, this research also explores the effects of specific teaching approaches on the

students’ literary responses.

The study developed from a concern that without a critical pedagogy for the

study of this older literature, the sexism and androcentrism evident in such classic texts

may result in students either dismissing the works as irrelevant for their time, or

succumbing, without resistance, to coercive textual powers that threaten to position

them in patriarchal ways, and further perpetuate gender inequality.

The study, which combines feminist and interpretivist approaches with a self­

reflexive component, investigates the responses of students enrolled in a high school

American literature course. It specifically addresses the responses of a focus group of

representatives from the larger group. During the course, students studied seven classic

American literary works through the lenses of various teaching approaches.

Student responses to selected literary works and specific teaching approaches

and strategies were examined in order to determine (1) whether students reported or

exhibited an increased awareness of sexist representations or androcentric perspective in

the literature; 2) whether they reported or demonstrated that particular teaching

approaches and strategies were effective at heightening critical consciousness o f literary

ii

gender issues; (3) and whether they reported or demonstrated a heightened

consciousness to gender issues in their lives as result o f the study.

Analyses of written responses, documents, audio- and video-recorded

transcriptions of discussions, improvisational drama activities and focus group

interviews, helped to identify students’ developing responses to the literary

representations and governing ideologies in the literature throughout the course.

Analyses of the teacher's journals and ‘dramatic scenes’ written as a method of inquiry

were also used to investigate the developing responses of the students.

Analyses revealed that the course was instrumental in increasing students’

sensitivity to stereotypes and double standards in literature. It also revealed that while a

combination of teaching approaches proved successful for serving the students’ diverse

needs and interests, that discussion and social imagination activities (educational drama,

creative writing, and art) were determined to have been the most successful techniques

for heightening students’ awareness of gender issues in the literature.

The study also indicated that students did make some progress in the

identification of textual positioning of readers and governing androcentric ideology in

the literature. However, their difficulties with critical reading skills resulted in limited

success in that area. The study also revealed that students did report that the course had

increased their consciousness to issues and inequalities in their lives, and the research

data corroborated their reported increased awareness. The students’ ambivalence about

the roles of males and females in contemporary society, however, continued to result in

confusion about and, resistance to the adoption of what they saw as a feminist

perspective.

Ill

For Karen and Brian

IV

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I must begin by thanking Anna Soter for her continued support, unwavering

encouragement and kindness throughout this project. Her dedication to my project was

beyond the call of duty, especially considering her responsibility to a host o f others. I

am eternally grateful for all o f the help and for the encouragement to do my best work.

I would like also to thank Maia Mertz, Jim Phelan and Brian Edmiston for reading this

tome, and for their expertise, encouragement and wisdom during my candidacy

examination, and dissertation writing and defense.

My sincere appreciation, thanks and love also goes out to the focus group

participants— Dale, Ellen, Candy, Sarah, Brenda, Howard, Hillary, Charles, Maynard

and Marie—whose dedication and generosity of time and spirit was heart warming.

Without them, there would have been no study. Their patience with me, and their

willingness to dedicate hours o f “exploring and improvising,” not to mention filling out

just “one more questionnaire” , was enormously appreciated. Thanks also to Richard

and Alicia for the help they gave.

In addition, I would like to extend my appreciation to the larger group of

students in the two American Literature classes and to thank them for their help with

this project and for the insights we shared while exploring gender issues in the texts.

I would also like to thank ‘Margaret Johnson,’ to whom I owe an enormous debt of

gratitude for the time spent as peer de-briefer, co-teacher, advisor, coworker and jolly

friend and conversation partner. I sincerely appreciate her time and effort.

I also want to thank Pam Lombardi, my beloved friend, and Mike Kindred, my

beloved friend’s husband (and my friend too), for tending to me, feeding me,

entertaining me, and pulling me back into the land of the living whenever I needed it

throughout what seemed like an endless process of dissertation writing. Thanks for

understanding.

I would like to extend a special thanks to Elisabeth Robinson for the emotional

support.

Finally, I would like to give special recognition and thanks to Karen and Brian

Zumhagen who never accused me of being too old to be engaging in such a project as

this. I thank them for being proud of me and for appreciating lifelong learning.

VI

VITA

1965.............................Bachelor of Arts in English, Rivier College, Nashua, NH

1965-1966...................English Teacher, Moody Junior High School, Lowell,

Massachusetts

1980-1982..................Public Relations Director, League of Catholic Women of Detroit,Michigan

1982-1984..................Public Relations Account Manager, General Electric Plastics,Pittsfield, Massachusetts

1984-1985..................Public Relations Account Manager, Chan Cochran PublicRelations, Columbus, Ohio

1986-1988..................English Teacher, Linworth Alternative Program, Worthington,Ohio

1992............................ M aster of Arts in Education, OISE, University of Toronto,Toronto, Canada

1998-1999.................. Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English Education,Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1991-2001.................. English Teacher, Internship Coordinator, Linworth AlternativeProgram, Worthington, Ohio

V ll

FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Secondary Education

American Literature Gender Studies Feminism

viu

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...............................................................................................................................ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS....................................................................................................... v

VITA.........................................................................................................................................vii

LIST OF TABLES.................................................................................................................xiii

LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................... xiv

CHAPTER........................................................................................................................ Page

1. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM...................................................................................1Introduction....................................................................................................................IBackground................................................................................................................... 3The Need for Research.................................................................................................4The Rationale................................................................................................................ 6

Resistance to Feminism.................................................................................. 7Sexism in the Society.......................................................................................8Sexism in Popular Media...............................................................................10Sexism in Classic American Literature........................................................13

The Study.....................................................................................................................16Significance of the Study........................................................................................... 19Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 20

2. RELATED THEORIES AND RESEARCH.................................................................... 22Introduction................................................................................................................. 22Part I: Review of Related Theoretical Foundations ............................................ 22

Reader Response Theories............................................................................22Feminist Literary Theories............................................................................34Critical Pedagogy.......................................................................................... 48Ethical Theories.............................................................................................53

Part II: Review of Related Research Studies...........................................................60Introduction.................................................................................................... 60Gender ^ d Adolescent Culture................................................................... 60Gender and Schooling................................................................................... 62Gender and Reading...................................................................................... 64Cultural Criticism and Classroom Studies..................................................70Feminist Dialogic Studies.............................................................................72Poststructuralist/ Psychoanalytic Classroom Studies................................ 76

Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 81

3. METHODOLOGY..............................................................................................................83

ix

Introduction.................................................................................................................83Research Design Overview....................................................................................... 84

My Role as A Reflective Feminist Interpretivist Participant...................85The Research Questions................................................................................88S ite .................................................................. 89Participant Selection..................................................................................... 91Selection of the Literature............................................................................ 95Selection of Teaching Approaches and Strategies.................................... 96Rationale for Selected Approaches/Strategies...........................................96

Data Sources...............................................................................................................97The Larger Group.......................................................................................... 98The Focus Group..........................................................................................103Self Reflective Exploration.........................................................................107Method of Analysis......................................................................................108

Interpretation of the D ata.........................................................................................I l lPatterns and Them es.................................................................................. 112

The Interpretation and Presentation of the D ata..................................................114Realist T ale................................................................................................. 115Confessional Tale....................................................................................... 116Impressionist T ale........................................................................................116

Validity of Data....................................................................................................... 117Credibility and Confirmability..................................................................118

Transferability...........................................................................................................122Conclusion................................................................................................................ 124

Chapter 4 PREFACE............................................................................................................126The Format................................................................................................................ 126Initial Surveys...........................................................................................................129

4. MARRIAGE AND THE GENERATIONS ...................................................... 133Introduction............................................................................................................... 133WASHINGTON SQUARE......................................................................................134

Written Responses........................................................................................140Discussion.....................................................................................................144Critical Readings..........................................................................................146Critical Essay............................................................................................... 148Continued Discussion (Interview).............................................................150Social Imagination Activities..................................................................... 152Final Project................................................................................................. 154

Reflections................................................................................................................ 154Written Response.........................................................................................158Discussion.....................................................................................................159Critical Reading/Writing..................... 161Extended discussion.................................................................................... 170Social Imagination Activities....................................................................174Social Imagination Activities/Final Projects............................................ 175

Reflections on PM . Class........................................................................................178Conclusion................................................................................................................ 179Reflections................................................................................................................ 185“THE GENTLE LENA” ....................,.................................................................... 187

Written Response.........................................................................................190Discussion.....................................................................................................191

Criticism...................................................................................................... 194W riting........................................................................................................ 195Social Imagination Activity/final project.................................................197

Reflections...............................................................................................................199Written Responses..................................................................................... 206Discussion.................................................................................................. 206Social Imagination/Project....................................................................... 215

Reflections..............................................................................................................216WRITING/IMPROVISATIONAL WORKSHOP..............................................218Conclusion..............................................................................................................226

5. IMAGES OF ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS........................................................ 227Introduction.............................................................................................................227THE GREAT GATSB Y.........................................................................................228

Written Responses......................................................................................233Discussion.................................................................................................. 234Literary Criticism.......................................................................................239W riting........................................................................................................244Social Imagination Activities................................................................... 246Final Project............................................................................................... 250

Reflections.............................................................................................................. 252Written Responses......................................................................................257Introductory Character Study Activity.................................................... 259Discussion...................................................................................................259Literary Criticism.......................................................................................267Social Imagination Activities....................................................................270W riting........................................................................................................273Final Projects.............................................................................................. 273

Reflections.............................................................................................................. 274A FAREWELL TO ARMS.................................................................................., 277

Written Responses...................................................................................... 281Discussion...................................................................................................282Literary Criticism.......................................................................................283W riting........................................................................................................ 291Social Imagination Final Project.............................................................. 292

Reflections.............................................................................................................. 295Written Responses......................................................................................300Discussion................................................................................................... 301Discussion/Literary Criticism............................................. 303W riting........................................................................................ 307

Reflections............................................................................. 309THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING G O D ..........................................................311

Social Imagination Activities................................................................... 326Discussion...................................................................................................327Literary Criticism.......................................................................................330Final Project/Social Imagination..............................................................332Other Projects.............................................................................................336

Reflections...............................................................................................................338Chapter Conclusion.................................................................................................340

6. THE VOICES OF MEN AND W OMEN....................................................... 341

xi

Introduction..............................................................................................................341Explanation of the Format...................................................................................... 342“THE UNTOLD LIE”.............................................................................................345REVISIONISM ESr ONE A C T ............................................................................. 347Play Analysis............................................................................................................364POST SCRIPT........................................................................................................ 368

Comprehensive Final Responses............................................................. 368Individual Focus Group Responses to Survey.........................................377

7. REFLECTIONS, FINDINGS, RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY............................388Introduction..............................................................................................................388Overview of the Study............................................................................................390Findings.................................................................................................................... 391

Findings Regarding Increased Awareness...............................................391Findings Regarding Effects of Teaching Approaches/Strategies 392Findings Regarding Impact on Students’ Lives.......................................392Findings Determined From Reflections on My Experience.................. 393

Implications of the Study....................................................................................... 399Limitations of the Study......................................................................................... 401Need for Further Research.....................................................................................402Conclusion...............................................................................................................404

APPENDIX A Initial Background and Literary Survey.................................................405

APPENDIX B Final Survey...............................................................................................406

APPENDIX C Questions for Written Responses........................................................... 407

APPENDIX D Initial Focus Group Questionnaire.........................................................408

APPENDIX E Final Focus Group Questionnaire....................................... 410

APPENDIX F Focus Group Interview Questions.......................................................... 415

APPENDIX G Final Improvisational Workshop Questions..........................................418

APPENDIX H Early Social Imagination Activities...................................................... 419

APPENDIX I Advanced Social Imagination Activities................................................420

APPENDIX J Final Project Ideas.....................................................................................421

REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................423

XII

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1 Responses to Initial Survey (Part O ne)......................................................................................129

Table 6.1: Teaching Approaches................................................................................................................. 368

Table 6.2: Realization of Previous N aivete................................................................................................372

Table 6 3 : Im pact on R ead ing ..................................................................................................................... 373

Table 6.4: Im pact on L ife .............................................................................................................................. 374

Figure 6 3 . Resistance.....................................................................................................................................375

X lll

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1: Amanda’s Project ...................................................................................................................... 154

Figure 4.2: Catherine’s Dress........................................................................................................................ 175

Figure 4 3 : M arie’s Ode to G ertrude S te in ................................................................................................ 216

Figure 5.1: Daisy as T ro p h y ............................................ L........................................................................... 234

Figure 5 3 : Ellen’s Road M ap........................................................................................................................292

Figure 5 3 : Janie’s D iary................................................................................................................................ 332

Figure 5.4: Comic Book..................................................................................................................................336

Figure 5 3 : Imagining the Last Page............................................................................................................337

XIV

CHAPTER 1

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It is never enough to ‘correct’ our canon by substituting Gather for Twain. We must begin by challenging the very way we think about texts and the questions we brins to them.

Obbink, 1992. p. 40

Introduction

For the last thirty years, feminist educators have been engaged in an effort to

raise awareness about the patriarchal structures organizing society and its educational

institutions. Many scholars have attempted to challenge the ways in which schools have

shortchanged girls (AAUW, 1992; Applebee, 1993: Belenky, Brown and Gilligan,

1992; 1986; Pipher, 1990; Sadker and Sadker, 1994). Others have worked tirelessly to

cite examples of pedagogies through which “women have been taught to think as men,

to identify with a male point of view, and to accept as normal and legitimate, a male

system of values, one of whose central principles is misogyny’’ (Fetterley, 1978, p. 73).

Within the field of literature, feminist educators in the sixties and seventies

focused on addressing sexual stereotypes of women in fiction (Ellmann, 1968; Millett,

1969; Showalter, 1977), and on developing the fields o f feminist history and

gynocriticism (Fetterley, 1978; Gilbert and Gubar, 1979; Showalter, 1977). During

seventies, eighties and nineties, many scholars succeeded at revising the literary canon

to include women writers previously undiscovered or forgotten (Beach, 1993; Eagleton,

1

1986, 1996; Kolodny, 1985 Showalter, 1977;). Other scholars identified the impact of

gender on reading and on literary response (Bleich, 1986; Bogdan, 1990, 1992; Flynn,

1986; Halpem, 1985; Rich 1979; Schweickart, 1986). Additionally, in the eighties and

nineties, poststructuralist feminists identified the ways in which patriarchal texts

promote ways of seeing the world (Belsey, 1980; Davies, 1992; Martino, 1995; Taylor,

1993; Tompkins, 1994; Walkerdine, 1984). Research continues in the twenty-first

century as educators carry on the struggle to develop critical gender-conscious

approaches to the reading of texts (Bogdan, 1997; Harper, 2000; Pace and Townsend,

1999).

The dedication of these educators and intellectuals has been realized in revised

anthologies, canons, college curricular designs, and even in the development of

occasional high school elective courses in which gender issues and media

representations are considered. Despite all of the changes brought about by the

w om en’s movement and curricular additions instituted by women’s studies

departments, the average high school American literature classroom has experienced

little change over the years (Applebee, 1993). Though some female-authored literature

has been added to the high school curriculum, the majority of the works assigned are

still traditional, male authored classics (Applebee, 1993; Whaley, 1999), and there is

still little evidence of revisionist reading practices being employed for the reading of

these older male-authored texts (Applebee, 1993). Additionally, because traditional

new critical approaches are still the preferred analytical techniques used in classrooms

(AAUW, 1992, 1999; Applebee, 1993; Marshall, Smagorinsky & Smith, 1995), gender

issues are sacrificed to, and buried within the search for ‘universal’ human issues in the

literature.

Background

In my experiences teaching American literary classics in the high school during

the past ten years, I have become conscious of a complacency exhibited by my students

in response to the patriarchal gender order which I find evident in that literature.

Stereotypical portrayals of dependent women and independent men, or frequent

representations of nagging wives and henpecked, errant or abusive husbands are seldom

critiqued by my students. Also, double standards for male and female characters are

often accepted by them as ‘normal’ and most often go unchallenged. Also uncritiqued

are the ideological perspectives that often frame the stories within a paradigm based on

male dominance, female subjugation, and traditional notions of masculinity, femininity,

relationship and marriage. Since students seldom challenge androcentric textual

ideologies, they may be easily coerced to accept positions that are dependent on sexist

perspectives (Davies, 1992; Martino, 1995; Taylor, 1993; and Walkerdine, 1984).

Class discussions have revealed to me that this failure to resist a patriarchal

gender order is not limited to literary responses in the classroom. My students judge not

only characters but also each other by standards developed from within a patriarchal

system of gender hierarchies and binary oppositions. They limit themselves and other

males and females to sex-role stereotypes based on rigidly defined ‘masculine’ and

‘feminine’ behavior patterns. For example, students in my classes often label each other

and the literary characters by assigning categories that promote or restrict sexual

freedoms, domestic responsibilities, and/or career opportunities on the basis of gender.

Despite the social changes that have taken place since the sexual revolution, many of

my students accept the traditional notion that men are independent and women are

dependent, and men are rational and women are emotional. They also hold to the notion

that men have careers and children and women have careers or children; and men who

have had multiple sexual partners are “players,” or “studs” while women engaged in

3

similar behavior are “sluts.” Students’ responses have revealed to me the ways in which

traditional gender dichotomies continue to be reinscribed in these contemporary readers.

Consequently, my students’ tolerance for, or familiarity with, stereotypes and double

standards in classic literature and in contemporar)' society has convinced me of a need

for the development of a critical approach to reading that would stimulate awareness of

gender issues in the literature. Such an approach would be helpful in liberating students

from “controlling codes” (Foucault, 1977; Lather, 1991) which may organize their

reading and their lives.

As a feminist committed to the equality of the sexes and the emancipation of

men and women who have been marginalized by such controlling codes, I am interested

in developing strategies for the enactment of “democratic and emancipatory schooling”

(Gore, 1993, p. 15). Such strategies would hopefully stimulate a “problematizing”

(Freire, 1990/1973; Giroux, 1981, 1988; and Shor, 1980) of the sexist gender

representations and androcentric textual ideologies in classic literature and the

underlying social constructs which have been misconstrued as biological imperatives in

defining gender differences. Such strategies would also help students to perceive the

contradictions they experience as contemporary readers confronting the sexist

ideologies framing some of this older literature.

The Need for Research

Some research has been conducted in an effort to promote gender-conscious

reading of classic texts in the co-educational college classroom (Bogdan, 1997; Pace

and Townsend, 1999; Schweickart, 1986). Additionally, some research has been

conducted in exclusively male (Martino, 1995) or exclusively female (Harper, 2000;

Ricker-W ilson, 1999) high school classrooms to stimulate a deconstruction of

patriarchal storylines and/or a critical gender-conscious reading of fiction. However,

research has not been conducted in the co-educational high school classroom to study

students’ responses to gender representation and ideology, or to develop critical

teaching approaches that promote awareness o f the sexist representations and

perspectives in classic literature. Consequently, educators have not succeeded in

implementing a critical gender-conscious pedagogy for the high school literature

classroom. Many continue to express a need for such pedagogy (Harper, 2000;

Martino. 1995).

In order to identify effective teaching strategies and approaches suitable for the

high school literature student, I decided to engage in a three-pronged research project to

provide information necessary for the development of a critical feminist pedagogy. In

this project, 1 intended to (1) identify contemporary high school students’ unmediated

responses (Bogdan, 1992, 1997) to selected classic literature; (2) assess the impact of

particular critical teaching approaches selected to provoke a critique o f the sexist

representation and ideology in the literature; and (3) identify the struggles and

challenges I encountered as a teacher engaged in a research project designed to heighten

high school students’ consciousness of gender inequality in literature and in life.

Firstly, there is a need to identify students’ preliminary responses to gender

representations in order to assess students’ developing levels of awareness of sexism

and androcentrism in the literature. Without a record of students’ initial responses,

evaluating the effectiveness of selected critical approaches would be impossible.

Secondly, there is a need to research the students’ (and their teacher’s) evaluation of the

effectiveness of selected critical teaching approaches and strategies. Thirdly, there is a

need to identify the successes, challenges and discoveries experienced by the teacher

attempting to design a critical pedagogy for the high school classroom for the sake of

other educators attempting to implement a gender-conscious pedagogy.

The Rationale

Fundamentally, my rationale emerged from my perspective on gender equality:

( 1 ) Men and women should share an equal status and equal opportunity; neither group should be subordinate to the other

(2) A governing patriarchal ideology has resulted in the adoption of limiting gender roles and behaviors, still evident in our society and continually reproduced through social institutions and texts.

(3) The dismantling of this system requires continued critical social practice.

This perspective has fueled my commitment to engage in transformative gender

education for social justice. Firstly, I wanted to build awareness in my students of the

likely prevalence of sexist gender constructions, representations and governing

ideologies in the literature to be read. Secondly, I hoped to reveal to students the ways

in which those constructions may continue to generate sexism in literature as well as in

their own lives. Thirdly, I wanted promote an awareness of gender inequity/equity in

students’ own lives. Fourthly, I wanted to identify pedagogical approaches that would

best move students toward gender-conscious reading and living. Fifthly, I wanted to

find ways to ensure that classic literature, despite sexist gender representations and

androcentric perspectives, can remain an integral part o f American literature study.

Lastly, I hoped to share my experiences and struggles in the quest for gender-sensitive

teaching of literature with other educators

Specifically, I base my belief in a need for research leading to the development

of a critical approach to literature on the still present situation which threatens the equal

status of men and women even at the turn of the twenty-first century. Manifestations of

this imbalance are evident in the following:

• Resistance to feminism among teenagers• Evidence of sexism in the contemporary society.• Reinforcement of sexism in the contemporary media• Reinforcement of sexism through stereotypical representation of gender and

relationship in classic literature

Each of these will now be briefly discussed in terms of how they have influenced

my own directions in this study.

Resistance to Feminism

Resistance to feminism by high school students has been reported in studies by

Britzman (1994), Brown and Gilligan (1992), Faludi (1991), Harper (2000), Lather

(1991), Lewis (1990, 1992), Pitt (1994); Taylor (1993); and Wolf (1991). Students

today have not lived with the kind of gender discrimination or sexist behavior that their

parents and grandparents may have witnessed or experienced. Therefore, women’s

recent advancements have blinded many of today’s adolescents to the continuing and

insidious effects of a more subtle kind of sexism than that experienced by older

generations (Brown and Gilligan, 1992; Faludi, 1992 and Wolf, 1991).

Because women have acquired rights and eligibility for jobs and schooling,

many adolescents believe that sexist practices are no longer prevalent in today’s society

(Brown and Gilligan, 1992; Faludi, 1991; Harper, 2000; Taylor, 1993;). Researchers

(i.e.. Brown and Gilligan, 1992; Faludi, 1991; Harper, 2000; Taylor, 1993 and Wolf,

1991) theorize that although most young women are grateful for their raised status, and

a few are conscious of the need for further advancement, most are satisfied.

Consequently, they resist identifying themselves with the feminists who brought about

the changes and who would fight for more.

In addition, many students are not aware of the ways in which patriarchal textual

ideology continues to play itself out in literary storylines, themes, relationships or

gender representations and characterizations. They have had no education to lead them

to that practice (Applebee, 1993; Grumet, 2000; Hines, 1995; and Obbink, 1992). In

addition, my experience and others’ research findings suggest that the students are not

alert to the ways in which their literary responses are socially constructed along gender

lines (Consiglio, 1999; Harper, 2000; Schweickart and Flynn, 1986). Neither are they

7

aware of the way in which prior cultural experiences (Rosenblatt, 1978) and textual

ideologies (Walkerdine, 1984) determine their positions as readers and construct the

meaning they make of the texts (Davies, 1992; Martino, 1995).

Sexism in the Society

Faludi (1991) has attributed this resistance to feminism to what she has referred

to as the anti-feminist backlash of the eighties, which, she argues, succeeded at pushing

women back into the subjugated roles they had begun to abandon in the sixties and

seventies (see chapter Two, Section I for extended discussion of this backlash). To

substantiate her point, she reports that eighty percent of working women are still stuck

in traditional ‘female’ jobs, such as secretaries, support workers and salesclerks. In

addition, she reports that in a 1990 poll of executives at Fortune 100 companies, more

than 80 percent acknowledged that discrimination impedes female employees’ progress

(p. 3). Recent statistics compiled by the U. S. government on women and wages,

poverty and employment confirm her findings and the continued existence of gender

inequality in U.S. society today. For example, according to the most recent government

report on pay equity, white women make only S.75 to every dollar earned by white men,

with the discrepancy between men and women of color being considerably wider

(Internet Report on the National Committee on Pay Equity, 1998). In addition,

according to the committee report, even when comparing the same jobs, there is

inequity. For example, for public relations professionals, men with less than five years

experience or more than twenty years experience make twice as much money as women

in comparable jobs (p. 3). The report also emphasizes the fact that the glass ceiling not

only restricts women from leadership opportunities in business but also in politics and

government. Women are not well represented in the United States governing process;

statistics on women involved in government and politics demonstrate that women

comprise only 9% of U.S. Senate, 11% of congress, and 4% of governors (Internet

8

Report: National Committee on Pay Equity, 1998). And questions as to why are left

unanswered at the turn of the 21" century.

Another form of sexism is “the beauty myth,” which, according to Wolf (1991),

has replaced patriarchal law as a guarantor of male dominance since women have made

advancements in political and economic arenas. The mantra that “women must want to

embody beauty and men must want to possess women who embody it” (p. 174)

premises women's identity, femininity and value (but not men’s identity, masculinity or

value) on beauty. Consequently, this reduces women to mere decorations, and

undermines and erodes the ground they gained through a long, hard, honorable struggle

for equality. The result is a $ 33-billion-a year diet industry, $20 billion cosmetics

industry, $300-million cosmetic surgery industry, and $7-billion pornography industry

(p. 179) to assist women in being “acceptable,” and “desirable” to men, albeit

ornamental. According to Wolf (1991), the caricature of the Ugly Feminist, coined to

ridicule the feminists of the nineteenth century, has also been resurrected to sabotage

the continued progress of the women’s movement. It accompanies “the beauty myth” in

checkmating women's power. While this caricature resembles less the feminists

themselves than the distorted image fostered by the interests of those who might oppose

women’s progress, it serves to effect resistance in adolescents. They do not want to

identify themselves with a “big masculine woman, wearing boots, smoking a cigar,

swearing like a trooper” (Lucy Stone, in Wolf, 1991, p. 180).

In addition, statistics compiled by the U.S. government on spousal abuse and

rape also confirm the existence of sexism and a power imbalance in our society. U.S.

Spousal Murder and Sexual Assault Statistics confirm that a woman dies as a result of

spousal abuse every six hours. Battery is the leading cause of injury to women (Internet

Report: National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1993) in the U.S., with 3-4

million women battered in relationship violence every year in U.S. The most recent

U.S. rape and sexual assault statistics were compiled in 1994, when it was found that in

the U.S., there are 36 rapes or attempted rapes per hour.

These statistics alert me to the need for further work in the effort to promote

gender equality and equal respect for both women and men. I believe that if we are to

continue to work to create a just society, where women are treated equally and with

respect, both men and women (and boys and girls) must address issues of sexism, the

double standard, and sexual violence in the society. In my opinion, they should also be

aware of the images in our media and the representations and ideological perspectives in

our literature which reflect this gender inequality and play a part in producing and

reproducing these alarming statistics.

Sexism in Popular Media

Little ditty bout Jack and DianeTwo American kids growing up in the heartlandlackey’s gonna be a football starDiane’s debutante backseat of Jackie’s car.

Mellencamp, 1982

Music, movies and magazines perpetuate sexist stereotypes, androcentric

perspectives, double standards, emphasis on women’s beauty, and relegation of women

to a secondary status in our culture. Because of this, these media threaten to reproduce

patriarchal versions of femininity and masculinity (Davies, 1992, 1993; Martino, 1995:

Taylor, 1993 and Walkerdine, 1984) in high school readers/viewers/listeners, providing

the reference point for gender identification.

Poststructuralist psychoanalytic theorists argue that patriarchal discourses in

such cultural productions constitute gender subjectivities at unconscious level (Davies,

1992, 1993; Taylor, 1993; Walkerdine, 1984). Examples of the power of ‘textual

ideology’ (Walkerdine, 1984) and the strength the emotional connection with the

romantic culture are evidenced by the popularity of films which reinforce dominant

versions o f femininity, masculinity, male dominated relationships, and male rescue

10

themes. Film producer, Elisabeth Robinson, admitted in a recent interview (2000), that

Hollywood studios still shy away from screenplays for romantic comedies which

attempt to upset traditional gender roles, or reverse the ‘boy rescues girl’ motif. “It

rarely works otherwise,’’ says Robinson.

Three recent comedies extremely popular with teens, such as You’ve Got Mail

(1998); Nodding Hill (1999); and Step Mom (1998) are examples of films that subtly

reinforce sexist stereotypes and male dominance. They accomplish this by featuring

heroines who sacrifice talents and careers to take up traditional feminine roles as

romantic partners, wives and mothers, or to make the romantic relationships work more

smoothly. In Step Mom (1998) a dying ex-wife/mother and her ex-husband’s

successfully employed fiancee attempt to negotiate care-taking and transportation for

the children. The father, whose responsibility for these logistical issues was

acknowledged neither by the character nor by the screenwriter, waits for a resolution

from the two women, whose job it is to make arrangements for the children. The

fiancee eventually solves the problem by quitting her job as a successful photographer

to be available full time for the kids. The father continues on with his unaltered

business schedule; they marry, and live happily ever after, with the new wife busying

herself by happily snapping pictures of the children. Viewers of this film leam how to

be passive fathers and sacrificial mothers.

A similar resolution is reached in Nodding Hill (1999) in which a successful

woman gives up her lucrative career as a movie actor to insure the success of her

relationship with a failing bookseller. And, in You’ve Got Mail (1999), true love and a

promise of marriage absolves the hero of any guilt for having put the heroine out of

business. This familiar romantic narrative, based on patterns of thinking grounded in

gender role stereotypes and film/literary tradition, is so deeply ingrained in the culture

11

that a resistance to or critique o f the sexism supporting it is impossible without a critical

pedagogy that fosters a dialogue with the film/text.

Many popular teen and young adult magazines also emphasize and reinforce the

gender divide in today’s world. Popular magazines for teenage boys and young men

focus on hobbies. However, instead of catering to girls’ hobbies or interests, popular

magazines for teen girls and young women mainly cater to girls’ dedication to winning

and holding the heart of Mr. Right, who is active doing the hiking, climbing, snow

boarding, and biking, etc. Popular women’s magazines lure young female buyers with

advice for winning and holding boys and men by means of beauty tips, advice for

looking sexy through clothes shopping expeditions, weight loss programs, and sexual

tricks. The main stories listed on the covers of February 2001 editions of women’s

magazines were:

His Secret Love Wishes. (Redbookj A Better Butt For Every Reader! (Self)Make Him Crave You! (Cosmopolitan)Beauty First Aid: A Solution for Every Emergency! (Elle)65 looks to turn him on! (Glamour)Win A Man! (Mademoiselle)Lose ten pounds in seven days! (Mode)Shrink Your Body in Four Weeks! (Marie Claire)15 Sex Acts Men Expect; Perkier Breasts Today (Women’s Own)Look Irresistible! (Teen)25 Beauty Books for Under $5. (Seventeen)

All o f these magazines were dedicated to helping women become and remain desirable.

Texts popular with males focus on skill building. The main stories listed on the covers

of February 2001 editions of young men’s magazines were:

W e’ll make you a super hiker. (Backpacker)Toolbox Treasures. (Popular Mechanics)Super Bowl Showdown. (Sports Illustrated)All the Best Players. (The Sporting News)Sexy Lezy: A 300 hp four-seater with a retracting hardtop. (Car and Driver)Essential Maintenance and Riding Advice. (Mountain Bike)Paddle For Life! (Kavak Touring)Best in New Bands 2000. (Rolling Stone)How to Spaz. (Snowboarder)Snowboard Life Top 25 Snowboard Test. (Snowboard Life)

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The need for the development of the skills for ‘troubling' stereotypes seems to be as

necessary for the reading' of contemporary media as it is for the reading' of the

traditional gender roles, unequal relationships, and conventional romantic narratives

prevalent in classic texts. Furthermore, with these media offerings providing the

cultural background from which students come to approach the classics, it is likely that

without critical skills, students will remain blind to the unequal representation of men

and women in the texts, and in life. They will also remain blind to the double standards

present, sexist perspectives framing the works and the social institutions organizing

their lives.

Sexism in Classic American Literature

Examples of sex role stereotyping, double standards for behavior and sexuality,

emphasis on women's beauty, lack of power in the workplace, and women’s continued

submissive role in relationships are clearly evident in the society and its institutions.

They are also clearly demonstrated in our culture's most valued literary texts. These

classic texts are the central texts in the high school American literary canon (Applebee,

1993; Obbink, 1992; Whaley, 1999). And, these textual products threaten to stall the

progress toward gender equality for both boys and girls and men and women by

modeling gender inequality and a predominantly male understanding of the range of

human experience (Obbink, 1992).

According to Taylor (1993) and Walkerdine (1984), these texts continue to stall

gender equality between the sexes by displaying stereotypes, androcentric attitudes, and

sexist behaviors in a way that appears normal' to uncritical readers who are caught

between a culture that devalues women and one that strives for the equality of the sexes.

“Without an intervention and an exploration of alternative ideas about agency and

gender, patriarchal ideologies may continue to hold sway” (Cherland & Edelsky, 1993,

p. 42) in the reading of classic works. Therefore, the situation represents a challenge for

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English teachers who are committed to the sharing of America’s prized literary works

with adolescents, and also committed to facilitating the changes that would help

students to address gender inequities in the literature, in the culture, and in their own

lives. This challenge has prompted me to look for new ways to engage high school

students in the aesthetic experience afforded by America’s honored writers without

ignoring the political implications involved in such an agenda.

Many of the works assigned to high school students in American literature class

are male-authored novels written at a time when dualistic notions about male

domination, female submissive behavior, and the double standard reigned supreme.

Therefore, now antiquated notions of the relations between men and women are evident

in much of the fiction currently assigned. According to Applebee (1993) and Whaley

(1999), students in American literature classes are often assigned novels such as

Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. and Kesey’s One

Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1996/1969). In each of these novels, gender

representation and relationships are based in models that reinforce sexist dynamics even

when authors are attempting to critique social mores. In the case of- A Farewell to

Arms, the heroine models uncritiqued submissive behavior. In the case of The Great

Gatsbv and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the ideology at the center of the stories

is seen by some feminists as androcentric, if not misogynist (Fetterley, 1978; Horst,

1996), identifying women as responsible for the society’s demise. In both novels, the

system that so oppresses and destroys the men in the stories is represented by two of

America’s most famous fictional female villains: Daisy Buchanan and Nurse Ratched.

Students are also often assigned dramatic works by America’s premier

playwrights, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, some of whose characters are

constructed according to a sexist model acceptable in the culture out of which they were

constructed. In A Streetcar Named Desire (1974/1947), Williams’ stance on M itch’s

14

dismissal of Blanche as “unclean” and inappropriate for bringing home to mother sends

a sexist message to uncritical teenage readers who are part of a culture which still

operates on a double standard. In addition. Miller’s male hero in The Crucible (John

Proctor) refers to his previous sixteen-year-old lover, Abigail, as a “whore.” Although

he seduced and deflowered the young teenager, he takes little responsibility the loss of

her innocence, and likens his debt to Abigail to “the promise that a stallion gives a

mare” (p. 62). Because of the time in which he was writing. Miller shows no rejection

of his hero’s attitude, and, although he means to create a flawed hero in Proctor, his tone

betrays a lack of awareness of what is now may be seen as Proctor’s sexist attitude

toward Abigail. Reading these literary works uncritically can be particularly dangerous

because it can result in contemporary adolescent readers accepting or ignoring the sexist

attitudes because of their distaste for Abigail’s eventual villainous behavior.

The solution to the above dilemma is the development of a transformative

pedagogy to support gender-conscious reading and an awareness of stereotypes and

sexist ideology in the literature. That evidence is supported by educational theorists

(Belsey, 1988/1980; Bogdan, 1992: Davies, 1992, 1993; Gilbert and Taylor, 1991;

Obbink, 1992; Martino, 1995 and Harper, 2000). These theorists have maintained that

there is little to prevent students from surrendering to textual persuasions that support

those perspectives without a pedagogy designed to promote reflection on gendered

readings as culturally constructed.

Various feminists and educational theorists have called for educators to create

textual approaches which move our students beyond our current embeddedness in the

metaphors and storylines of a system of male/female binaries reflective of a world

characterized by gender inequality (Walkerdine, 1984; Davies, 1992; Bogdan, 1992;

Obbink, 1992; Martino, 1995). They stress the importance of reading against the grain

of the existing patriarchal texts which reflect that world (Davies, 1992; Gilbert and

15

Taylor 1991) if they are to find multiple possible readings and leam “to write and speak

new worlds into existence” (Taylor, 1993, p. 148).

The arguments, educators’ research, my own observations about students’

acceptance of the status quo coupled with the above information on sexism in the

literature and the culture, provided me with the rationale for attempting to develop an

effective approach to the study of literature in the high school.

The Study

As stated earlier, my objective was to gain information that would facilitate the

development of a critical gender-conscious pedagogy for the study of classic literature

in the high school. Consequently, a three-pronged study was designed.

The first prong o f the study is an investigation of the responses of high school

students to gender representation and patriarchal ideology in selected early twentieth

century American literature. The second prong of the study is an investigation of the

effects of particular teaching approaches and strategies on the students’ responses and

on their awareness of gender and relationship inequities in the literature. The third

prong of the study is a record and investigation of my experiences as the feminist

teacher attempting to develop a critical feminist pedagogy. Therefore, the study

combines interpretive, critical feminist and self-reflexive components. I occupied the

role of a Reflective Feminist Interpretivist in conducting the study emanating from the

following research questions:

(1)Would students report or exhibit an increased awareness of sexist gender and relationship representations or androcentric perspectives in the literature during the course?

(2)What teaching approaches and strategies would be reported or determined to have had the largest impact on students’ consciousness of literary gender issues: discussion (and dialogic investigation), critical writing, critical readings, social imagination activities or projects)?

1 6

(3)W hat, if any, changes in gender consciousness would be reported or demonstrated to have occurred in their own lives as a result of the study?

(4)What challenges would be involved for the teacher conducting the class/study?

(5) What discoveries would be made that would benefit the literary educational community?

Methods selected to satisfy the first objective of my study (the recording and

interpreting of students’ unmediated responses to gender issues in the literature)

included surveys, written responses and audio-taping of discussions. Teaching

approaches and strategies selected to meet the second objective of the study (the

determination of the effects of teaching approaches on consciousness to sexism in the

literature) included preliminary discussions and dialogic investigation (including

interviews), critical writing, literary critical readings, social imagination activities

(educational drama, art and writing), and final projects. Once I had identified the

approaches to be used, I attempted to see what, if any, changes were brought about by

the particular approach used.

Since the third focus of my research is self-reflexive, focusing on my own

experience as the teacher conducting research in my classroom, the techniques used to

meet the third objective to record, interpret and share my experiences of teaching and

researching were field notes, journals and experimental creative writing exercises. I

have woven my reflections on the study into the description and analysis of my

investigation. I have also shared my struggles to find the appropriate techniques to raise

the students’ consciousness about the literary gender issues and have attempted to

illustrate my experience with the students by means of the writing that I have done as a

method of inquiry.

Seven literary works were chosen for the study. Four literary works, written by

celebrated American male authors, were selected either because of their canonical

standing, or their authors’ placement at the center of the high school American literature

17

curriculum (Applebee, 1993). I selected works focusing primarily on male and female

characters involved in romantic relationship in order to study the students’ developing

responses to the gender representations and to other gender issues raised by the reading

of the texts. These texts include Washington Square (1962/1896), by Henry James; A

Farewell To Arms (1969/1929) and “Hills Like White Elephants’’ by Ernest

Hemingway; The Great Gatsbv (1995/1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald; and “The Untold

Lie,” from Winesburg. Ohio (1977/1925), by Sherwood Anderson. Because the class

spent so little time discussing Hemingway's short story, it is not a focus of the study.

However, I have included it on a limited basis because of its importance for one focus

group participant who used it for a writing project.

Three female-authored texts were used in the study to provide alternatives to the

male perspectives found in the celebrated male-authored literature of the period. These

texts were “The Gentle Lena, ” from Three Lives (1990/1906), by Gertrude Stein; “Love

and Marriage,” from Anarchism (1969/1912)), by Emma Goldman; and Their Eves

Were Watching God (1998/1937), by Zora Hurston.

Thirty-five students (18 boys and 17 girls) and I investigated these works in two

sections of a high school American literature course during the fall semester of 1999.

We read the texts in chronological order, using the specific approaches and strategies

designed to assess response, to stimulate investigation and discovery, and to promote a

critical gender-conscious reading of the literature studied. Within the larger group of

thirty-five, I focused on a group of ten students who were selected as representatives

from the two classrooms to participate in an extended, in-depth study of gender issues in

the selected literature. Research conducted with the focus group was conducted

simultaneously with the research in the two classrooms during the fall 1999 semester,

and continued through the following semester of winter, 2000 by means of interviews,

group discussions and improvisational workshops.

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Significance of the Study

This study is significant because it takes up the challenge (Davies, 1992; 1995;

Harper, 2000) to develop pedagogy for the high school literature classroom.

The study is significant also because to accomplish this it includes a dual focus

on teacher and student evaluations of the effectiveness of the various teaching

approaches and strategies employed in the literary investigations. Focusing on the

frustrations as well as on the triumphs experienced by teachers and students involved in

the research, and on the limitations as well as the successes of the project, it provides

information invaluable for educators interested in the implementation of critical

feminist pedagogy for male and female high school literature students. It provides

insight into the positions that students occupy in a culture that promotes equality

between the sexes, yet exerts pressure on both males and females to play traditional,

albeit limited roles. It also provides insight into a teacher’s bifurcated consciousness as

she is caught between her desire to promote equality between the sexes and her need to

accept, if not respect, students’ resistances to what they may see as equality in conflict

with their sexual identities (Brown and Gilligan, 1992; Harper, 2000; Lewis, 1992).

The study is also significant in that it breaks new ground by dealing with gender

issues in a co-educational high school classroom. While gender-related studies of co­

educational college literature classes have been carried out, most recent high school

studies have been done with girls only (Harper, 2000; Ricker-Wilson, 2000) or with

boys only (Martino. 1995). And. Davies (1992), Faludi (1991), Grumet (2000), Martino

(1995) and Pace and Townsend (1999) all assert that that the realization of a gender-

equal society will not be accomplished without the dedication o f both males and

females to the project which touches both sexes. This echoes Sm ith’s (1949) assertion

that “what cruelly shapes and cripples the personality of one, is as cruelly shaping and

crippling the personality of the other” (Smith, in Pace and Townsend, 1999, p. 48).

19

The study is also significant because it lays the groundwork for a critical gender-

based analysis of the literature most often assigned in the high school (Applebee, 1993;

Obbink. 1992: Whaley, 1993). Once again, critical feminist studies have been

conducted with the study of classic texts in university classrooms (Pace and Townsend,

1999), but the focus in recent studies done in the high school literature classroom has

been on contemporary literature (Harper, 2000; Martino, 1995; Ricker-Wilson, 1999).

The impact of a curriculum that excludes women’s writings is profound and it affects all

of the students, male and female. When students read only male-authored literature and

see characters from only a pre-women's movement male perspective, they neither leam

to recognize and value women as writers nor do they see the women’s perspectives.

Finally, the study is significant because it engages students and teachers in a

joint investigation of ways to read these older, mostly male-authored works ‘against the

grain' (Davies, 1992; Fetterley, 1978; Kolodny, 1985; Schweickart, 1986; Taylor,

1993). This prevents the need to completely replace these classics with more

contemporary offerings by encouraging students to identify, problematize, and resist the

patriarchal patterns while still reaping the benefits of these literary masterpieces.

Conclusion

This study includes research for the design of a critical gender-related

pedagogical approach for use in the high school American literature classroom. By

recording students’ and their teacher’s experiences in a classroom emphasizing gender

issues in literature, I have focused on the reading practices and interpretive approaches

which impact on gender-conscious reading and living. I have identified students’ initial

literary responses to record their basic reactions to the literature and their perspectives

on gender equality. I have also employed various teaching strategies in an attempt to

note the effects of those strategies on students’ developing awareness to the sexism in

20

the literature and in their lives. The findings from this investigation, and the

commentary on my experience are intended to provide additional knowledge to the field

of education and gender studies.

The study proceeds as follows: In Chapter 2, I delineate the theoretical

perspectives that undergird the study and the body of research that supports it, and in

Chapter 3 ,1 explain the methodological approach that directed and framed the study. In

Chapters 4 and 5, I analyze and interpret the students’ individual and collective

responses to the gender representations and perspectives in the literature, and in Chapter

6.1 experiment with the writing of a drama to serve as a metaphor for the interaction of

the students and myself, as we investigated the final literary work. In Chapter 7, I

identify the findings, the limitations, and the implications of the study for my own

teaching as well as for the field of literature education and gender studies.

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CHAPTER 2

RELATED THEORIES AND RESEARCH

The deconstxuctive voice especially asks what roles a reader might play other than that of being “convinced” of the author’s right to serve as “The Great Interpreter” (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1983) o r “the master of truth and justice.

Michel Foucault, 1977 p. 12

Introduction

Grounding and framing my investigation of students’ responses to gender

representation and patriarchal ideology in classic American texts are multiple theories

that include reader response theories, feminist literary theories, ethical theories, and

critical pedagogical theories. These theories intersect in much of the related educational

research that has also informed my study.

Part I: Review of Related Theoretical Foundations

Reader Response Theories

My investigation of students’ responses to gender issues in classic American

literature, and to the strategies used to promote a heightened awareness of sexism in that

literature is based on an approach to literature which assumes a text that is open to

readers’ revisions, and negotiations. Beach (1993) has provided a useful classification

of reader response theorists according to the focus of their criticism, whether that focus

22

is experiential, textual, social or cultural. I have adopted his categories to elucidate the

ways in which reader response theorists have informed my work.

The reader response theorists who have influenced my work represent a broad

range of attitudes about the roles o f the reader and the text and the context shaping the

reader-text transaction. While they all shared a belief that the reader is critical to the

making of meaning in the literary experience, they have occupied various positions on

the continuum. They include those who believe readers to be accountable to what is

determined in and by the text, and those who believe that “the text is no more than an

inkblot, whose meaning is created entirely by the reader” (p. 2).

Experiential Response Theorists

According to Beach (1993), experiential response theories refer to the work of

theorists who are primarily interested in describing readers’ engagement and the

processes of a reader’s experience. Central to experiential theories of response is

Rosenblatt (1978). She developed her Transactional Reader Response theory following

Dewey’s rejection of a simple stimulus response model. Her approach assumed that a

text is not a finished product or a mirroring of reality. Rosenblatt (1995/1938) insisted

that literature speaks’ to a reader in literary experience because of “the synthesis of

what the reader already knows and feels with what the literary text offers” (p. 259).

In my study, which addresses gender-based cultural differences between a

contemporary reader and authors/characters from previous time and culture, 1 began the

investigation of each text by asking the students to focus first on their own personal

responses to the literature before I introduced other critical approaches to the literature.

I asked them to consider what they as readers were bringing to the text from their own

contemporary culture and time, and how that affected their response to the text.

Though Rosenblatt (1978) emphasized the role o f the reader, she also insisted on

accountability to the text. Rosenblatt argued that the reader “should always return to the

23

signs on the page, to see whether they support those intentions and interpretations” (p.

107). While my study engaged students in a negotiation with the texts they read, an

attention to the author's representations and ideologies was of paramount importance in

order to enable students to contrast their political perspectives with those of the authors

and characters. After the initial concentration on the students’ response, I had students

explore what aspects of the texts they thought had stimulated their responses. In this

respect, I followed Rosenblatt's (1995) suggestion that by encouraging students to leam

to read the text more closely, we may help students to become aware not only o f

unnoticed verbal clues but also of their own biases or blind spots (p. 196).

Textual Theories of Response

According to Beach (1993), whereas experiential theorists focus on the reader’s

experience, textual theorists focus on how readers draw on their knowledge of text or

genre conventions to respond to specific text features (1993). I have drawn from Iser

(1978, 1986), Jauss (1986), and Rabinowitz (1987, 1989) as I attempted to promote

textual readings of the literature under consideration.

Iser (1978) purported that during the reading process, the reader is actively

filling gaps of implied meaning as s/he interacts with the text. Describing the text as “a

set of directions to be completed by the reader” (p. 55), Iser (1978) claimed that no

reading can ever exhaust the full potential of a text, and that each reader will fill in the

gaps in her own way, thereby excluding the various other possibilities. Thus, as readers

read, they make their own decision as to how the gap is to be filled. Like Rosenblatt

(1978), Iser (1978) did not grant independence from textual restraints. He too claimed

that the reader’s activity is still only “a fulfillment of what is already implicit in the

structure of the work” (Iser in Tompkins, p. 1994/1980, p. 50). Iser (1978) argued that

readers engage in a dialectical relationship with texts that allows them make sense of

multiple perspectives in the texts. Although he did not address gender in his work, his

24

theory opened the door for feminist readings of literature. Lundberg (1889) has pointed

out that “feminist searches for meaning in hitherto hidden space coincide nicely with

the reader-response concept of finding meaning in the gaps in the text” (p. 22). In my

initial investigation of students’ responses to the representation of male and female

characters, I investigated students’ responses to see if the readers filled in the gaps in

the construction of characters with contemporary gender-related ideas.

My work was also informed by the textual response theory of Jauss (1982;

1986). Jauss (1986) examined readers' responses as they were affected by meanings

inherent in particular historical contexts, and asserted that a literary work is not an

object that offers objective meaning to each reader in each time period. He claimed that

by exploring the disparities between their own and past “horizons of expectations” (set

of expectations both literary and cultural, with which a reader approaches a text),

readers could examine and identify ways in which their own horizons of expectations

shaped their experience (Jauss in Beach, 1993). Jauss (1986) believed that “we never

come to cognitive situations empty but carry with us a whole world of familiar beliefs

and expectations.

According to Godzich (1994), Jauss (1982) dealt with the ways in which cultural

gaps between the text and the reader can be minimized in cases where there is resistance

in the reader due to cultural difference. Jauss (1982) argued that through aesthetic

distance the “sum total of reactions, prejudgments and verbal and other behavior that

greet a work upon appearance” is capable of being altered (Jauss in Godzich, 1994, p.

40) such that there can be acceptance in later periods. Jauss also acknowledged that

resistance may also result in the rejection of the work until a “horizon of expectation”

for that work is forged (p. 41).

Jauss’ (1982) theory was particularly important to me in considering

contemporary students’ resistance to literature like “The Gentle Lena” (1990/1906), on

25

the grounds that the portrayals of parental involvement in children’s courtships in the

story, are archaic by their contemporary standards. A revised horizon of expectation

could enable contemporary readers to see the parents as symbols for the social forces

which often still promote standardized, socially acceptable decisions, as opposed to

personally fulfilling ones. Our attempts to write an updated version of “The Gentle

Lena” were also attempts to revise students’ ‘horizons of expectations.’

Rabinowitz (1987) has posited that readers adopt the roles of the authorial

audience (readers intended by the author) in order to accept the author’s invitation to

read in a particularly socially constituted way that is shared by the author and his or her

expected readers” (p. 22). He argued for the engagement of Coleridge’s ‘willing

suspension of disbelief for accepting the text as premise. This involves the adopting of

a ‘narrative audience’ which, as distinct from the ‘authorial audience,’ is “a role which

the text forces the reader to take on” (p. 95). According to Rabinowitz, in assuming the

role of the narrative audience, readers pretend that they accept the text world as real

(Rabinowitz in Beach, 1993). In assuming this role, they ask themselves the kind of

reader they would have to pretend to be and the kinds of things they would have to

know and believe in order to take the fictional work as real.

In my investigation of the literature with the students, we explored the adoption

of the narrative audience. The exploration of what the reader would have to know and

believe to take the work of fiction such as “The Untold Lie ” as real, helped the students

to come to terms with the textual ideology and the ways in which it collided with their

own personal philosophies. I also adopted the narrative conventions that Rabinowitz

(1987) identified to assist readers in defining their relationship to the stance of the

authorial audience. In discussions of Washington Square and A Farewell To Arms. I

introduced the students to Rabinowitz’s (1987) reading theories to help them to

distinguish between the utterances of the characters and the perspectives of the authors.

26

Narrative theory played a central role in our discussions of those works because an

understanding of authorial craft and audience response was crucial to an understanding

of these authors’ perspectives, as well as the reader’s interpretation of those

constructions.

Social Response Theorists

Basic to social theories of response is a social constructivist theory of

knowledge, which posits that knowledge is socially constructed rather than scientifically

verifiable, objective truth. Thus, for social theorists, the meaning o f language depends

on how language is used in specific contexts and the way in which language involves

“learning to read these various social dimensions in specific contexts” (Beach, 1993, p.

105). According to Beach (1993), social theorists believe that the point of a transaction

between reader and text is also socially constructed. “Thus, the meaning of an

interpretation or the point,’ evolves out of social exchange of responses” (p. 106).

Fish (1980), a critic perceived as a social response theorist, argued that text is

not “an entity which always remains the same form one moment to the next” (p. vii).

Fish (1984) also argued that “meaning is not the property of the text, but what gradually

emerges in the interaction between the text and the developing response of the reader”

(p. 89). Fish (1980) also posited that readers who share interpretive communities, share

interpretive strategies. He argued that “the meaning o f a text is a product of one’s

reading strategies operating in specific social contexts” (Fish in Beach, 1993, p. 106).

Different communities of readers account for different readings of the same text. Fish

(1980) claimed that these strategies exist prior to the act of reading and therefore

determine the shape of what is read” (p. 182).

Fish’s (1980) emphasis on context and the influence of the interpretive

community on textual response influenced my attempt to raise gender awareness

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through an examination of the differences between the interpretive communities made

up of the males, the females, each of the two literature classes, and the focus group.

Dialogic Theory

Bakhtin s (1981) dialogic theory “injects conflict into the interpretive

community framework” (p. 22), and demonstrates that conflicts inherent in

communities and between communities, generate change (1989). Bakhtin (1981)

pointed to the centrality of articulating response in achieving understanding. He

claimed that “ [ujnderstanding comes to fruition only in the response and that

understanding and response are dialectically merged and mutually condition each other”

(p. 292). He argued that one is impossible without the other. Readers responding

dialogically to a writer’s ideas would create their own internal dialogues by

incorporating the writer’s utterances with their own. Beach (1993) has quoted

Bialostosky as saying that “ [mjembers of a dialogic community resist monologic

orientations in order to keep talking to themselves and to one another, discovering their

affinities without resisting them, and clarifying their differences without resolving

them” (Bialostosky in Beach, p. 112).

According to Bakhtin (1981), when adopting a dialogic perspective, a person

entertains multiple layers of conflicting, competing meanings, or what Bakhtin (1981)

describes as “heteroglossia.”

At any given moment of its historical existence, language is heteroglot from top to bottom: It represents the co-existence of socio-ideological contradictions between the present and the past, between differing epochs of the past, between different socio-ideological groups in the present, between tendencies, schools, circles and so forth . . . . These languages of heteroglossia intersect each other in a variety of ways, forming new socially typifying languages (p. 291).

Implicit in Bakhtin’s (1981) poststructuralist theory, then, is the notion that a

text is open to readers’ various and conflicting responses. There can be a dialogue

between the reader and the text, and between the reader and the authorial voice.

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Lundberg (1989) has pointed out that Bakhtin’s recognition of the heteroglossia

of discourse explains why Bakhtinian dialogics has become important for feminist

critics: “Realizing that the dominant critical discourse is not the only one, feminist

critics feel empowered to engage in more or less conflictual dialogue with more or less

heteroglossic interpretive communities of critics who have marginalized feminist

critical discourse” (p.27). Bakhtin’s (1981) assertion that the novel (and short story)

“denies the absolutism of a single and unitary language and refuses to acknowledge its

own language as the sole verbal and semantic center of the ideological world” (pp. 366-

67) has created the possibility for me to engage students in a feminist re-reading of the

fiction. The openness he assigned the text supported my desire to engage a group of

teenage boys and girls in a conversation in which their divergent voices could come

together to clarify their differences, if not resolve them. Bakhtin’s (1981) view of the

open text has also provided the opportunity for me to make use of what Bakhtin (1981)

calls “creative misreading” (p. 346). By engaging students to dialogue with silent

characters, rewrite textual dialogues, or update short stories and novels, I followed

Bakhtin (1981) in urging students to take up the text “into new contexts, attach it to

new material, put it into new situations, in order to wrest new answers from it, new

insights into its meaning” (p. 346-47).

Cultural Theories

In discussing cultural theorists. Beach (1993) has pointed out that cultural

theorists who are interested in how readers’ cultural values and outlooks shape their

responses to literature, represent many disciplinary perspectives. The perspectives that

relate to my work are poststructuralist and feminist theories. Since I have specifically

designated the next section of this chapter to a discussion of feminist theories that have

influenced my study, I will address only poststructuralist theories at this time.

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Poststructuralist perspectives “generally assume that readers respond according

to ‘subject positions’ acquired from socialization by cultural institutions (p. 125).

According to Belsey (1988/1980), this represents a challenge to liberal humanism,

which suggests that ‘man’ is the origin and source of meaning, o f action and of history.

It also represents a skepticism about the effects of humanism, which emphasize the

binaries and hierarchies that have long been unchallenged in Western philosophy. Such

binaries, including masculine/feminine; rational/em otional; dominant/passive;

powerful/weak; subject/object: good/evil; virgin/whore, have had a devastating effect

on women and on men who have found themselves described by the subordinate

categories in the binaries.

Poststructuralists investigate linguistic constructions in an attempt to deconstruct

binary categories, which they claim form the unquestionable base of knowledge in

dominant ideology. They attempt to envision these binaries as metaphysical and fictive,

rather than physical and fixed, in order to turn these binaries into multiple possibilities.

The objective for feminism, according to Flax (1990) is to displace the fictions that have

been effective rhetorical devices that have served to limit women. The work of three

major theorists, Saussure (1986), Foucault (1977) and Derrida (1979), have provided

the theoretical framework for a feminist poststructuralist approach to reader response

and have had a significant impact on my research.

Saussure’s (1986) work has made poststructuralist thought possible by dealing a

blow to the stability of the linguistic referent. His theory initially problematized the

notion that language is in some sense transparent, acting as a window through which

reality can be ascertained (Belsey, 1988/1980; Flax, 1990). Saussure (1987) theorized

language as an abstract system consisting of chains of signs.

Each sign is made up of a signifier (sound or written image) and a signified (meaning). The two components of the sign are related to each other in an arbitrary way and there is therefore no natural connection between the sound image and the concept it identifies. The meaning of

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signs is not intrinsic but relational. Each sign derives its meaning from its difference from all the other signs in the language. It is not anything intrinsic to the signifier ‘whore’ for example, that gives its meaning, but rather its difference from other signifiers of womanhood such as ‘virgin’ and ‘mother’ (de Saussure in Weedon, 1987, p. 23).

Poststructuralists adopting Saussure’s (1986) se miotic distinction between the

signifier and the signified have emphasized the unstable relationship between the word

and its referent in reality. They have further heightened the importance of context to the

process of meaning making, examining the ways in which institutions such as schools,

businesses, organized religions, governments, “limit the signifieds o f the signifiers to

meanings consistent with their own institutional ideology” (Beach, 1993, p. 126).

Poststructuralist reader response theorists (Belsey, 1988/1980; Davies, 1992; Martino,

1995; Tompkins, 1994; Walkerdine, 1984) have focused on the ways in which these

institutions (including texts) socialize readers to respond according to certain subject

positions’ consistent with these ideological stances. Furthermore, they have argued that

a specific way of reading a text also promotes a particular way of seeing the world

(Belsey, 1988/1980).

Poststructuralist reader response theorists who have been influenced by

Saussure’s (1986) problematizing of the relationship between the linguistic sign and its

referent, have been important to my effort to encourage students to question the

authority of binaries and hierarchies for a goal of gender equality. An important goal of

my study was to help students to consider ways in which an author’s ideological stance

(i.e., Anderson in “The Untold Lie”) may position the reader to accept a perspective in

order to foster an appreciation for his story’s point.

Foucault (1980,1986) called the forces in this process ‘discourses,’ or discursive

practices. According to him, discursive formations exist prior to individuals’ own

experiences, inhibiting them from defining their experiences in terms of their own

words or signifiers. Foucault (1980) argued that each society has its “regime of truth”

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(p. 131), or general policies of truth. Included in these policies of truth are the types of

discourse that the society accepts and makes true, and the mechanisms and instances

that enable one to distinguish true and false statement. Also included are the

technologies and procedures that afford value in the acquisition of truth and the status of

those who are charged with saying what is true. According to Belsey (1988/1980), for

Foucault, then, common sense, including the hierarchies, binaries and totalities inherent

in it. is ideologically and discursively constructed, rooted in a specific historical

situation and operating in conjunction with a particular social formation. Thus, what

seems obvious and natural is not necessarily so. “[0]n the contrary,” said Belsey, “the

obvious and natural are not given but produced in a specific society by the ways in

which the society talks and thinks about itself and its experience” (p. 3). The theory has

thrown into question the important notion that a text not only reflects the world in which

it was created, but also constitutes its readers, and reproduces the ideologies inherent in

the texts. In a system of binaries and hierarchies, categories created by discourse

“function to create and justify social organization and exclusion” (Flax, 1993, p. 96).

The poststructuralist critique, however, offers methods which can bring about a

reader’s liberation “from something our history has misled us into thinking was real”

(Rajchman, 1985, p. 56). Belsey (1988/1980) pointed out that “meanings circulate

between text, ideology and reader, and that the work of criticism is to release possible

meanings” (p. 144). She claimed that the task of criticism is to establish the unspoken

in the text and to decenter it in order to challenge dominant versions of history. The

deconstructive method is the point of departure for poststructuralist analyses, including

feminist analyses that have critiqued the texts of liberal humanism.

Derrida’s (1979) analysis o f the language of humanism has influenced

poststructuralists’ suspicions of a binary logic, and problematizes governing absolutes,

power claims, and metanarratives by releasing possible meanings through

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deconstruction. According to Adams (1986), Derrida’s philosophical position, much

like his method of analysis, systematically undermines the presumption of a stable

interpretive context to which a reader may habitually appeal for the determination of

meaning. Derrida’s (1974, 1979) analysis illustrated that language works not because

there is an identity between a sign and its referent, but because there is a difference

between one sign and another.

According to Spivak (1974), deconstruction is a critical practice which, by

focusing on the difference between signs, aims to dismantle the metaphysical and

rhetorical structures which are at work, not to reject or discard them, but to reinscribe

them in another way in order to reconstitute what is always already inscribed. The goal

is neither unitary wholeness nor dialectical resolution. It is to disrupt, to keep things in

process, ’to keep the system in play, to set up procedures to continuously demystify the

realities we create and to fight the tendency for our categories to congeal” (Caputo, in

Lather, 1991, p. 120). A deconstructive reading is an endless play that begins by noting

the hierarchy in a binary, such as that of dominant and passive. A deconstructionist

engaging in a reading of these signs would approach them with the idea that the

meaning is located in the difference between and not in the presence of either sign.

That is, the structure of the sign dominant,’ is determined by the trace of the sign

’passive,’ that is always already present in the sign dominant’ through its difference.

The reader would then proceed to disrupt the binary by reversing it and hierarchizing

‘passive’ over dominant’. S/he would continue the play of exploring meaning by finally

resisting the assertion of the new hierarchy by displacing the second term from a

position of superiority (Selden, 1985).

A deconstructive reading “would go on to recognize that the couplet cannot be

hierarchized in either direction without violence” (p. 173), leading one to challenge the

hierarchy in the first place. The deconstructive reading locates the promising marginal

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text to disrupt the binaries and explode the myth of closure “to help to rewrite the world

and ourselves again and again’" (St. Pierre, 1995, p. 35). Deconstructing the

androcentric assumptions by which gender has been constructed, and ‘troubling’

(Butler, 1990; Lather. 1998) the hierarchies in literature and in life in order to re-

envision a more gender-equal society is central to my project.

The notion that language is constitutive of reality rather than merely reflective of

it is a perspective that guided my attempt to disrupt patriarchal perspectives by

• encouraging students to consider masculinity and femininity outside the binary

oppositional semantic structure. Without readers’ acknowledgment of any binaries,

hierarchies, power dynamics and metanarratives are implicit in the texts. Without a

practice through which students can begin to deconstruct those hegemonies, textually

and socially constructed gender representations and ideologies are likely to continue to

constitute their experiences and identities (Belsey, 1988/1980; Walkerdine, 1984).

Feminist Literarv Theories

Although feminist literary theory is subsumed under the category of cultural

reader response theory, its importance to my project demands that it be honored in a

separate discussion that includes a historical perspective. Feminists engaged in the

study of textual response stand on the shoulders of those who blazed the difficult trails

of demystification and deconstruction of the masculinist language and patriarchal

perspectives that had previously been seen as “ innocent” and ideologically pure

(Eagleton, 1986, 1996; Ellmann, 1968; Fetterley, 1978; Gilbert and Gubar, 1979;

Kolodny, 1985; Millett, 1969; Showaiter, 1977). These theorists believed that art is

political and that gender-neutral criticism is impossible. Many argued (Fetterley, 1978;

Gilbert and Gubar, 1979; Kolodny, 1985; Showalter, 1977) that reading texts

representative of patriarchal values has been damaging to young women and men, as

they have socialized women into masculine reading formations and colonized their

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thinking and behavior. They promote revisionist reading of texts to diminish patriarchal

textual coercion. Rich (1979) defined revision as it relates to literary criticism by

explaining that:

Revision, the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction is more than a chapter in cultural history; it is an act of survival. Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves. And this drive to self-knowledge . . . is more than a search for identity: it is part of her refusal of the self-destructiveness of male-dominated society. A radical critique of literature, feminist in its impulse, would take the work first of all as a clue to how we live, how we have been living, how we have been led to imagine ourselves, how language has trapped us as well as liberated us, and how we can begin to see—and therefore live—afresh (p.35).

Driven as it is by a specific desire to subject texts and textual readings to critical

scrutiny for the purpose of deconstructing gender bias and patriarchal constructions, my

study is grounded in feminist literary theory. It is firmly grounded in the work of

theorists who fall under the categories of response theorists, poststructuralist

psychoanalytic theorists, and gender theorists.

Feminist Response Theorists

Fetterley s (1978) seminal study attempted to uncover not only the stereotypes

in classic American texts, but also the patriarchal perspectives governing the texts.

Here Fetterley (1978) proclaimed that literature is political, and that

One of the main things that keeps the design of our literature unavailable to the consciousness of the woman reader is the very posture of the apolitical, the pretense that literature speaks universal truths through forms from which all the merely personal, the purely subjective, has been burned away or at least transformed through the medium of art into the representative” (p. xi).

She encouraged female readers to “begin the process of exorcising the male niind that

has been implanted in us” (p. xxii), and argued that when only a male reality is

encouraged, legitimized and transmitted, there is a necessary resulting confusion of

consciousness in which impalpability flourishes (p. xi). Addressing the androcentrism

and misogyny in canonical American writers, Fetterley’s (1978) work paved the way for

35

my acknowledgment and consideration of the political nature of literature and for my

interest in raising students’ awareness of the patriarchal ideologies which govern much

of classic American literature. Some of her ideas were particularly influential in our

analysis of The Great Gatsbv and A Farewell To Arms.

Schweickart’s (1986) work as a feminist reader response theorist has also

informed my work. Answering Jonathan Culler’s (Culler in Schweickart, p. 38)

question that “if the meaning of a work is the experience of the reader, what difference

does it make if the reader is a woman?’’ Schweickart (1986) argued that androcentric

literature is damaging to women. She suggested “reading the text as it was not meant to

be read and reading it against itself’ (p. 50) in order to deconstruct the governing sexist

perspectives. Schweickart (1986) also believed that girls must investigate what is

happening to them when they read as she asserts, “a girl cannot simply refuse to read

patriarchal texts for they are everywhere and they condition her participation in the

literary and critical enterprise ” (p. 50). Schweickart (1986) argued for a feminist reader

response criticism, claiming that much of reader response criticism “ignores the issue of

race, class and sex, and gives no hint of the conflicts, sufferings, and passions that

attend these realities” (p. 21). Her goal was not merely to interpret literature but to

transform the culture and change the world” (p. 39).

Critical Resistance Theorists

In her book. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Faludi

(1991) documents a decade of intensified resistance to feminism. She asserted that the

American women’s movement scored important successes in the seventies, particularly

in the areas of control of reproduction and fairness in the workplace. However, she

claimed that the changes that had taken place were resented by many men who longed

to return to a media-spun romanticized version of gender relations in the fifties.

36

Faludi (1991) blamed the media for sending the celebratory message that ‘the

struggle for women's rights was won,’ while following that message up with the

bulletin of despair which suggested to women that they may be free and equal now but

they “have never been more miserable” (p. I). She claimed that the media’s insistence

that professional women were suffering from stress and burnout; succumbing to an

infertility epidemic; grieving from a ‘man shortage’; and raising depressed and confused

children, frightened women away from feminism, preventing continued advancements.

For this reason, although the feminist movement had been responsible for the

advancement of women by means of increased opportunities in education and work,

sexism in the culture was not eradicated. Incidences of sexist representations and

textual ideologies in current literature and film reflect and perpetuate that societal

sexism (Davies, 1992, 1993; Grumet, 2000; Taylor, 1993; Walkerdine, 1984).

Among other critical feminist theorists who have focused on students’ resistance

to feminism is Lewis (1992), who studied the feminist classroom to investigate the

potential threat of a feminist pedagogy for heterosexual women. She found that

especially for younger women still caught in the midst of sexual exploration and

identification, the feminist classroom can feel particularly threatening. According to

Lewis ( 1992) feminist pedagogy does not easily translate into an education that includes

heterosexual women unless educators address the way that a critique of pedagogy

threatens these women’s survival and livelihood.

Lewis (1992) also found women’s protection of men is a common drama played

out in many classrooms where gender inequalities are addressed. Women are invested

in the well-being of men, and that investment, as Lewis pointed out, is not easily left at

the classroom door. Lewis also claimed that not only gender, but sexuality is a deeply

present organizing principle in the classroom, and one which enters into the dynamics

37

of how we come together as women and men in the pursuit of shared meaning. To

make her point, she quoted bell hooks:

Sexism is unique. It is unlike any other forms of domination—racism or class ism—where the exploited and the oppressed do not live in large numbers intimately with their oppressors or develop their primary love relationships (familial and/or romantic) with the individuals who oppress and dominate or share in the privileges attained by domination . . . (For women) the context of these intimate relationships is also the site of domination and oppression (hooks in Lewis, p. 130).

In addition she pointed out that Susan Griffith has suggested that a woman

knows that “over and over again culture tells her that men abandon women who speak

too loudly or who are too present'" (Griffith in Lewis, p. 211). Lewis (1992) added that

“coupled with the strong cultural message that her survival in the world depends on her

being able to find a man to marry, many young women in the feminist classroom find

themselves caught in the double bind of needing to speak and to remain silent at the

same time in order to guarantee some measure of survival" (p. 211).

Investigating gender with high school boys and girls who are engaged in

defining their sexuality called for a sensitivity to their need to define themselves as

normal' by society's standards. I attempted to keep Lewis’ (1992) findings in mind

during the study for a better understanding of the students and for the development of a

pedagogy which would not ignore their needs.

Feminist Psvchoanalvtic Theorists

Psychoanalytic feminist theorists have also had an important influence on my

work because of their focus on the ways in which a reader’s subconscious psychological

state defines the meaning of the text and the reading experience. According to Beach

(1993) these psychoanaytic feminist critics investigate the ways in which “a reader

transforms experience into a conscious level that expresses, through identification with

a fictional character, the reader’s repressed, subconscious experience” (p. 94).

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Psychoanalytic theorists, initially drawing from Freudian thought, focused on

the latent drives inherent in characters’ experiences and the writers’ language. This

focus, addressed by psychoanalytic theorists such as Bogdan (1997), Davies (1992),

Martino (1995), and Walkerdine (1984) has helped to elucidate the ways in which texts

position readers by engaging them at a subconscious fantasy level. Butler (1991),

Bogdan (1997), Davies (1992), Martino (1995), and Walkerdine (1984) have also been

informed by the work of Lacan (1986), who followed Freud (1908) and married

psychoanalytic theory with poststructuralism by positing that the linguistic system

shapes belief and psychological engagement. Lacanian psychoanalytic critics maintain

that “the reader's projections are modified and filtered by the texts’ signifiers, which

unconsciously shape the meaning” (Beach, 1993, p. 97). According to this perspective,

the reader’s experience with the language of the text, then, triggers subconscious

associations and “the language of the unconscious serves to position readers, sharing

their experience with the text (p. 98).

Central to my study is Bogdan (1990; 19.92; 1997), whose design of a feminist

pedagogy combines critique with aesthetic appreciation. As a student and follower of

Northrop Frye, Bogdan (1992) took him and his Educated Imagination (1963), into the

poststructuralist, feminist world where it and he can be posthumously re-educated to the

impact of the cultural and political realities of gender, race and class on the

contemporary reader. In Re-Educating The Imagination; Toward a Politics and

Pedagogv of Literary Engagement. Bogdan (1992) transformed Frye’s (1963) taxonomy

into a method which reached beyond him to empower readers previously

disempowered. Her re-educated imagination (1992) was designed to make room for

cultural response when ideological differences between the reader and the writer stand

in the way of either pre-critical aesthetic engagement (stasis), or a solution brought

about by means of a critical response (total form as dialectic). Her solution is a fusion

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of the experience (direct response) and literary literacy (awareness of as many as

possible of the conditions of the experience) for the formation of a 'stereophonic

vision'. This ‘stereophonic vision’ would allow a response “that integrates enjoyment

and self consciousness of the relationship between the text and reader at the point of

literary encounter” (p. xxx).

Bogdan's (1990; 1992; 1997) approach, necessary when readers encounter a

'misrecognition scene,' helps to preserve an appreciation for fiction that problematizes

readings for women because of an ideological gap between author and reader. Such a

response attempts to challenge the hierarchy of mythology over ideology by fusing the

acts of engagement and detachment into a single act o f reading. Bogdan (1992)

believed that with some risk, the reader could engage with the literary text for a

response which “springs from a recognition of ideological bases and values built into

the reading subject and the textual object” (p. 125). True transformation, she said,

occurs only when learners transform the structures by which they are formed.

According to Bogdan (1992), this will sometimes involve the critical reading of existing

texts, and at other times the calling a text out of existence for a while to make way for

new growth. But, she has insisted that the reader approach the text personally and

politically at all times.

In attempting to prioritize direct response and avoid the detachment from the

literature that much o f feminist criticism requires, Bogdan (1997) defined a dialectical

alternative to either this detachment or “the colonizing threat posed by sweet surrender

to the total form of a text” (p. 84). This dialectical approach involves an unending

practice of readers re-reading texts and reconsidering responses to the texts. This

practice allows the reader to investigate a text over and over again to see what

underlying desires are at the bottom of the love affair. According to Bogdan (1999),

We propose a layered exercise in which the students a) write free response; b) read a critical theoretical piece that may either reinforce or

40

countervail their initial responses; c) go back and reread the literary work; and d) write an evaluation of how the entire process [affects] their responses. TTiis final layer sets up a meta-cognitive awareness that gives them some distance on their responses (personal email).

This ongoing self-reflexive process, which she called “the feminization of total

form,” (1990), and “self-subversive self-reflection” (1997) “allows the reader to

experience pleasures associated with falling in love with a text just so long as she

realizes that the resting place, though not false, must be temporary” (p. 85). This

process, which narrows the gap between direct and critical response, “suggests that

thinking and feeling about literary texts are not mutually exclusive activities” (p. 85).

Connected with Freudian ( 1908) and Lacanian ( 1977) psychoanalytic theory, the

practice assumes that our direct responses are dependent not only on our situatedness,

our knowledge about literature, and our theoretical and ideological frameworks, but also

on desires which are largely inaccessible. According to Bogdan (1997), the desires

underlying our loving or hating a text, while not identifiable, do “work to disrupt the

unity and coherence of conscious awareness, to trespass on the certainty with which we

comprehend our direct responses” (p. 84). Our readings, argued Bogdan (1997), are

filled with denials, repressions and forgettings “which determine what we are drawn to,

what scenes and details we actually see and or don’t see” (p. 84). This view holds that

literary response is the enactment of unconscious psychic forces transferred upon the

symbolic object through the complex mediation of desire. Bogdan (1997) argued that

like the dream, direct response is mediated by desire, and always conceals as much as it

reveals. She claimed that “self-subversive self-reflection” is less a the path to raise

consciousness as it is one upon which to map the associations our readings produce, and

to think about what these may imply for pedagogy.

1 have engaged the students in the kind of textual negotiations that she

recommended in order to preserve the maximum level of aesthetic appreciation, while

41

attempting to reduce the potential for the reproduction of sexist perspectives evident in

the older literature and in their own ideologically-generated desires and fantasies.

My study also draws heavily from Walkerdine s (1984), which further addressed

the psychoanalytic implications of a text on gender identity. Walkerdine (1984) drew

from Freudian and Lacanian theor} to investigate the coercive power of texts in the

shaping of desire and the production of gendered subjectivities. Her work shows an

understanding of gender as constructed within a romantic ideology based on a

male/female dualism. This dualism involves a definition of ‘masculinity’ characterized

by power, authority, and aggression; and a definition of ‘femininity’ characterized by

compliance with subordination, sexual passivity, a focus on beauty, and an

accommodation to the interests and desires of men. She argued that such definitions are

shaped by and also maintain the patriarchal gender order. She also pointed out that it is

through romantic and pre-romantic discourse and the story lines embedded in them that

young girls learn how to position themselves correctly inside this male/female dualism.

Davies (1993) explains this in the following way:

Because story provides a substantial and detailed manifestation of the culture, it is through story that readers can learn the patterns of desire appropriate for their gender. They discover what positions are available to members of their sex and how to live the detail of those positionings as they come to understand and take up as their own, the particular patterns of desire relevant to their gender. Learning the appropriate patterns of desire enables young women to voluntarily and uncritically take up the subject positions made available to them in the patriarchal gender order and thus to become other’ to the men in their world (p. 145).

For Walkerdine (1984), texts engage with the kinds of wish fulfillment issues

discussed by Freud (1908)in his analysis and are strategically connected with the

dynamics of the family. She also approached fiction from within the Lacanian tradition,

not as a mere set of images but as an ensemble of textual devices for engaging the

reader in this fantasy. These textual devices permit the working out and potential

42

resolution of certain conflicts and allow the reader’s engagement with the heroine in the

texts. Because the fantasies created in texts play upon wishes already present in the

lives of the readers, the resolutions offered will relate to their own desires.

Breaking with a sociological account o f gender, which maintains that there is a

fixed gender identity that is internalized, Walkerdine (1984) argued that gender is

constructed and not static. She (1984) explored the way that girls are prepared for entry

into heterosexual practices and in particular for romantic love through the theme of

“someday my prince will come,” accomplishing this by examining some aspects of the

ideological preparation for adolescent sexuality in children’s fiction, particularly girls’

comics. She used comics as a vehicle to discuss the relation between the psychic

production of feminine desire and cultural forms and practices. Walkerdine (1984) used

comics as a powerful form which offers guidelines as to how young girls may prepare

themselves to be good enough to win the glittering prize—the man, the home, the

adventure etc. Comics accomplish this at a level that the alternative image cannot

reach: the level of desire. Girls’ comics engage readers at a psychological level because

they engage with the production of girls’ conscious and unconscious desires. They do

this by luring readers through textual devices to engage with a forlorn heroine, who

through selflessness and virtue, overcomes adversities and is rewarded with the prince.’

Walkerdine (1984) claimed that it is here that the girls are produced as victims ready to

be saved, and ultimately rewarded through entry into Freud’s (1908) longed for happy

family. They are also taught that their victory, like that of the heroines, will depend on

their passivity and helpfulness. The reward for her good deeds is to be taken out of her

misery and freed by the prince. As Walkerdine pointed out (1984), the semiotic chain

slides into romance as the solution, with the prince as savior.

Because Walkerdine (1984) believed that texts coerce readers at the level of

desire, she stressed the importance of the power o f fantasy in the construction of female

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desire, for the development of feminist strategies for change. In “Someday My Prince

Will Come,” Walkerdine (1984) argued that the simple realism o f much anti-sexist

literature used to counter damaging textual coercions, is likely to fail at reaching girls.

She explained that such literature assumes a passive or rationalist reader who will

change as a result of receiving “the correct information about how things really are”

(p. 164). She reasoned that an attempt to extend thinking beyond stereotyping through

in-depth discussion and books, films and ads that present broader images of what girls

and boys are really like, does not guarantee transformation. Further, Walkerdine

claimed that such appeals to reason assume that when the girl sees the veil of distortion

lifted from her eyes, she too will want to engage in those activities from which she has

been forbidden by virtue of her gender. Because fantasies of resolving psychic conflicts

such as those offered in fiction are powerful, proffering resolutions and meeting the

needs and fantasies of identity and wholeness, Walkerdine suggested that effective

counter strategies must also work at the level of desire.

Walkerdine’s psychoanalytic theories have had an enormous impact on my

study. Her ideas have helped me to understand the ineffectiveness of some feminist

intervention, particularly with adolescent girls who resist a reasoned attempt to shift

actions and aspirations when the consequences may be a loss of sexual desirability

and/or the longed- for fantasy resolution (Lewis, 1990). Understanding the struggle in

which the girls were engaged helped me to focus on the location of their struggles and

attempt to address the circumstances of their desires. In my in-depth interviews with

the focus group members, I was able to address the conflicts that arose in their

responses to the literature as a result of the contradictory messages they have received

about how men and women should behave. And, in examining current practices, I was

able to begin to explore the constitution of femininity and masculinity as not fixed or

appropriate but struggled over in a complex, relational dynamic.

44

Martino’s (1995) psychoanalytic approach was especially important to my study

because he is male and the focus o f his work is on the effects of patriarchal texts on

boys. Martino (1995) has used poststructuralist and psychoanalytic understandings of

subjectivity to propose deconstructive strategies for an emancipatory pedagogy for

males as well as females. Martino (1995) specifically considered how teachers might

deal with questions of masculinity formation in the literature classroom.

Drawing from feminist poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theory, Martino

(1995) argued that because textual practices have a part to play in the structuring and

regulation of masculine and feminine identity formations, we need to move beyond

what he calls “a gender bind based on a dominant hegemonic version of masculinity

which functions as an oppressive regime for both girls and women and boys and men”

(p. 205). Martino (1995) agreed with Davies (1992) about the need to “make visible the

constitutive force of discourse if we are to create fissures in the absoluteness of the

apparent naturalness of a dominant masculinity” (p. 15) and foreground its oppression

of men and women, boys and girls. His objective has been to raise awareness of the

constructedness of masculinity and femininity as gendered categories. In addition, his

goal has been to advocate a pedagogical practice elaborating other spaces where

alternative subject positions for girls and boys can be constituted, and his research with

high school boys has suggested that such an approach would bring about desired results.

Martino (1995) recommended adopting specific practices to construct a counter-

hegemonic social space within which alternative masculine and feminine identities can

be articulated. Among these are:

Encouraging students to examine how texts position them to respond in particular ways; encouraging students to question, challenge and reflect on their own positioning; encouraging students to consider gendered positions outside a “phallocentric Symbolic order” (Lacan, 1977), and to consider alternative ways of meaning making (Martino, 1995, p.212).

45

His strategies were particularly helpful to me in discussions of Washington Square.

“The Gentle Lena” and “The Untold Lie,” in which I attempted to have students

deconstruct patriarchal discourses.

Poststructuralist Gender Theorists

The investigations of gender carried out by Butler (1999/1990) and Davies

( 1992) have grounded my study and also informed some of the specific investigations in

which I engaged with students. Through the work of these theorists, I was drawn to

consider how gender is socially constructed.

In Gender Trouble Butler (1999/1990) made the case that there is no underlying,

fixed gender reality. She drew from Foucault (1980), who argued previously that the

body is not sexed in any significant sense prior to its determination within a discourse

throughout which it becomes invested with the idea of natural or essential sex (p. 117).

Butler (1999) argued that gender is social artifice, and that “what we take to be an

‘internal’ feature of ourselves is one that we anticipate and produce through certain

bodily acts. . . ’’ (p. xv). These bodily acts, or performances, include dress, action,

movement, and language. When we behave in a gendered way, claimed Butler, we are

not enacting something that is already fixed in the world, but rather actually constituting

it, or creating the social fiction that these gender differences exist separately from the

acts and deeds with which they are inextricably connected.

Davies (1992) also investigated the social construction of gender. She asserted

that gender is constructed through language as two binary categories hierarchically

arranged in reaction to each other. She argued that the separation of individuals into

binary categories is an idea, a metaphysical fiction, rather than an essential fact of

human existence. She further argued that “the masculine/feminine binary is held

together because we come to see it as the way the world is and therefore ought to be.

According to Davies (1992), the active taking up of oneself as male or female, dominant

46

or passive, is a complex process. It must be understood if we are to recognize and

deconstruct the binaries in our lived experience, “ if we want to read the ways in which

the culture inscribes itself on the inner and outer body,” (p. II). Davies recommended

reading against the grain, and, through the process o f deconstruction, making visible the

dependence of the dominant category in the binary (dominant) on the subordinate

category (passive). According to Davies (1992), this activity would show the

oppositional and exclusionary nature of the binary, and dismantle the hierarchy that

often privileges characteristics attributed to males over those attributed to females. She

argued that when the binary is disrupted, each person will see the multiple ways they

are positioned and they position each other. She claimed that this would open up

opportunities for replacing dominant colonizing discourses with multiple perspectives

and multiple ways of seeing the world. Thus, according to Davies (1992), the dominant

and the passive are not in a hierarchical but a complementary relationship.

Davies (1992) recommended a two-step process for the envisioning of another

reality. Step one is to engage in deconstructive work to undo the bonds of already

existing discursively constructed worlds. Step two is to focus on the imaginative

construction of worlds other than those we already inhabit. She claimed that

To see within that process the power of binary thought to constitute you as one and not the other (passive and not dominant) . . . and thus to make you separate from the other, yet taking your meaning and value in relation to that binary pair, is where the really radical work of poststructuralist practice begins (p 12).

In my specific analyses of the masculine and feminine characteristics defining

the male and female characters in The Great Gatsbv and Their Eves Were Watching

God. I engaged students in the deconstruction of the binaries employed in the

stereotyping of male and female characters, and the imbalance of power among the

males and females in those novels.

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I drew upon Davies’ (1992) poststructuralist theories and those of Butler

(1999) in designing the critical approaches and strategies to be employed in the

investigation of students’ responses and the deconstruction of patriarchal textual

relationships and ideologies. I also juxtaposed these theories with feminist theories of

Fetterley (1978) and Bogdan (1990; 1992; 1997) to stimulate dialogic investigations of

gender construction with selected students.

In addition to reader response and feminist theory, my study, which involves

curriculum development, is also informed by the field of critical pedagogy.

Critical Pedagogv

Critical pedagogy is theoretically founded on a several theories: first generation

Frankfurt School critical theory; Gramsci's concept of hegemony and counter-

hegemonic practice, and Freire’s educational theory and practice of ‘conscientization’

(Luke, 1992, p. 27). According to Luke (1992), Frankfurt School theorists reacted to

the rationalist and technicist oppression of the culture industries (school, media etc.) of

western culture. They argued that “the practice of de-reification of personal and

political emancipation, was through negative critique: that is, the negation of false

consciousness through ideology critique’’ (p. 27). Gramsci, promoting dialectical

thinking for contesting ideological positions and historical conditions, attempted to

emancipate the working class poor from ruling class oppression. He posited that “all

have the potential to assume a counter-hegemonic position from which to articulate the

values and interests of a subordinate group ” (Gramsci in Luke, p. 27). By envisioning

an education to develop the critical consciousnesses of the disenfranchised peasantry,

Freire (1990/1973) provided “the means by which men and women deal critically and

creatively with reality and discover how to participate in and transform their world ”

(Schaull in Freire, p. 15).

48

Freire (1990) influenced my study because of his notion of education for critical

consciousness, or conscientization. Conscientization “refers to learning to perceive

social, political and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive

elements of reality” (p. 10). Freire (1990) was particularly interested in developing

pedagogy designed to empower the underclasses so that all of the power no longer

exists with only the dominant class. The development of this kind of pedagogy,

according to Freire (1990), is dependent on the authority of the teacher. Freire (1987)

argued that “without authority it is difficult for the liberties of the students to be shaped”

(p. 91). He further argued that “the teacher has a plan, a program, a goal for the study”

(p. 172). However, although Freire argued that education is always directive, he

believed that authority has its foundation in a dedication to students’ freedom.

Grounded in the notion that there is no such thing as a neutral educational

process, his method promotes education as the practice of freedom— “the means by

which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to

participate in and transform their world” (Schaull in Freire, p. 15). Freire’s (1990)

conviction was that every human being

is capable of looking critically at his world in a dialogical encounter with others. Provided with the proper tools for such encounter, he [and she] can gradually perceive his [or her] personal and social reality as well as the contradictions in it, become conscious of his [or her] own perception of that reality, and deal critically with it (p. 13).

When this happens in the process of learning to read, claimed Freire, men [and women]

discover that they are creators of culture, and that all their work can be creative” (p.15).

My impetus to lead students to address the inequities in the literature that

reflects and consititues our current ways of thinking about gender is drawn directly

from Freire’s (1990/1973) emancipatory pedagogy. I applied the methods of

challenging inequities of class to those involving gender. In my attempt to develop a

dialogical praxis, I adapted Freire’s conscientization, "which embodies a

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developmentally sequenced problem-posing education, in which students and teachers

move from magical through naive to critical consciousness . . (p. 156). In addition, I

have focused on helping students to perceive the contradictions in their perspectives.

Though also concerned predominantly with issues o f class, Shor (1980) dealt

directly with gender issues and offers concrete suggestions for educators with examples

taken from his own educational practice. Calling his practice a “ liberatory pedagogy”

(p. 95), Shor, like Freire, was dedicated to transcending an oppressive social order by

searching for transformative resources in a society characterized by an “absence o f

critical options in every day life” (p. 217). While Freire (1987) argued that education

“has a directive nature we cannot deny” (p. 172), Shor (1980) argued that in a liberatory

classroom, “the teacher seeks to withdraw as the director of learning” (p. 90).

In his groundbreaking work. Critical Teaching And Evervdav Life. Shor (1980)

addressed the issue of sexism. Dealing with the underdevelopment of consciousness

about the inequities of marriage and the sexist attitudes imbedded in the social interstice

of the institution, he investigated the expectations inherent in the male and female

perspectives about relationship and marriage. For my study, I borrowed some of the

experiential methods that Shor (1980) used to liberate his students through a critical

pedagogy. By directing students toward a critical orientation approach to daily life, I

too attempted to “abstract false consciousness so that students could reflect on and

transcend the ideas, language, behavior and institutions which limit them” (p. 241). As

Shor (1980) was successful at helping students to come to terms with the burdens of

marriage for the males and females in his class, I adopted his method of using role-play

in an attempt to liberate my students. I specifically borrowed his method of assigning

letter writing between students and characters for my discussion of the sexism and

double standards in The Great Gatsbv. I adopted his method of identifying and listing

characters’ traits to emphasize the differences in the portrayal of the two sexes as well.

50

I also used his experiential methods for the discussion of “The Untold Lie” by staging

imaginary discussions and arguments between literary characters whose voices had

been silenced.

Freire (1990/1973) and Shor (1980) attempted to delineate specific guidelines

for carrying out a critical pedagogical practice in the classroom. Giroux’s (1981, 1984,

1988, 1991) focus has been on the articulation of a political vision drawn from Freire,

Neo-Marxism and the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School (Gore, 1993). Rather

than identifying specific instructional practices directed at liberating students from class

constraints, he emphasized a critique of social injustices related to class inequities and,

more recently, iniquities relating to race and gender. His work, then, directed to the

articulation of a broader educational theory, “ is aimed at enabling teachers to develop

their own critical pedagogy rather than specific instructional practices” (p. 42). Giroux

and McLaren (1989) articulated a vision for teachers to help them to “create a

politicized citizenry capable of fighting for various forms of public life and informed by

a concern for equality and social justice” (p. 158). Giroux (1988) explained his project

by arguing that his work represents

a particular way of seeing, a view of theory as a form of practice, one that rejects the fetish of defining the practical as the flight from theoretical concerns. . .. Theory as a form of practice points to the need for constructing a critical discourse to both constitute and reorder the nature of our experiences and the objects of our concerns so as to both enhance and further empower the ideological conditions for a radical democracy (p. 36).

Giroux’s (1988) aim was to “help illuminate the specifics of oppression and the

possibilities for democratic struggle and renewal for those educators who believe that

schools and society can be changed and that their individual and collective actions can

make a difference” (p. 36).

Giroux (1981) pointed out that for critical theorists, the analysis of every day

taken-for-granted common sense practices, instead of being treated as “given” , must be

51

viewed within historical and societal relations that are produced and socially

constructed (p. 322). He called this practice “ideology critique” (p. 322). Giroux

emphasized the importance of “ideology critique” in relation to cultural texts (films and

books). He argued for the use of critique to go beyond deconstruction of the texts to a

reconstruction that serves radical needs of rebalancing the balance of power in society

in terms of race, class and gender.

My intention to develop critical consciousness, and in particular, focus attention

on the ideologies and contradictions that limit and oppress boys and girls, derives in part

from Giroux’s (1981: 1988, 1991) work. In my investigations of the literature with the

students in my study, I utilize his practice of “ideology critique” to develop a gender-

politicized citizenry capable of fighting for various forms of public life, and informed

by a concern for equality and social justice. Like Giroux (1991), I attempted to develop

a critical pedagogy which involves “providing students with the opportunity to develop

the critical capacity to challenge and transform existing social and political forms’’ (p.

47). One of my goals was to identify the tools (Giroux, 1991) with which to empower

students by raising their awareness of marginalization and the silencing of voices in and

out of literature.

Feminists have borrowed from these democratizing pedagogical approaches to

formulate an educational project designed to dismantle patriarchal metanarratives,

emancipate female subjects from limiting and disempowering structures, and create “a

vision of the world which might be otherwise” through “discourses of possibility”

(Kenway and Modra, 1992, p. 138).

Whether attempting to challenge unequal access, reconceptualize curricula, terminate exploitive practices, protest social injustice, dismantle male-dominated hierarchies or deconstruct patriarchal discourses of power, critical feminist pedagogues share a commitment to a form of politics directed toward ending the social arrangements which lead women to be “other than, less than, put down, or put upon” (p. 139).

52

Feminist pedagogy, critical by nature, emerged from a discontent with the

patriarchy of schooling and with mainstream masculinist educational discourses, the

analyses of which was connected to the feminist movements (Gore, 1992). It is founded

on the notion that women are located unequally in the social formation, often devalued,

exploited and oppressed; it is also founded on the notion that educational systems are

complicit in this oppression.

According to Kenway and Magda (1992), the remedy is to educate for change

by disseminating alternative forms of non-discriminatory and empowering practices

“which may challenge schooling’s complicity in reproducing gendered inequality” (p.

141). Luke (1992) supported this perspective, pointing out that “ if the text and

experience of schooling [were] changed (elimination o f sexism), the students’ lives and

the society would be changed for the better (Luke, p. 27).

According to Gore (1992), feminist pedagogy “implies both instructional

practices and social visions” (p. 15). As Lusted (1986) has asserted, it is concerned

with what is taught, how it is taught, and how it is learned. It involves the many

dimensions of the teaching/learning process and the curriculum in use “as teacher, text

and students interact to produce both intended and unintended learnings” (Kenway and

Modra 1992, p. 141).

Ethical Theories

Because I have adopted Booth’s (1988) judgment that gender bias and inequality

in literary representation and in life are ethical concerns, I have also sought theoretical

support from narrative ethicists and from social imagination theorists whose work is

based on ethical concerns.

Narrative Ethicists

Booth (1988) provided a rationale for the investigation and development of

character through engagement with narrative. In The Companv We Keep: An Ethics of

53

Fiction, he dealt with the ethics of representation of characters and their unfolding. This

approach incorporated an investigation of how the reader becomes engrossed in what

Booth (1988) calls a “friendship” (p. 201) with the implied author, and a consideration

of the cost of an engagement with literature which determines who the reader is to be

for the duration of their reading experience. By asking the reader to consider what

ethos must be shared for this friendship to happen, and what responsibility exists in such

a friendship. Booth required the reader to wonder “if the pattern of life that this would-

be friend offers, is one that friends might well pursue together?” (p. 222).

Consequently, he asked the readers to investigate their own ethical perspectives, and

forces them to become cognizant of the ethical implications of this relationship.

Central to my inquiry, and drawn from Booth (1988), were questions that

demanded consciousness of the reader’s cultural and ethical situatedness in relation to

the authorial or narrative perspective on gender issues. I was interested in exploring the

ethical implications of an alliance with Anderson who, in “The Untold Lie,” lures the

reader to sympathize with male characters by means of damaging, stereotypical

representations of women and marriage.

Booth’s (1998) approach helped me to lead students to make distinctions

between authors whose gender representations were problematic due to a kind of sexism

representative o f an earlier time, and authors who attempt to “display to us the

complexity, the indeterminacy, the sheer difficulty of moral choice” (Nussbaum in

Booth, p. 288). As we learned during the study, gender-conscious authors such as

James in Washington Square and Hemingway in “Hills Like White Elephants ” often

constructed situations in which gender inequities were displayed, as a way to “insist that

we see what these people are doing to each other ” (p. 287). In these cases, the

characters may have been acting in a sexist manner, but the conscious author was

54

critiquing that behavior. I borrowed from Booth to foster students’ ability to

differentiate between these two situations.

Booth’s (1988) approach also aided me in providing an alternative to either the

students’ unconsidered rejection of a character, or their wholesale, unreflective adoption

of him or her as hero/heroine. By engaging in an ethical evaluation of a character’s

and/or an implied author's perspective, I hoped to help students to gain critical

perspective and become what Booth (1988) calls characters in process—readers who

engage in the kind o f reflection which leads them toward self awareness and,

potentially, a more conscious life.

To move students toward an increasingly sophisticated level of ethical

consideration of .texts, Nussbaum (1990) suggested identifying the story teller and

asking such questions as ‘Who is speaking here?’ and ‘How does he or she address

others in the text?’ She also suggested asking “certain large scale structural questions . .

. about the role o f the hero or heroine, and the nature of the reader’s identification’’ (p.

35). Asking such questions, Nussbaum (1990) argued, allows the teacher to move the

investigation beyond a simple discussion of plot, character content and theme and

toward an analysis of the ideological implications of the texts.

Since one of my goals was to raise students’ awareness o f the ethical

implications of sexist representations and androcentric textual ideologies, I attempted to

promote, with Nussbaum (1990), “the teachable moment . . . when a reader breaks

ethically with the characters representing divergent ethical positions’’ (p.32). I adopted

Nussbaum’s (1990) questions in my discussion of The Great Gatsbv about the

relationship of the author, the narrator, the characters and the reader in order to

encourage an ethical analysis of the novel and their response to it.

I was also influenced by Newton ‘s (1995) narrational ethics, which he defined

as “the formal design of the story telling act, the distribution of relations among teller,

55

tale and persons told” (p. 25). Like Booth (1988), he dealt with the ethical

consequences of the reciprocal claims binding teller, listener, witness and reader in the

process of reading. Newton’s (1995) focus on “the cost incurred in fictionalizing of

oneself or others by exchanging person for character” (p. 18), inspired questions that I

posed to students in my investigation of the ethics of the representation of male and

female characters. Newton’s (1995) focus on representational ethics (the way in which

an author portrays characters) also prompted discussions about the appropriateness with

which men have represented women and vice versa in the literature studied.

Similarly, Johnson (1993) attempted to locate morality within a dialectic

involving reason, passion, imagination and experience. Like Bakhtin (1981), Johnson

(1993) emphasized the need for a dialectical play of competing views and traditions for

the optimal moral education. He recommended giving voice to competing moral

philosophies, and working through alternatives to discover the best approaches to

solving problems, calling for a dialectical approach to the literature to protect a tentative

and non-dogmatic attitude toward life’s bewildering multiplicities. According to

Johnson (1993), “morality defines the arena of reflection and engaged-exploration of

possible actions in which the self struggles continually both to find and to form its

identity within the mass of ends it finds itself pursuing” (p. 147).

Drawing again from Dewey (1922), Johnson’s (1993) definition of self is not a

fixed one, but one which is in process—a developing self. In his view, the self develops

its identity by “inhabiting characters embedded within socially shared roles and by

creatively appropriating those roles, even to the point of co-authoring new ones” (p.

151). With Kohlberg (1976, 1980, 1985) and several social imagination theorists

(Edmiston, 1999; Heathcote, 1984 and O ’Neill, 1995), he argued that developing

morally is equated with an ability to be able to imagine oneself in the place of another.

Johnson (1993) argued that

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[ujnless we can put ourselves in the place o f another, unless we can enlarge our own perspective through an imaginative encounter with the experience of others, unless we can let our own values and ideals be called into question from various points of view, we cannot be morally sensitive (p. 199).

He further suggested that humans develop through time and may only come to know

who they are and who they might become by seeing how it is that they play various

roles, inhabit various characters, or create new characters by an ongoing process that is

never completed during one’s lifetime and beyond.

Because of Johnson's (1993) location of morality within a dialectic involving

reason, passion, imagination, and experience, his emphasis on empathetic projection

into the experiences of others has formed the theoretical basis o f many of the social

imagination activities and dialectical processes I used in the class/study.

Social Imagination Theorists

In Releasing the Imagination. Greene (1995) wrote that “the imagination is

what, above all, makes empathy possible ” (p. 4). It enables us, she claimed, to cross the

empty spaces between ourselves and others, permits us to give credence to alternative

realities, and allows us to break with the taken-for-granted to set aside familiar

distinctions and definitions. Greene (1995) emphasized the social importance of the

imagination, claiming its capacity to invent visions of what should be and might be in

our deficient society. She reminded us of Jean Paul Sartre’s declaration that “it is on the

day that we can conceive of a different state of affairs that a new light falls on our

troubles and our suffering, and we decide that these things are unbearable” (Sartre in

Greene, p. 5). This idea is shared by Gilligan (1982), Kohlberg (1976; 1980; 1985),

Noddings (1984), and Johnson (1993). Like Johnson (1993), Greene emphasized a need

for an imaginative and empathetic projection into the experiences o f other people.

Basically, social imagination theorists use educational drama, creative writing,

music, and/or art to interpret literature or investigate ethical issues raised by the

57

literature. Social imagination activities, and particularly educational drama, allow

students to investigate issues from within the literature by adopting the roles of the

characters or those of imagined experts or authorities who may shed light on the issues

raised by the text. Conversations between characters who do not speak to each other in

a story, abstract artistic renderings of textual situations, and letters written from the

reader or an imagined expert to a character can elucidate themes and textual

implications and ideologies unnoticed by other methods of interpretation.

Because my study was based on the premise that moral activity is equated with a

heightened ability to envision new possibilities for gender equality in literature, I used

drama, creative writing and art to foster an imaginative and empathetic projection into

the experiences of literary characters. I selected these methods in order to lead the

students toward an awareness of sexism in the literature to conceive of a different state

of affairs for their literary response and their lives. In adopting social imagination

activities. I was influenced by O’Neill (1995), Heathcote (1984, 1995), and Edmiston

(1998,1999).

O’Neill (1995), calling her practice “process drama, ” created the opportunity for

students to engage in dialogues with characters from within literary texts. In these

dialogues, students experience those dilemmas experienced by literary characters, and

envision new possibilities for the characters, themselves, and others. Students thus

become “not merely consumers but producers o f texts” (p. 44). Because “it is

invariably the deepest concerns of their own lives that participants discover in the

drama” (p. 4), I specifically employed role improvisations taken from O ’Neill (1995) in

order to invite students to negotiate more intensively with gender representations and

ideological positions in the texts. Further, for “The Untold Lie,” I specifically drew

from O ’Neill’s (1995) concept of the teacher in role’, through which the teacher and

the students work together inside the text to solve a problem they share. I engaged

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specific students in discussions designed to investigate the patriarchal point of view in

the story.

O'Neill (1995) built on the work of Heathcote (1984), an innovator in the field

o f educational drama. According to O ’Neill (1995), Heathcote s purpose in using

drama “is to release students into a new awareness of what they already know but don’t

yet realize they know” (p. 91). According to Heathcote (1984), role-play “catches

[students] in a ’moment of authenticity’ of real choice and real concern, where they are

thinking from within a real dilemma rather than just discussing the dilemma . . . ” (p.

119). Heathcote developed the approach, the mantle o f the expert (1984, 1995), in

which students and teachers take on the roles of experts in an attempt to investigate

social and literary situations. Using her mantle of the expert stance, I followed in

Heathcote s (1984)) dramatic approach o f “shattering the human experience into new

understanding” using drama (p. 122). I have drawn specifically from Edmiston (1999)

as I put the mantle o f the expert stance to use in my investigation of the gender issues in

The Great Gatsbv. Edmiston (1999) also informed the zirt and drama activities I used

for the study of Their Eves Were Watching God.

Often overlapping, these various reader response approaches, and the feminist,

ethical and critical pedagogical perspectives provided the theoretical grounding and

framework for my study. Ethicists such as Booth (1988) and psychoanalytic feminists

such as Walkerdine (1984) are in agreement with respect to textual coercion. My

attempts to investigate textual positionings through an investigation of the narrative can

be attributed to both. In addition, the focus on students’ contradictions about

investments in a hierarchical system is suggested by psychoanalytic feminists (Davies,

1992 and Harper, 2000) as well as critical pedagogists (Ereire, 1990/1973; Giroux

(1981: 1988 and Shor, 1980). The use of drama to highlight silenced characters or

marginalized perspectives for a broadened interpretation of the text reflects the work of

59

poststructuralists, feminists, ethicists, critical theorists, and reader response theorists, all

o f whom share a desire to bring about multivoiced interpretations which a textual

openness would insure.

Part II: Review of Related Research Studies

Introduction

In conducting this examination of students' responses to sexism in classic

American literature, and the effects of various strategies designed to develop critical,

gender-conscious approaches to reading older texts, I had few classroom studies to use

as models for the approach I hoped to develop. In fact, there were no critical feminist

studies conducted with students reading classic texts in co-educational high school

literature classrooms. However, my research was informed by gender-related studies of

classroom practice, including two high school studies involving a feminist approach to

girls and reading, and several feminist studies of single and mixed gendered college

literature classrooms. In addition, there have been studies on adolescent culture and

schooling that have informed my study.

Gender and Adolescent Culture

Among studies conducted by researchers who investigate adolescent culture.

Brown and Gilligan (1992), Gilligan (1989), and Pipher (1994) have noted that

adolescent girls are literally and figuratively losing their voices in American society

today. In her study of the Emma Willard School in New York, Gilligan (1989) found

that pre-adolescent girls, having learned to see the world as a network of human

connections rather than as a hierarchical organization, experience a crisis o f confidence

and self esteem in their teenage years. Brown and Gilligan (1992) in their related four-

year study of 100 girls at the Laurel School (Cleveland, Ohio), further concluded that

“ [wjomen’s psychological development within patriarchal societies and male-voiced

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cultures is inherently traumatic,” (p. 216) resulting in a disconnection from themselves

and other women in favor of protecting their relationships with members of opposite

sex. In this study, they found that girls, through the process of adolescence, lose their

ability to be confident and outspoken, dismiss the value of their own experiences,

modulate their voices, and find themselves tentative and unsure, powerless and all alone

(p. 217).

Pipher ( 1994) also turned her attention to female adolescence in contemporary

America through a metaphor connecting adolescent girls with Hamlet’s Ophelia.

Pipher’s (1994) study suggested that, like Ophelia, who drowns herself in response to a

loss of Polonius’ guidance and Hamlet’s love, today's teenage girls are also drowning in

a culture that provides impossible standards of behavior and appearance. Through a

series of case studies drawn from her psychology practice, Pipher drew on high school

girls’ discussions of their lives, friends, school, parents, boyfriends, and experiences

with eating disorders, depression, self-mutilation, sexual pressure, the media, and

parents’ divorce. She concluded that very few role models exist for teenage girls today,

and that just at the time when they most need parents, they are encouraged to break

away from the family.

As Reviving Ophelia (Pipher, 1994) offered stories depicting the difficulties

faced by girls navigating through adolescence. Pollack (1998) presented his findings

from his twenty-year clinical psychology practice and a study examining the ways

contemporary boys manifest their social and emotional disconnection. Drawing a

parallel to Pipher’s (1994) book, and playing off the Hamlet metaphor. Pollack (1998)

also addressed what he calls Hamlet’s curse, investigating depression, suicide and

violence in boys. Pollack (1998) addressed a phenomenon that he calls a “boy code,”

which sets up an expectation for male behavior and demands that they mask their

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emotions. Pollack also found that the boys in his study are lonely, depressed, and

struggling like girls, with a need to be listened to and understood:

Adam was doing what I find so many boys do: he was hiding behind a mask, and using it to hide his deepest thoughts and feelings—his real self- -from everyone, even the people closest to him. This mask o f masculinity enabled Adam to make a bold (if inaccurate) statement to the world: “I can handle it. Everything’s fine. I’m invincible.” (p. 5)

Pollack! 1998) addressed the male experience, and the emotional challenges of

adolescence, sharing stories of struggles with a socially constructed masculinity, self

esteem, relationships with parents, sexuality, school and sports. Drawing from his

cases, he suggested ways in which parents, coaches, teachers and mentors could make

necessary connections with the boys and ease the pain of the developmental process.

His work shed light on the male experience, which was helpful in my study o f co­

educational classrooms.

Gender and Schooling

In recent years, there have been several studies conducted to investigate the

impact of the U.S. educational system on boys and girls. There have been two studies

(1992: 1999) conducted by the American Association o f University Women (AAUW),

and one study by Sadker and Sadker (1994) that have specifically addressed the ways in

which curriculum and instruction have privileged boys.

Sadker and Sadker’s (1994) study found that boys are privileged in the

classroom, control classroom conversation, and receive the lion’s share of teacher time

and attention. When teachers go about instruction as usual, boys dominated discussions

and called out questions and comments eight times more often than girls; “girls who

know the answer are more likely to wait to be called on, while males are more likely to

shout out” (p. 269). The researchers stressed the need for teachers to become even more

deliberate about finding classroom strategies to turn these statistics around. Otherwise,

there is a continuation of the message that girls’ words are worth less than boys’ words.

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In their study of gender bias in textbooks, Sadker and Sadker (1994) found that

“from history to the sciences, students may still learn about a world of male

accomplishment . . . but women continue to make only a rare appearance” (p. 175).

With regard to literature, Sadker and Sadker (1994) argued that boys enjoy being the

featured figures in most of the literature (p. 197). They claimed that teachers have only

recently begun to address the issue that the literary works selected have focused

primarily on males, providing few female role models for girls. In addition, they

pointed out that all through school “girls listen repeatedly to sexist themes” in the

classics that are regularly assigned.

Sadker and Sadker’s (1994) findings were corroborated by the 1992 AAUW

report. How Schools Shortchange Girls, which concluded that schools did not offer girls

an education of the same quality or quantity of that given boys. The AAUW report

addressed issues of classroom attention, citing that girls received less teacher attention

than boys, received less challenging interaction with their teachers than boys, and,

received less constructive feedback from teachers than boys. They cited further

instances of gender bias in the design and construction of standardized tests; a growing

gap separating boys and girls in achievement in science; the continued tokenism,

omission and stereotyping of girls in the curriculum; and texts and lessons in which

female role models were conspicuously absent.

This AAUW (1992) report highlighted Applebee’s (1989) study of book-length

works taught in high school English courses in which he reported that in a national

sample of public, independent and Catholic schools, the ten books assigned most

frequently included only one written by a woman. Applebee’s (1989) report stated that

these findings represented little change in overall balance from similar lists 25 or 80

years ago. According to the AAU’̂ '̂ (1992) report, Applebee’s findings are important in

view of Campbell and Wirtenburg’s review (1980) of research on how books influence

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children. Their review cited twenty-three studies demonstrating that books do transmit

values to readers; and that sex-role stereotyping was reduced in those students whose

curriculum portrayed females and males in non-stereotypical roles (AAUW, 1992, p.

108)

The AAUW (1999) follow-up study. Gender Gaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our

Children, confirmed that public schools are making progress. However, the report

stated that the goal of uniform educational standards has not been effectively linked to

the revised equity concerns—the recognition that particular groups may need different

things from their education to achieve the same standards. According to the study, the

existence of stereotypes in textbooks is still problematic.

Gender and Reading

Research on response to literature includes the study of the act of reading, and

factors influencing that act, including individual readers’ activities, the influence of

interpretive communities, and the positioning of the reader as a result of linguistic and

textual ideology. Many of these studies, which investigate the differences between the

way men and women read, inform my study by providing information about gender and

reading. While acknowledging these findings, my study focuses on how teaching

approaches and strategies affect response, and whether or not gendered readings are

reduced when the emphasis is on a critical pedagogy which promotes gender equality

rather than on the differences in the way men and women read. Particularly germaine,

are studies on engagement, gendered reader-response, reader orientation and reading

communities.

Engagement

In their study, Pichart and Anderson (1977) found that identification with

particular characters shapes the way students interpret texts. Tierney and Pearson

(1983) suggested that alignments with characters influence readers’ interpretations.

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These alignments also become part of the reader’s stance toward the reading act

(Tierney and Enciso. 1991).

Of particular importance to my study are the findings that suggest that when

readers empathize with particular characters, they tend to view conflict from that

character’s perspective (Golden & Guthrie, 1986). In addition, they will take on

thoughts and feelings as their own when they become engaged with the characters

(Enciso, 1994), and when they empathize with certain characters, they draw conclusions

or exonerate characters' negative behaviors on the basis of themes with which they are

familiar (Black and Siefert, 1985).

The significance for my study of a relationship between engagement with

characters and the reader’s exoneration of characters’ perspectives/behaviors, is that it

implies that without the implementation of a critical approach to reading, readers are

prone to accept the sexist perspectives of characters with whom they engage. Since

these studies support the theories that assert the ability of texts to coerce uncritical

readers into prescribed reading positions (Martino, 1995, Davies, 1992; Booth, 1988;

Walkerdine, 1984; Bakhtin, 1981), findings from these studies prompted me to

investigate critical approaches to reading in order to move my students beyond their

unreflective responses to literature.

Gendered Reader Response

In “Gender Interests in Reading and Language,” Bleich (1986) found that there

was a significant gender-related difference in response with regard to the narrative form.

While both sexes read lyric poetry similarly, men read prose fiction differently from the

way women read it. According to Bleich (1986),

[t]he salient parameter was the perception of the ‘voice’ in the literature.Men and women both perceived a strong lyric voice in the poetry, usually seeing it as the author’s voice, while in the narrative, men perceived a strong narrative voice, but women experienced the narrative as a ‘world,’ without a particularly strong sense that this world was narrated into existence” (p. 239).

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In Bleich s view, men see the novel as a result of someone’s action while women “enter

the world of the novel, [and] take it as something ‘there’ for that purpose’’ (p. 239).

One of my goals was to help both males and females to be aware of the writer’s craft.

Flynn (1986), in “Gender and Reading, ” reported her study of the responses of

twenty-six men and twenty-six women to the reading of short stories by Joyce and

Hemingway. Flynn (1986) investigated the students’ reactions to the texts in terms of

their domination o f or domination by the texts. “ Either the reader resists the text and so

deprives it of its force {domination of), or the text overpowers the reader {domination

by) and so eliminates the reader’s power of discernment’’ (p. 268). Flynn (1986)

observed that the two responses are potentially interactive but are so far from revealing

meaningful engagement with the text that they represent minimal communication. A

meaningful reading experience would exist, stated Flynn (1986) when “self and other,

reader and text interact in a way that allows the reader to leam from the experience

without losing critical distance . . . ” (p. 268).

Flynn also found gender differences in reading comparable to Bleich’s (1986)

findings. Flynn (1986) stated that her study suggests that “male students sometimes

react to disturbing stories by rejecting them or by dominating them, a strategy, it seems,

that women don’t often employ” (p. 285). According to Day (1994) both Flynn and

Bleich found that “females were more comfortable with being confused during their

reading, or with groping toward a possible interpretation, while men expressed

frustration and anger (thence rejection) when they were confused” (p. 104).

Findings from other studies support Bleich’s (1986) and Flynn’s (1986)

conclusions that men and women read differently. Miner (1986) has confirmed the

influence of gender on interpretation. She found that “even when reading the same text,

women and men quite probably will respond to, connect with, and derive psychic

satisfaction from different aspects of the text” (p. 189).

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Findings supporting gendered readings informed my study as I investigated the

ways in which responses change as a result of the kind of a critical practice. In a similar

way, studies on reader orientation also informed my study as they emphasized the

importance of the readers’ ideological orientations to their initial uncritical reader

response. These studies also served to elucidate the effects of critical pedagogy when

responses differed as a result of teaching strategies.

Reader Orientation

Beach (1993) studied the stances (ideological orientations) or subject positions

that students bring to their responses to literature. According to these studies,

“[s]students judge characters’ actions and infer thematic meanings according to their

beliefs and attitudes” (Beach, 1997). According to Beach (1997), in responding to more

'traditional' romance novels, students who bring feminist attitudes to these texts may be

critical of the heroine’s adherence to patriarchal values. Similarly, Buckingham (1993)

found that the responses of adolescent males are affected by the fear of being perceived

by peers as unmasculine. Cherland (1992) found that female adolescent readers adopt

gendered discourses based on either/or oppositions between 'good girl’ or 'saintly’

behaviors and 'bad girl’ or 'sinful’ behavior, and play on wishes and desires already

present in young lives (p. 5). Both male and female adolescent groups, then, adopt a

stance reflecting a discourse of gender difference that privileges a male perspective.

These studies are supported by a study of adolescents’ responses to stereotypical

portrayals of females in teenage magazine ads (Beach and Freedman, 1992). Here,

secondary school males described their responses in terms of metaphors o f domination

and male privilege (Beach, 1997). According to Beach (1997), “[f]ew students in the

study (male or female) were critical o f the gender stereotyping in the ads” (Beach,

1997). Beach concluded that some males expressed resistance to what they perceived

as feminist’ perspectives. These studies provided information about the importance of

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the reader’s stance and orientation, and enlightened me to resistances that might affect

students’ capacity to negotiate with that literature.

In addition to these studies. Radway (1984) investigated 42 adult female readers

and their reading motivations, habits and rewards while reading romance novels.

According to McRobbie (1991), the study also has implications beyond popular

romance novels as it leads the reading theorist away from the understanding of the

centrality of the text and toward a recognition that texts do not simply assert their

meanings on unsuspecting readers (p. 139).

My awareness of the implications of the importance of a reader’s sexist attitudes

on his or her response was an important factor to be considered in a study designed to

evaluate the effectiveness of teaching approaches and strategies on response. In order

to design a critical pedagogy which would help to transform responses and lives, it was

important that 1 be aware of all of the influences which researchers determined to have

significant effects on readers’ gendered responses. The effect of reading communities

on response was another such influence.

Reading Communities

Research on reading communities has mainly been carried out by educators

interested in investigating the impact o f the group or the classroom on reader response.

Cherland (1992) focused specifically on how students navigated gender through

conversation in group conversations. Her findings were important to my study, because

they elucidated the effects of pedagogy on response.

Cherland’s (1994) study of the individual responses to sixth grade boys and girls

to young adult literature, identified ‘discourses of feeling’ and discourses of action’ in

the students’ responses. She described ‘discourses of feeling’ as those involving a focus

on emotion and human relationships and discourses of action as those focusing on plot.

According to Cherland (1992), respondents focusing on feeling talked of their own

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emotional response to text and compared characters’ feelings with their own. On the

other hand, respondents using a discourse of action talked about the characters in terms

of what they did, not how they felt. While all students used both discourses, the girls in

the study used feeling predominantly and the boys used action predominantly. When

discussions were held with the mixed group, the students used action predominantly,

and when they were divided by gender and organized into single sex groups, the

discussions of the same novels were almost completely divided by feeling and action.

Though aware of the fact that Tannen (1990) gave numerous examples about

how male and female conversational strategies differ. Cherland drew from Gilbert

(1992) and Walkerdine s (1984) arguments that gender differences in response simply

reflect the learned positions people occupy in society. Cherland believed that gendered

reading took place because the students came into the classroom bringing their gendered

cultural beliefs about human relationships, and about what is of value in the story. She

also hypothesized that this evidence of gendered response was indicative of the way in

which cultural constraints work to maintain social inequalities and the gendered ways in

which men and women are positioned to read. Therefore, she sought to find

pedagogical reasons to minimize gendered readings, and pedagogical ways to address

the problem.

In comparing her study with others such as Eeds and Peterson (1991), Eeds and

Wells (1989), Cherland (1992), found an answer. In these studies, students had been

asked to work collaboratively to construct meaning from a text they had all read, and to

analyze the author’s craft by focusing on the text. In Cherland’s (1992) study, the

students worked alone and were only asked to give individual responses. She observed

that a pedagogy engaging students in a collaborative construction of meaning had

minimized the occurrences of gendered response in the aforementioned studies.

Cherland (1994) concluded that a pedagogy that engages students collaboratively and

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transmits the norms of equality and of the collective creation of knowledge to students

is more likely to result in non-gendered responses.

Cherland’s (1994) study supported my belief that teaching approaches and

strategies minimize gendered responses due to her finding that responses are less likely

to be defined according to gender when students are asked to work collaboratively to

construct meaning from a text they had all read. Following Cherland’s (1992) findings,

I included strategies that provided opportunities for collaborative text-based analyses as

well as the personal response.

Cultural Criticism and Classroom Studies

My work has also been influenced by studies by several theorists interested in

how high school readers' cultural values and outlooks on gender shape responses to

literature. These studies have been of particular interest to me because of my focus on

gender and response in the high school literature classroom, and my interest in

identifying approaches that foster students’ gender consciousness and commitment to

gender equality.

Hines’ (1995 study of a high school American literature classroom illustrates

differences between new critical practices, transactional reader response techniques,

and cultural approaches that provide a personal transaction not only with the text but

also with the world. Her study also illustrates the value of linking the reading of texts

to the reading of selves, society and history (p. 247), instead of the search for “truth”

through literature. Hines (1995) promoted cultural criticism to encourage critical

examination of lived experiences, beliefs and material conditions of readers, writers and

textual characters. She recommended that teachers explore the nature of gender roles in

the communities found in the fiction (p. 252). Her goal was to promote a cultural

criticism where teachers use texts to explore issues of social justice involving race and

gender for a more just society.

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Hines (1997), drawing from poststructuralist reader response criticism, argued

that “ texts . . . not only carry meanings, but also serve ideological functions in the

larger society” (p .131). Hines (1997) argued that “[bjecause our ways of reading are

always inherently linked to our ways of seeing society:, current approaches to texts can

be examined for the ways in which they explicitly and/or tacitly promote particular

conceptions of the world” (p. 121). She argued that students should be asked to see the

texts as social constructions so that they can question the underlying values in

themselves and in the texts. In this exchange, personal experience, opinion, and

popular culture infuse the ‘knowing’ of texts, thereby complicating and enriching the

discussion of the representation of men and women and relationships in various texts.

Gender issues, then, become a point of analysis, resulting in cultural criticism and the

interrogation of misogynistic forces that circulate in texts, media, toys, families, and

history. As a result, gender is ‘read’ as a complex, frequently conflicting set of material

and ideological forces, visible in institutions, sports, and families as well as in texts.

Rogers (1997), conducted a study in which she attempted to investigate the

effects of a pedagogy employing literature to critique or transform the society, rather

than one teaching the skills of reading as though readers were not themselves cultural

artifacts. In this study of a racially mixed and mixed gendered inner city eleventh grade

classroom, Rogers (1997) investigated teaching methods and responses. The students

and their teacher studied canonical American literature from an anthology, mixed with

some multicultural and popular cultural offerings that would provide an intertextual

context for racial and gender cultural issues, and serve the purpose of creating responses

and dialogue among students.

Rogers (1997) found that through the teacher’s gradual shift of textual

interpretive authority from herself to the reading community, and her encouragement of

students’ personal responses and connections to the larger social and cultural realm, she

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was able to craft a community in which responses that reflected some risk-taking could

be voiced. Once this happened, students began to explore their own experiences as they

related to the text. The result was that students not only had a deeper understanding of

texts like The Great Gatsbv. but a better understanding o f how their circumstances

related to the cultural situations which produced characters such as Tom Buchanan and

Jay Gatsby.

Both of these studies informed my study through their focus on classic

American literature, including The Great Gatsbv. and their desire to effect a pedagogy

which would heighten critical consciousness and bring about social change for men and

women through literature. I was particularly influenced by Hines’ argument that

students should be asked to see the texts as social constructions, a strategy I adopted in

my course/study. My commitment to a pedagogy that would heighten gender

consciousness and transform the students’ lives led me to other studies that focused on

the effects of feminist strategies in the literature classroom. Among them were two

studies investigating the feminist dialogic classroom, and one study that focused on a

feminist dialogic approach to reading classic literature.

Feminist Dialogic Studies

In the dialogic classroom there is evidence of conflicting, competing meanings,

or what Bakhtin (1981) described as “heteroglossia.” The dialogic classroom is

characterized by ‘'relations among voices and a practice of actualizing multiple relations

among internally divergent voices” (Bialostosky in Beach, 1993, p. 112).

Focusing on two college classrooms. Pace and Townsend (1999) conducted

research in two college classrooms and noted different responses to the teaching of

Hamlet. They compared a discussion about Gertrude in a teacher-centered classroom

with one in a response-based classroom. In the teacher-centered classroom , the

responses to Gertrude and Hamlet stemmed from patterns o f thinking grounded in

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stereotypes. The teacher assumed Hamlet’s perspective and analyzed the events

through Hamlet’s eyes. Thus, “Hamlet’s perspective was privileged, removed from

interrogation, and presented as though it were neutral and natural perspective, and

“representative of a universal truth” (p. 45). In this classroom, the teacher encouraged

his students to see Gertrude from Hamlet’s perspective, as a "slut,’ and naturalized the

ideas embedded in Hamlet’s perspective. The result was that because the class

stereotyped Gertrude as a weak, predorhinantly sexual character; and naturalized the

perspectives of Hamlet, both characters were kept from being critically examined.

In the second class, the teacher entered into a process of discovery with students

and helped them to grapple with human complexity. The patterns of interacting in this

class exposed all characters to interrogation. According to Pace and Townsend (1999),

“in this dialogic class, multiple perspectives were considered. The teacher helped to

challenge the stereotypes by talking about stereotypes, and prompting resistant reading.

The students shared ideas with their teacher in ways that complicated the characters of

Gertrude and Hamlet” (p. 45). Consequently, the students in this class “suggested by

their questions, musings and concerns that both female and male characters cannot be

predicted along gender lines, that biological sex need not determine what is possible or

permissible” (p. 48). Pace and Townsend (1999) also suggested that “if we leave

Hamlet’s (or any character’s) embedded biases and prejudices and allow students to do

the same, we may be encouraging them to leave their own biases unexamined or to

participate in their own degradation” (p. 45).

By indicating that “how we talk about characters and literature is as important as

the characters and literature that we talk about ” (p. 43) and that “the methods we use are

as important as texts that we teach” (p. 48), Pace and Townsend (1999) supported my

emphasis on teaching methods and strategies in the investigation o f gender

representations and patriarchal ideology. Following their lead, I engaged the students in

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my study to examine characters from multiple perspectives, and to enter into a process

of discovery in order to comprehend human complexity. This approach was effective

for literature in which an author or main character viewed other characters from a sexist

point of view (“The Untold Lie” and A Farewell to Arms).

Lundberg (1989) also employed a dialogic approach to literature in a study in

which she analyzed the relationship between fictive narrators and fictive readers in the

novels of Charlotte Bronte and Joseph Conrad in order to demonstrate the impact of

gender on the literary production of, and on the interpretive stances in gendered

communities of actual readers. Lundberg (1989) asserted that when gender-related

ideology hinders entry into a text, the reader needs to bring both a historically and an

ideologically aware critique to bear on his/her general responses to the text (1989).

Lundberg (1989) further asserted that readers must become alert to the impact of gender

ideologies on the shaping of meaning in texts for a better understanding of the

multiplicity of reading relationships possible (1989).

Lundberg (1989) combined feminist theory with reader response techniques and

a Bakhtinian (1981) dialogical model for a ‘dialogically feminist approach.’ Her

method entails “reading in a Bakhtinian dialogic imagination, and experiencing the

heteroglossic multiplicity of perspectives in a text without trying (as did Iser, 1978 and

Rosenblatt, 1978), to effect their synthesis in to a univocal work” (Lundberg, 1989, p.

19). Lundberg (1989)“demonstrated that a reception-based feminist critique

elucidate[s] the gender-related conflicts built into the narrative structures of texts and

empowers readers to enter into a Bakhtinian dialogic exploration of hidden perspectives

rather than be controlled by the surface meaning in a text” (p. 12).

In my study I adopted Lundberg’s (1989) dialogic feminist identity to provoke

my students into an awareness of the impact o f gender ideologies on the shaping of

meaning in texts. By doing so, I attempted to foster in the students an understanding of

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the multiplicity of relationships possible even in patriarchal texts. I have also attempted

to provoke textual investigations by means of narrative theory in order to identify

structures that cause readers to either resist or be controlled by the dominant perspective

in the texts.

Lundberg (1989) pointed out that in analyzing texts dialogically, that “the actual

reader joins with other readers in a community of interpreters who interact critically

with the text and with each other, rereading it and rewriting it in an ongoing effort to

make sense of it” (p. 194). In fostering critical interaction with the text, and in

searching out subordinated perspectives and reintroducing them for an interpretation of

the text that would not suppress the conflict inherent in multivoiced interpretations, I

assumed a dialogically feminist perspective.

Also utilizing a dialogic approach, Ricker-Wilson (1999), interested more in

how her students read critically than in what they read, engaged five female high school

students in a study to investigate the ways in which power operated in popular romance

novels. Ricker-Wilson (1999) investigated ways in which power operated in characters’

interpersonal relationships; which character(s) had greater social, economic and sexual

power; how this was evident; how and if this changed as the novel progressed; and to

what degree the students were satisfied with the way in which women and relationships

were depicted (p. 58).

Ricker Wilson's (1999) research findings supported Christian-Smith (1990) and

Radway’s (1984) assertions that reading romance operates primarily as an effort to

escape from the adversities of real heterosexual relationships. However, because she

organized the classroom reading of the romances in terms of the sexual politics

uncovered through the readings, Ricker-Wilson (1999) was also able to discover the

effects of this critical pedagogy in the girls’ extended writing and conversing on the

subject of the power dynamic in heterosexual relationship. As a result of Ricker-

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W ilson’s (1999) critical approach to the literature, the five female readers translated

their discussion of the women in the novels to questions about “why obviously

intelligent, assertive, sympathetic heroines, enjoying a modicum of social, occupational

and economic clout, would put up with lousy treatment from men” (p. 59). In this

sense they have used the literature to foster cultural critique (Hines, 1997, Rogers,

1997). Ricker-Wilson (1999) found that the girls responded to the fact that “by the

logic o f some of authors of romance novels, women espouse femininity and

subordination in one breath, and men move from one set o f gendered behaviors to

another” (p. 63). The subsequent discussion of male and female depictions in these

texts engaged the students in an examination of how their own behavior has been rigidly

regulated and circumscribed (p. 63).

In my study, I attempted to develop teaching strategies that would maximize

readers’ examination of their own behaviors as well as the behaviors of the characters. I

have built on these studies to introduce a dialogic practice into my study in order to

investigate the effects such practice would have on discussion of gender representation

and ideology in the literature. I have also built on studies conducted by poststructuralist

and psychoanalytic theorists. These studies have elucidated methods for investigating

textual coercion and resistance to feminism.

Poststructuralist/ Psvchoanalvtic Classroom Studies

Studies by Davies (1992), Martino (1995) and Harper (2000) have reported the

effects o f textual and cultural discourses on the constitution of gender identities in

readers. They have also investigated alternative textual practices and critical strategies

for minimizing these positionings, which often engage readers into traditional

subjectivities at a subconscious level. They have argued for an approach to literature

that engages students in a deconstruction of the binary system that holds the patriarchal

hegemony in place in the texts and in the culture.

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Building from Taylor’s (1993) attempts to encourage students to think beyond

dominant constructions of femininity by developing a feminist classroom practice based

on a cultural studies perspective, Davies (1992) conducted a comparative investigation

of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Princess Smartvpants. Davies' (1992)

findings echo those of Gilbert and Taylor (1991), Henriques et al. (1984), Hines (1995),

Lewis (1990. 1992), Taylor (1993) and Walkerdine, (1984). All of these studies have

demonstrated the need for linking texts and lives to explore the complexities o f gender

in literature to “transcend dualism and find one’s way toward multiple genders and

multiple subjectivities for a more gender equal society” (Christian-Smith, 1993, p. 1).

Martino’s (1995) intention in his study of the responses of 40 15 year old boys

to a short story was to challenge hegemonic positions and dismantle his students’

patriarchal dispositions to construct the world in binary terms. Therefore, he selected a

text, “The Altar of the Family,” by Michael Wilding, critical o f the workings of

hegemonic positions of masculinity. In the story, the father disapproves of his son

playing with dolls, saying he “does not want his son to turn into a “lily-livered poofter”.

The father suggests that the son should shoot a possum to prove his manhood.

According to Martino (1995), in his study, 36 boys were prepared to take up the

position offered by the text, and reject the father, while sympathizing with the son.

However, although they took up the position of the text, the boys made no attempt to

problematize the notion of what constitutes manly behavior. Rather than accepting

alternative notions of masculinity, Martino (1995) found that his male students found

acceptable reasons within hegemonic notions of masculinity to excuse the son. Martino

(1995) judged the study a success, assuming that it represented a first step in helping

students to deconstruct dominant versions of masculinity and analyze their own

positions within hegemonic discourses. However, students’ responses also alerted him

to the struggle the boys experienced in attempting to resolve the contradictions they

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experienced in trying to excuse the son while protecting his (and their own)

‘masculinity.’

To further engage students in a deconstruction o f dominant versions of

masculinity, he proposed questioning students about the implications and the limits of

the characters’ choices in terms of masculine identity. Martino (1995) argued that such

questions would encourage the students to question the socially constructed nature of

masculinity and examine their own assumptions and positionality within hegemonic

discourses. He discovered that an insistence on a deconstructive analysis of gender

regimes with a focus on selected texts to be deployed, are productive in terms of

opening up a counter-hegemonic space for high school students (p. 218).

His study was of particular interest to me because it was one o f the few which

investigated boys’ responses to gender ideology and representation in literature. It

helped to prepare me to develop questions and strategies that would encourage the boys

and girls in my classroom to problematize and deconstruct socially constructed

dominant versions of ‘masculinity’ and femininity. It also demonstrated the value of

using texts that model alternative versions of masculinity, leading me to include the

study of “The Gentle Lena. ”

Also impacting my research was Harper’s (2000) study in which she also

attempted to model alternative gender roles for high school students, in this case,

females. Harper (2000) employed a case study methodology to describe and analyze six

female students’ experiences with a feminist literary curriculum. To extend “ways of

being female’’ for her students and to provide them with what she calls “a curricular

rescue” through alternative textual practices. Harper (2000) gave the girls the

opportunity to participate in a twelve-week study during which they read and wrote

feminist avant-garde literature. Harper (2000) described this literature as creative

writing “which seeks to produce alternative representations of femininity outside the

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boundaries o f patriarchal discourses” (p. 147). The writing, which she described as

experimenting with lexicon, syntax, genre, form, plot structure, image and theme in the

name of a feminist politics, is illustrated by the works of Virginia Woolf, George Sand,

Djuna Bames and others.

During the course. Harper engaged the students in the reading of the works. She

also engaged them in the creating of their own avant-garde feminist writings, the

process o f which “demands an intense and deliberate self-consciousness about gender,

language, and literary practices” (Harper, 2000, p. 140). According to Harper (2000),

the students’ reaction to the literature was to quickly distance themselves from feminist

politics and to declare a non-feminist identity. They had read the work as radically

feminist, but feminism, as they understood it, “was simply unpalatable” (p. 140). All

six girls found feminism irrelevant and failed to reference it.

Harper’s (2000) study found that a strong investment in heterosexuality resulted

in the girls’ refusal to identify with the image of woman constituted by the literature.

Only one girl out of six had any sympathy for women characters that they saw as

trapped in oppression. The other five reported that they preferred depictions of women

as free and independent in their lives. Harper (2000) determined that because they

could not admit that gender oppression existed for them, the girls could not accept the

route to agency celebrated in the subversive feminist discourses of avant-garde writers

who actively and assertively write against the literary and patriarchal norms. Harper’s

(2000) study also found that although the feminist literature mapped onto the desire and

pleasure of female friendships and maternal relationships, it did not map on to students’

investments in personal agency “and most importantly, onto heterosexual desire,

particularly where femininity was linked with passivity and pleasure” (p.161).

According to Harper (2000), the literature, which focused on women’s relationships

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with friends, mothers, children, and/or female lovers, was a threat to the girls’

investment in heterosexuality.

Because she concluded that her subjects were limited by a rigid definition of

what it means to be female. Harper (2000) recommended that in future studies “the

focus in the high school classroom should to be on the pluralities, complexities,

ambiguities, and contradictions that exist in the investments and identity formations of

young women’s lives” (p. 162). She realized that much of the difficulty stemmed from

girls needing to resolve some of the conflicts and contradictions involved with

adolescent female identity formation in the high school today. Harper (2000)

recommended that concerns and fears of young women about homosexuality also

needed to be addressed by educators. She argued that as those fears and the fear of

losing a heterosexual feminine identity contributed to the girls’ resistance to the avant-

garde writing. These conclusions echo the Findings of Brown and Gilligan (1992) and

Lewis (1992), positing that adolescent girls resist a feminist approach when they see it

as threatening heterosexual relationships.

In her conclusion. Harper (2000) stated that what is needed is-a pedagogical

method that would be suitable “for the interrogation demanded by feminist

emancipatory work” (p. 166). She concluded that the development of such a pedagogy

would require future theorizing of students affective investments, “particularly in the

operation of desire in literary experience” (p. 166). She argued that attention should

focus on the complex investments evident in the negotiations of the students with the

literature. In addition, she argued that it is the negotiations that need to become the

pedagogical material, so that the lesson is not on alternative literary form per se, but on

the exploration of investments that become evident as one negotiates with the texts.

Harper’s f2000) study impacted mine in several ways. Firstly, though her study

included only girls and focused on avant-garde feminist literature, it was one of the few

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classroom studies that I found where the teacher conducted researched her own course

which she had designed to raise gender awareness in students. Secondly, her study was

particularly interesting to me because it involved high school students in the literature

classroom. Thirdly, like mine, it focused on particular students whose individual and

collective 'stories’ described students’ experience investigating gender in literature.

Lastly, like me. Harper (2000) was interested in providing alternative versions of

femininity (and masculinity).

In my attempt to develop pedagogy that would effectively guide adolescents

toward a consciousness of literary gender issues and gender inequalities in society, I

drew from Harper (2000) and incorporated her recommendations in the following ways.

I foregrounded negotiations of texts by encouraging the interrogation of characters and

the implications of textual ideology; I focused on an exploration o f investments in

patriarchal versions of heterosexuality that became evident as the students negotiated

with the texts; I focused on the complexities, ambiguities, pluralities and contradictions

that students experienced while investigating the literary gender representations—

contradictions that exist in the investments and identity formations o f young women’s

lives” (p. 162); and because Harper’s (2000) subjects produced more conflicted,

complex renderings of their positioning in their creative writing than they did in their

interviews, class discussion or journal writing, I incorporated creative writing exercises

into my study.

Conclusion

The above discussion includes the theory and research upon which I have drawn

in the grounding, framing and carrying out of my study. Building on theories and

research in the areas of gender and culture, gender and schooling, gender and reading,

and feminist practice, I have investigated the responses of high school students to

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gender issues in classic American literature, and the strategies and approaches that

heightened their critical consciousness in reading and living ethically.

The following chapter describes the methodology used to carry out that study,

which elucidates the students’ responses by weaving a discussion of the classroom

investigations together with the highlighted in-depth explorations of specific focus

group members as they engaged in analyses of specific works.

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CHAPTERS

METHODOLOGY

In developing approaches for the classroom, we need to ask, first, ‘what is the significance of [classic] texts in girls’ (and boys’) lives, and how do we take account of this in the curriculum; and second, how do we use [these] texts in the classroom to challenge traditional versions of femininity and masculinity, and develop new and alternative versions’? In other words, what possibilities are there for transforming the texts of patriarchy through the cultural politics of the feminist classroom?

Sandra Taylor, 1993, p. 127

Introduction

This overview briefly describes the main features of the methodology used in

this project. Framing the study is my perspective as a Reflective Feminist Interpretivist.

In that role, I was interested in tracing students’ initial and developing responses to

gender representations in the literature selected for study. I was also interested in

encouraging students to rethink classical fictional characters and relationships through

the lens of an egalitarian perspective on gender, and in identifying teaching approaches

and strategies through which students could transcend sexist “controlling codes’’ and

“truth regimes” evident in classic literature. Finally, I was interested in reflecting on

my own practices and on the effectiveness of the selected teaching strategies referred to

above. In my role as the teacher of the course, I was also a participant in the study.

Because that role was central to the study, I included a reflexive component through

which I investigated my influence on the students and the effectiveness of the literature

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selected for the study. Through this reflexive component, I also investigated the

effectiveness of the strategies used for exploring the students’ responses to the literature

and for articulating their views on ways in which the literature represents the gender

issues I was interested in pursuing.

The research questions in the study, then, emerged from my own ideologically-

situated stance, influenced as it has been by Fetterley’s (1978) and others’ feminist

critiques of sexist gender representations and androcentric perspectives in classic

American literature of the early twentieth century. My stance was also influenced by

Walkerdine’s (1984) theories on the coercive power of texts in producing gendered

subjectivities, and by Bogdan's (1992) goal to infuse aesthetic appreciation with a

critical approach to interpretation that is based on an acknowledged personal political

stance. Their work, similar to mine, emerged from a pedagogical approach to literacy

designed to dismantle dominant discourses in order to emancipate the marginalized

(Freire, 1977; Giroux, 1981, 1988, Shor, 1980). Essentially, these positions represent a

feminist poststructuralist perspective on textual construction of identity.

Research Design Overview

I conducted the study with thirty-five male and female students between the ages

of 15-18, all of whom were enrolled as sophomores, juniors and seniors at the Edwin L.

Werthlin High School, located in a suburb of a large Midwestern city. The students,

given the opportunity to select their courses, signed up for an American literature course

which was advertised as one focusing on the representation of males and females in

early twentieth century American Literature.

The study was comprised of two groupings: one is a whole-group component

consisting of all thirty-five students in the American Literature course divided into two

sections or classes. The other grouping is that of a focus group of ten students drawn

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from the whole-group component. My intent with this focus group was to describe the

real-life context in which the interventions (i.e., the literature selections and the

strategies used to teach them) have occurred and, to evaluate, using the focus group

illustratively, the nature of the intervention itself (Merriam, 1988, p. 29). In this sense,

the focus group functions evaluatively (see Goetz and LeCompte, 1984; Cuba and

Lincoln, 1981; Patton, 1980 for a detailed discussion of the evaluative case study on

which the present use of a focus group is based). It permits, as do evaluative or

collective case studies, for an understanding of individual cases in a way that leads to a

better understanding, perhaps better theorizing, about a still larger collection of cases”

(Stake, 1994, p. 234). At the same time, because the strategies used for teaching the

selected literature included all the students in the two classes, I did not wish to focus

exclusively on the focus group participants and for this reason, have not conceptualized

the focus group as case studies but representatives of the classrooms. Interpretation

and discussion of data from the larger group, therefore, are woven into interpretation

and discussion of the focus group data.

Mv Role as A Reflective Feminist Interpretivist Participant

As noted in the overview to this chapter, integral to the design of this study is

my own role both as the researcher and as the teacher of the course and both classes. To

that end, data for the study include my own contributions to whole-class, focus group

discussions and instructional interventions including in particular, the creation of a

dramatic script, as well as reflections from my field notes and journals.

My desire to investigate the students' unmediated responses to the literature they

were to read, called for an interpretivist position for the formation of the initial research

questions as well as to the selection o f methods for data collection, analysis and

interpretation of the data. My feminist agenda to heighten students’ consciousness of

androcentrism in the literature, and my intention to prevent thoughtless acquiescence to

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patriarchal gender representations, called for a critical feminist stance. It called for a

critical stance for the selection o f the literature, the identification of the teaching

strategies, and the formation of the research questions addressing desired changes in

students’ attitudes and perspectives over the duration of the course. My realization of

the potential influence of my own contribution to the students’ experiences with the

literature, and to their responses as well as to the selection of teaching strategies, is

embodied in my adoption of a reflective stance in relation to all aspects of the study. In

these senses, then, both as teacher and as researcher, I identified myself as a reflective

feminist interpetivist from the beginning of the development of the study. A discussion

of how each of these stances (i.e., the interpretivist, the feminist, and the reflective)

influenced my study follows.

As an interpretivist, I remained open to my students’ initial and developing

responses. I studied the effects of the teaching strategies on the students’ gender

consciousness with an eye toward understanding that consciousness as well as toward

perceiving evidence of transformation of that consciousness. I tempered my feminist

critique and remained open to the notion that, like me, the students had brought their

own literary and gender-related biases to bear on their discussions.

Open identification as a feminist allowed me to share my belief that patriarchal

versions of femininity and masculinity continue to be constructed in literature and

elsewhere as well as in social practices which promote and provide the basis for

women’s subordination (Taylor, 1993). The identification of this position supported me

in leading students toward gender-conscious reading and toward the formulation of a

standard of egalitarian relationships in both literature and society as a whole. However,

despite my desire to develop a feminist consciousness and a feminist literary critical

perspective in the students, I resisted the substitution of a patriarchal appropriation of

my students with a feminist one. My own feminist history had been oppressively

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indoctrinative, leaving little room for an expression of the slightest resistance or the

smallest doubt of what constitutes sexist representation or an androcentric perspective.

I do not believe that indoctrination is the best approach through which to convince

others of the value of a particular perspective no matter how valid it may seem. For this

study, then, I felt it my responsibility as a teacher, to design a research project that

would be respectful of students’ ideas and lived experiences. My hope was to engage

the students in what Scheurich (1996) calls a Bakhtinian dialogic carnival (p. 10), and

call forth “a loud clamor of polyphonic, open, tumultuous conversation” (p. 10). I hoped

to do this while remaining keenly aware of my political predelictions for bringing about

transformative pedagogy and egalitarian behavior in relationships among them.

Adopting a conscious reflective stance on my ideological positioning, my role in

the selection of texts and teaching strategies, provided one of the checks and balances

essential to ensuring an accurate recording of the students’ responses in discussion as

well as in writing and dramatic activities. Through my post-discussion, activities, and

field notes, and through my own writing contributions to the teaching strategies, I was

able to examine and evaluate my struggles and reactions to the students’ responses.

This reflective evaluation provided me with opportunities to reconsider my own

perceptions and well as the students’, and the effectiveness of the research as well as the

effectiveness of selected teaching strategies throughout the duration of the study. In this

way, I hope that I have been able to maintain a “dialectically educative encounter

between the researcher and the researched” (Lather, 1991, p. 70).

Thus, as a reflective feminist interpretivist, I was able to combine the advocacy

and activism that define my project with the values of all participating members of the

group able to play a significant role in shaping the outcomes of the inquiry. In this role,

I was able to explore the students’ responses sensitively and respectfully, while at the

same time not acquiescing to their possible acceptance of injustices based on sex and

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gender. It also invited the Bakhtinian dialogic carnival (Scheurich, 1994, p. 10) I had

expected within a community of learners who were all engaged in an exploration of

gender issues in the literature selected for study. In this context, the students and I

engaged in a collective effort to identify, analyze, and critique various perspectives on

gender and relationship representation in the selected texts for the purposes of building

knowledge and constructing a meaningful, potentially transformative, curriculum.

The Research Questions

Within the stance defined above, I had three objectives. The first was to study

the developing responses of a group of high school to gender and relationship

representations and governing gender-related ideologies in a selection of early twentieth

century American literature. The second objective was to determine the best strategies

for raising students’ awareness o f possible sexist representations and androcentric

perspectives in that literature. The third objective was to identify and record my own

struggles as a feminist interpretivist and as the teacher of these students while engaged

with the projects. The five research questions below emerged from these goals and

guided data collection and analysis.

( 1 ) Would students report or exhibit an increased awareness of sexist gender and relationship representations or androcentric perspectives in the literature during the course?

(2) What teaching approaches and strategies would be reported or determined to have had the largest impact on students’ consciousness of literary gender issues: discussion (and dialogic investigation), critical writing, critical readings, social imagination activities or projects)

(3) What, if any, changes in gender consciousness would be reported or demonstrated to have occurred in their own lives as a result of the study?

(4) What challenges would be involved for the teacher conducting the class/study ?

(5) What discoveries would be made that would benefit the literary educational community?

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The research questions emerged from several critical perspectives: (1)

Fetterley’s (1978) feminist critique; (2) Walkerdine’s (1984) efforts to problematize the

coercive power of texts in producing gendered subjectivities; (3) Bogdan’s (1990, 1992)

fusion of an aesthetic appreciation o f literature with a political critique; (4) a critical

pedagogical approach to literacy designed to dismantle dominant discourses to

emancipate the marginalized (Freire, 1990.1973; Giroux, 1981), and the notion that

gender equality is an ethical concern.

Site

The choice to conduct the study in my own English classes in the Edwin L.

Werthlin Alternative Program for several reasons. First, given the potentially sensitive

nature of the research questions, it would be advantageous to have students who already

knew me as a well-established teacher in their school, someone with whom they could

be open. Second, the school affords teachers the freedom to design their own courses,

and the students, the freedom to select their own courses. I could, therefore, as a

teacher at the Werthlin School, design the course to reflect my goals in the study

without a lengthy administrative process that may or may not result in approval. Third,

the open environment and small population (170 students) at Werthlin is conducive to a

more casual relationship between teachers and students, and thus ideal for a study that

would require students to be open in discussions involving romantic and sexual

relationships, as well as their views on gender representations in general.

The combination of Werthlin’s philosophical foundation and a physical design

that promotes constant interaction fosters a learning environment in which strong

relationships among the small staff (10) and student body (175) can develop. Werthlin

is based on a Deweyan educational philosophy that emphasizes learning through

experience and subsequent reflection on that experience. The program is also dedicated

to a problem setting and solving approach within which students engage in making

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genuine decisions as members of their learning and living community. As such, the

program promotes challenging inquiry rather than the recitation of correct answers to

“questions that have been carefully plotted in advance according to rigorous design

specifications as if there were only one thing to leam” (Rogoff, 1996, p. 394).

Following this line of thinking the school also subscribes to a non-hierarchical judicial

system in which rotating committee members of staff and students, hear, deliberate, and

decide on issues brought to it by the school community. Underlying the goals of the

program is the value placed on independence in thinking and an investigative approach

to learning that fosters a willingness in students to explore ideas through discussion and

open debate. These goals are realized in the small, seminar style classes that encourage

a freedom of expression that is a hallmark of this school. Werthlin teachers see

education as a “transformation of participation” (Rogoff, 1996, p. 389). This takes as

its central premise Vygotsky’s (1978) notion that “learning and development occur as

people participate in the sociocultural activities of their community, transforming their

understanding, roles and responsibilities as they participate” (Lave and Wenger in

Rogoff, 1996, p. 389). Within this model, teachers and students are dually involved in

the learning and teaching process; students as well as teachers are engaged in

curriculum analysis; sensitive topics in the curriculum are not avoided by explored

through an open, dialectical approach.

Students at Werthlin are not tracked. The student body comprises the full range

of academic ability, including a large percentage of the high school’s yearly national

merit award winners as well as students who have learning disabilities of one kind or

another. Although a given class can consist of students on many levels of achievement,

the staff members perceive the students as individualistic boys and girls who resist the

structure of larger schools and who have sought, instead, to select this school because it

offers a personal, highly interactive educational experience.

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Participant Selection

The Larger Group

As indicated briefly in the discussion of site selection, I chose to design and

teach a course in early twentieth century American literature to the students who elected

to take that course. At the beginning of the school year, I assumed that the advertised

class would draw the usual fifteen to twenty boys and girls. However, more students

than anticipated signed up for the course. Because another English teacher was not

available to teach a second section, I undertook responsibility for both classes.

Scheduling conflicts resulted in an uneven distribution of boys and girls in the intended

class, so I chose to include all students who had signed up for the course- a total of

thirty-five students distributed in two classes. The morning class comprised twenty-one

students (14 boys, 7 girls); the afternoon class comprised 14 students (4 boys, 10 girls).

These, then, would also comprise the total number of students who participated in the

study. Each class was assigned the same reading materials, given the same

assignments, the same in-class writing exercises, and initial discussion prompts.

As discussed above, I had intended to conduct the study with one class. When it

became clear, because of the large number of students who had signed up for the course,

that I would have to split them into two classes, I found it difficult to decide which of

the two would be more appropriate for the study. There were students in each of the

two classes who offered some diversity and interest in terms of their potential level of

contribution, their backgrounds and their perspectives on literature. Further, neither

class seemed appropriate for exclusive use in the study because of the uneven

representation of gender in each, and because of the personalities involved in each class.

The morning class was over-endowed with boys (fourteen) who often did most of the

talking, with the seven girls being relatively quiet. In the afternoon class, the four boys

often sat quietly, while the ten girls did most of the talking. Because gender is a

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significant focus of this study, and because both classes contained gender imbalance, it

seemed inappropriate to study either class in isolation o f the other.

With regard to the students’ socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, the two

classes afforded me with as much variety as a typical suburban, largely white, middle-

class school district could produce. Within that composition, however, two immigrant

Middle Eastern females, one immigrant Japanese male, and one second-generation

Asian American female were members of the total group of thirty-five students.

Greater variety was achieved in terms of grade level. Because Werthlin students are

able to take courses regardless of grade level, my total sample included a variety of

students with respect to age and grade, academic ability and achievement. It also

included a variety of students in terms of literary experiences, parents’ level of

education, number of years in the educational system, gender awareness, level of

sophistication, religious and political orientations, and romantic/sexual experiences.

Accepting all of the students in the two classes allowed for “the maximum variation

sampling’’ (Patton, 1990, p. 172). This provided the opportunity for both the

documentation of uniqueness in the case study group, and the potential emergence of

“significant shared patterns of commonalities across participants ” (Patton, 1990, p. 172)

within the focus group and between it and the larger group.

The Focus Group

Although sample size in qualitative inquiry is not a crucial factor for reasons of

determining statistical significance and generalizability of results, it nevertheless

influences the way in which a study unfolds, the amount of time available for in-depth

interviews, and the range of experiences that are available for analysis. .Because of the

large number of students in the total sample (thirty-five),I chose to embed a focus group

component of ten students who would represent the larger group in my subsequent

analysis and interpretation of the data. They would also serve as individual cases in

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terms of their responses to the selected literature and their engagement with the selected

strategies for teaching the literature. The study, therefore, focuses on these ten students

and their interactions with me, with the literature, and with the students in their classes.

The selection of these ten students as a focus group promised to enable me to

concentrate more intensively on issues and questions that I anticipated would emerge in

the course of data collection. The basis for selecting the students to participate in the

focus group will be discussed in detail later in this section

To select the students in the focus group, I employed “stratified purposeful

sampling” (Jasinski, 1996; Patton, 1990). Patton observes that stratified purposeful

sampling enables the researcher to “capture major variations rather than to identify a

common core, although the latter may be used in the analysis” (Patton 1990, p. 74, and

in Jasinski, 1996, p. 87). Like Jasinski (1996), I was interested in social group, gender,

and age, but given the composition of the two classes, I could not “balance the

participants according to these characteristics (p. 87). Although Jasinski’s (1996) study

focused on the writing of elementary school students in the naturally occurring context

of the classroom, responding to literature, as is writing, is an “idiocyncratic process” (p.

87) and thus my sampling would be “illustrative” of a range of readers rather than

“definitive” (p. 88). Thus, with an eye toward differences which became obvious in the

first week of the course, I chose the following ten students from the two classes.

From the morning class, I chose Dale, Candy, Charles and Ellen. From the afternoon

class, I chose Sarah, Marie, Maynard, Howard, Brenda and Hillary. The morning group

comprised the following students:

(1) Candy is a junior for whom her friends are extremely important. She claims to take great pride in her looks, her clothes, and her style, and enjoys being a girl. On the one hand she projects a feminine deference, on the other hand, she has a strong, no-nonsense intolerance for any kind of poor treatment from the opposite sex. Candy is a responsible student who rarely speaks in class, yet expresses her opinions easily in writing and in one-on-one conversations.

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(2) Dale is quick-witted and extremely bright, with an interest in literature and film. He was generally an active contributor in the class, taking a central role in all discussions. He also enjoys expressing his ideas in writing. He is conscious of how ingrained gender issues are, even in himself. However, he is resistant to feminism. “While some feminist causes are just,” he says, “there is a caricature that makes young people not want to get on board.”

(3) Charles, a high achieving, highly literate student, who had both feminist and socialist leanings and a high level of interest in literary studies. His views include a commitment to a feminist thinking that is based on his idea that women are equal to males and should not be considered appendages to males. He believes that “gender stereotypes still exist in today’s society, preventing people from reaching their full potential.”

(4) Ellen, an Egyptian immigrant, with nine years in the U.S., is a friendly, popular girl who was admired as a leader and an organizer in her class. Because o f her culture, and her religious family, she found herself in conflict with the popular culture embraced by many of the other students. She came to the class with clear ideas about feminism and gender issues, explaining that she did not think gender stereotypes were an issue for people in society.

From the afternoon class, I included the following students in the focus group.

(1) Sarah is a very bright, very funny, and very outspoken. She is a direct, down to earth, independent thinker who admitted to multiple heterosexual experiences and a rather unconventional upbringing. She consistently challenged the typical suburban student by adopting her own personal style and a rebellious attitude about the conformity in the town. She was aware that she did not fit in with mainstream high school girls.

(2) Maynard was a quiet, thoughtful, occasional contributor to the afternoon class who had somewhat traditional views on gender relations. In spite of that, he took a critical view of those who have tried to judge his masculinity when he has chosen to act out his rebellion of the status quo through alternative dress and music. He often took a moderate perspective in the class, serving as the voice of reason in heated discussions

(3) Marie was a responsible, outspoken girl who enjoyed discussion and argument. She was ready to express her ideas about the literature and the gender issues, and was a serious resistor to my agenda, preferring a more traditional view. On the subject of gender issues pertaining to masculinity and femininity, she claimed that she didn’t think they existed anymore. Her beliefs about gender reflected her conservative Christian belief system.

(4) Howard was a very quiet class participant who was extremely thoughtful about everything that was discussed and everything that he read. He was an extremely responsible student and interested in the ways in which gender issues in the literature impacted on men and women and boys and girls in contemporary society. Howard was one of the few students open to feminist theory as the class began.

(5) Brenda was an active participant in the afternoon class. She is a typical teenager who loves music, movies, sports and talking on the phone. She is a friendly, open girl,

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who loves people and takes pride in her schoolwork. She sees no gender problems in her world, admitting that lots of those male gender roles are things she enjoys.

(6) Hillary was a quiet, serious and industrious student who, in spite of a reading disability, was a successful student and one o f the main contributors in the afternoon class. Hillary is a gentle girl whose strong religious principles and strong focus on the traditional family made her critical of, but open to a feminist perspective.

There were two other students who, while not officially members of the focus group,

were highlighted in some of the discussions: Alicia from the morning class and Richard

from the afternoon class.

(1) Alicia's similarity in background to Ellen in prompted me to drop her from the focus group. However, interested in the subject matter, and assuming for a while that she was in the focus group, she attended many of the group discussions and improvisational workshops. Her thoughtful approach and participation in class and in some of the improvisations was important to the study.

(2) Richard, a smart underachiever, failed the course but his openness resulted in his articulation of information about contemporary teenagers’ sexual practices was important to the study. He also offered that he was a bisexual, a position that offered an alternative perspective to other students' views on gender and relationship and served as a catalyst for many important discussions.

Selection of the Literature

The entire group of thirty-five students participated in a semester-long American

literature course that included the study of the following literary works:

Henry James’ novel, Washington Square (1962/1896)Emma Goldman’s Essay, Love and Marriage,” from Anarchism (1969/1912)Gertrude Stein’s short story, “The Gentle Lena,” from Three Lives (1990/1906)P. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel. The Great Gatsbv (1995/1925).Ernest Hemingway’s, A Farewell to Arms (1969/1929)Sherwood Anderson’s short story, “The Untold Lie ” (1977/1925)Zora Neale Hurston’s novel. Their Eves Were Watching God (1998/1937).

The selection o f each of these works except Goldman’s essay, “Love and

Marriage” and Stein’s, short story “The Gentle Lena,” was made on the basis of its

canonical standing and the common usage of either the literary piece itself or other

works by the same author. These works were also chosen because of the existence of a

love relationship at the center of the story and the presence of both a male and female

protagonist.

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The essay by Goldman, and the short story by Stein, were chosen to introduce

students to writers of the literary period who, like Wharton (1929), had attempted to

bring a feminist perspective to bear on gender issues in literature and society.

In addition to these works, which have been highlighted in the study by means

of discussions featuring focus group participants, one other literary work was also

covered, that of Hemingway’s short story, “Hills like White Elephants.” Creative

writing done by Charles, a particular focus group student, had a significant impact on

the course and study as will be subsequently described in Chapter Five.

Selection of Teaching Approaches and Strategies

The teaching approaches and strategies selected for use with the thirty-five

students and focus group of ten were designed to assess students’ ability to relate to the

literary characters and themes, and to record their initial and developing responses to

the literature. They were also designed to draw attention to, and stimulate investigation

of the ways in which men, women and their relationships are represented by the authors,

as well as the underlying cultural perspectives governing those choices. These

approaches included: written responses to the literature read, discussions (including

dialogic investigations of the literature), research papers, literary criticism, social

imagination activities (art and drama), and a final project selected by the students.

Rationale for Selected Approaches/Strategies

The following are explanations for the selection of particular teaching

approaches and Strategies

Approaches.

Discussion: a method chosen to clarify misunderstandings and answer questions about the literature, challenge students to think beyond initial responses to the literature, expose them to differing views on the literature; and observe the effects of community on responses (Alvermann et al., 1998; Cherland, 1992; Edelsky, 1989; Edelsky, Peterson and Beds, 1990; Beds and Peterson, 1991; Beds and Wells, 1989; Luke and Gore, 1992). Discussion was also chosen to encourage connections between students’ lives and their literary responses (Black and Seifert, 1985; Golden and Guthrie, 1986; Beach and Hynds, 1991 and Rosenblatt, 1978).

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Dialogic (Bakhtin, 1981) investigation: Extended discussion chosen to extend explorations of the literature and negotiations with the literature and each other; to engage the students in a challenge of sexist representations and androcentric perspectives in the literature; to promote the exploration o f contradictions, and to promote a questioning of culturally valued opinions.

Critical Writing: A method chosen to enhance individual exploration o f the gender representations, promote individual exploration of ideology in the literature, and promote individual exploration of textual positioning.

Literary Criticism: A method chosen to introduce students to feminist perspectives; to introduce narrative criticism for clearer understanding of authorial constructions; and to provide models for a Rich’s (1979) revisionist approach to reading (See chapter 2, Section I for detailed explanation of a revisionist approach to literature).

Social imagination activities: An approach chosen to invite students to explore meaning from ‘inside the text’ (Edmiston, 1999; Heathcote, 1994; O ’Neill, 1995) to allow the students to examine texts for a consideration of whose stories are told, and whose are not told, and what silences convey; to encourage literary exploration through visual, musical or dramatic metaphor; and to foster students’ awareness o f political implications of what the text has said, and what the text has left unsaid in order to begin to dismantle patriarchal texts.

Strategies

In-depth interviews. Group Interviews and Improvisational Workshops: approaches were also employed with focus group participants to continue dialectical negotiations beyond the classroom, to continue improvisational investigations of texts beyond the classroom and to continue investigation of classroom questions and issues.

Once I had identified the approaches and strategies, I systematically employed

the use of each one in an attempt to see what, if any, changes were brought about by the

particular approach used. I also addressed the students’ developing responses over the

course of the study

Data Sources

My data collection was related to the use of a variety' of teaching approaches and

strategies (as noted in the preceding section), as well as with what might emerge during

the course of the study. Therefore, I preferred to remain flexible and responsive to the

“natural classroom context” (Jasinski, 1996, p. 98). Within this loose frame, data are

drawn from the following sources to reflect the three participant foci within the study;

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1 .The Larger Group (i.e., the two classrooms): surveys, written responses to the literature, audio- and video-taped discussion (including dialogic textual negotiations), social imagination activities (art and drama)

2 .The Focus Group: questionnaires; audio-taped interviews, group discussions and improvisational workshops; research papers, literary criticism, social imagination activities; and final projects

3.The Participant Researcher: journal reflections, experimental writings and data collected from students.

In summary, data collection consisted of the following

The Larger Group

35 surveys on gender education, attitudes/reading experience 100 pages of direct written responses to literary works 100 pages of transcribed audio/video tapes of discussions 125 pages of writing to prompts stimulating imaginative responses 21 final surveys

Focus Group Members

10 questionnaires on students' background and literary experience 250 transcribed pages of interviews with ten focus group participants 75 pages of transcribed group interviews/improvisations/workshops 30 student-written, five page essays on three literary works 10 final projects 10 final questionnaire

Self-Reflective Exploration

25 typewritten pages of journal reflections on classes focus group interviews 25 typewritten pages of experimental playwrighting as a method of inquiry Transcripts of all student activity

The Larger Group

Data collected in the two classrooms followed a sequence. Students in both

classes filled out an initial survey before reading any of the literature. The survey

provided background information on the students and information on their reading

experience. After reading each literary work, all students were also asked to write

responses to questions about their appreciation of the literature, their connection with

the characters, and the effects of gender representation and textual ideologies on them

as readers. Audio-taped discussions of each literary work followed the initial written

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responses. In these discussions, we investigated students’ written responses, and

students’ reactions to gender issues brought up by the students or by me in the

discussion. These discussions were followed by dialogic negotiations with the texts,

and with critical readings assigned for some works. Students then engaged in social

imagination activities (creative writing, drama or art). At the end of the course, students

worked on projects dealing with gender issues in chosen class literature. As part of the

project, the students commented on the issues raised by this activity, and the perceived

effectiveness of these projects in changing perceptions or raising new awareness about

the representation of gender.

During the course of the study, particular topics were sometimes raised in one

class and not the other. Different directions were taken by the different groups as a

result of the personalities involved and the relative depth and richness of particular

questions and investigations taken up by individual students engaged in particular

activities, discussions and/or written responses. However, although standardization was

neither desired nor could be achieved in a study such as this, consistency was desired,

and was achieved by the structure of the study explained above, and by questions that

framed study as a whole and each portion of the study.

Collection procedures for each of the following data will now be described.

Survevs

The initial survey (Appendix A) investigated students’ histories in terms of

gender-related education, and students’ perspectives on gender equality, identification

and construction. The initial survey asked for students’ definitions of words such as

‘masculine’ and ‘féminine’; their reactions to the word, ‘feminist’; their perceptions

about the biological determinations and social constructions of gender; and the

limitations they perceived as caused by gender identification. The survey also asked

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students to express their ideas about their experience of reading across cultures and

making connections with characters in classic literature.

At the end of the course, I administered a final survey (Appendix B). In this

survey, I asked specific questions about whether the course had worked for all of the

students. I investigated ways in which the study of gender in literature had made a

difference in their reading; and whether the discussions, teaching approaches, and

activities had impacted them in terms o f sensitivity to gender inequities in the literature

and in their lives.

Written Responses

After the reading of each story, all thirty-five students were also asked to write

in response to questions (Appendix C) about their connections with characters,

responses to gender representations and textual ideologies, and perceptions about

sexism in the literature. This strategy was employed to assess initial responses to the

works, and to investigate if and how perceptions of gender identification/ representation

changed during the course of the study as additional works were read.

I believed that opportunities for written responses directed toward gender and

relationship issues in the literature would encourage a stronger connection with the

gender issues. I expected the students’ responses to serve as indicators of the students’

connection with the literature and the effectiveness of some of the teaching approaches

and strategies. I also hoped that their writing would also serve as an encouragement to

further critical and creative thinking about androcentrism, and sexist representations in

the literature.

Audio-taped Discussions/Dialogic Investigations with the Texts

Introductorv Discussions

The course was also structured so that discussions of textual representations and

underlying ideologies could be conducted during the study of each work. While framed

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by the research questions, discussion questions often emanated from students’ responses

to particular questions or comments about the literature at hand. I suspected that

discussions were as affected by the personalities in the class as by the literature being

studied or by my agenda (Eeds and Wells. 1989; Eeds and Peterson, 1991). For

example, the afternoon class engaged in a lengthy and intense conversation about

homosexuality in response to "‘The Gentle Lena,” while the morning class focused on

compulsory marriage in the discussion of that story. During the discussions, I tried to

engage the students in investigations with the texts that would maximize their

appreciation of the literature while opening up a consideration of patriarchal ideologies

and gender representations. Through this inquiry into the texts, I hoped to initiate the

process of historical revision “that continuously erodes ignorance and misapprehensions

and enlarges more informed insights (Bogdan, 1992, p. 114).

Dialogic Investigation with the Texts

A dialogic approach in discussion allowed the students and I to engage in a

negotiation with the texts and with each other at a more intense level. It allowed me to

pose questions and offer contrasting perspectives to the ones held by the students. It

also allowed me pose questions for the author and/or characters. This approach allowed

me to interject my opinions and those of feminist thinkers, while welcoming the

students’ ideas as well. It forced the students to benefit from my ideas and insights as

well as those of their classmates in order to problematize textual positions and

representations. And, in many cases, it allowed me to benefit from their ideas. For

many students at Werthlin, where a dialogical approach to discussion is common, it was

the preferred forum for expression. While my agenda was clearly to develop gender­

conscious readers and citizens through critical pedagogy, my approach was to

accomplish this within a ‘heteroglossic’ classroom atmosphere (Bakhtin, 1981) which

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honored competing meanings the centrality of articulating response to achieving

understanding.

Because I was also involved in the discussions, I was not able to physically take

field notes while the students and I were engaged in literary discussions. I was able to

make some field notes after each class, but much would have been lost without the

opportunity to tape the discussions. I audio-taped discussions during the classes so that

I could record the attitudes, perspectives, and developments of the students, and the

controversies, as they came into contact with the literature, with me, with each other,

and with selected critical literary readings assigned for reading. I chose to tape all of

the discussions focused on the gender issues in the literature, and listened to the tapes

after each of the classes were over, and wrote field notes from them. “Focused

observation then [was] used at later stages of the study . . . to check analytic themes, to

see . . . if they explain[ed] behavior . . . over a long time . . . ” (Marshall, 1995, p. 79).

Listening to the discussions after they had taken place provided me with the

distance that I needed to conduct a study in my own classroom. Listening to the tapes

after each class also enabled me to pose additional problems and questions arising from

my review of the day’s discussion.

Audio- and Video-taped Social Imagination Activities

During the study of each literary work, all students engaged in creative

imaginative work with the literature in an attempt to either get inside the text or bring

the characters/ relationships into the present. These included creative, artistic, or

dramatic responses to the literature. I selected art, creative writing, and drama activities

to highlight the differences and/or similarities between the students’ gender-related

perspectives and those held by the author and/or his characters (Appendix H). The

particular type of activity to be assigned was selected on the basis of its appropriateness

to the study of the particular work itself. I audio-taped all social imagination activities.

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In addition, I video-taped the social imagination activities conducted by the university

professors during the study of Their Eves Were Watching God.

The Focus Group

I complemented the general classroom study with a corresponding text-by-text

study of the literary responses and investigations of the stories by the ten students in the

focus group. I was able to conduct a more enriched, more comprehensive investigation

by focusing on their essays, projects, questionnaires, and written responses to the

feminist literary critical readings, and by highlighting their particular responses within

the context of the general classroom study described above. By further engaging these

ten representatives in extensive interviews, group interviews and improvisational

workshops, 1 was able to engage them in an in-depth exploration of the gender issues in

the literature. As well as the data collected on the ten students as a consequence of their

participation in the whole-class activities (see previous section); additional data specific

to the focus group included the following sources:

Questionnaires

Focus group members completed two written questionnaires. One questionnaire

(Appendix D), administered early in the study, was designed to provide in-depth

demographic information, educational background, reading habits; and students’ sexual

preferences, sexual activity, and attitudes about feminism and gender equality. The

purpose of the questionnaire was to provide me with informational material on each of

the focus group participants.

The second questionnaire, administered at the end of the study (Appendix E),

was designed to supplement and triangulate students’ responses to interview questions,

taking all the literary works into consideration at once. This questionnaire required that

focus group students identify the basis for each of the literary relationships and the

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power dynamics and double standards operating in the relationships. The questionnaire

also asked students to identify the degree to which they related to each of the characters.

Transcribed Audio taped Individual Interviews

My interviews (Appendix F) with each of the ten focus group members provided

the centerpiece for the research project. I interviewed each of the ten students two or

three times, depending on their availability. During the first session, I expanded on

their responses to the whole-class survey and to their written responses on the

questionnaire. It was during the second and third sessions, however, where most of the

rich discussion of the literature and the gender issues took place, and where analyses of

characters, relationships and governing textual ideologies took place.

Lengthy discussions and in-depth investigations of the literature were possible

during personal interviews where we had the time to explore questions, issues and ideas

in detail that we could not address in the limited classroom time. Many conversations

that were begun in the classroom were continued during these personal interviews with

the ten focus group members. In addition, for many students, the privacy of the one-on-

one interviews was conducive to the free expression of opinion. All ten students

contributed easily and openly in the interviews, while many of the same students were

not regular contributors in the classroom. Their interviews represented the ideas of

many students like themselves, whose opinions are often not shared in the larger

classroom environment.

Because the focus group mem bers’ answers to the interview questions

(Appendix F) were unique, reflecting their individual perspectives, interests and thought

processes, follow-up questions were often revised during the interview process to suit

the particular student or conversational direction. Different conversations, then, had

different emphases

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Transcribed Audio-taped Group Interviews

The focus group provided an opportunity for using what Fontana and Frey

(1994) have referred to as the group interview, or the systematic questioning of several

individuals simultaneously. While Fontana and Frey (1996) state that this kind of

interview does not replace the interviewing of individuals, they have pointed out that

such interviews “provide another level of data gathering or a perspective on the research

problem not available through individual interviews.” (p. 366). I used the group

interview several times with the focus group because it stimulated the discussion of

topics not considered by individuals in one-on-one interviews or in whole-class

discussions.

Group interviews were held with the focus group during the discussion of the

two short works: “The Gentle Lena,” and “The Untold Lie.” In each case, the group

interviews were conducted to extend discussions held in class, in interviews, or as a

preparation for future experimentation with drama activities. They were also conducted

to engage students in dialogic negotiations with the texts or with each other, or to

continue discussions begun in class or with individuals. Group interviews with these

students were held in my home after school hours or on weekends.

Transcribed Audio taped Improvisational/Writing Workshops

In conjunction with the group interviews, I conducted improvisational

workshops with the focus group several times. I brought them together to do some

social imagination work on “The Gentle Lena,” and “The Untold Lie,” (Appendix I) and

I brought them together for improvisational work on all of the literature in the study at

the end of the course (Appendix G). I believed that getting inside these texts through

role play, or the updating of these stories into contemporaiy screenplays, would bring to

light the stereotyping, sexist ideology and androcentric authorial perspective evident in

these works more effectively than any other approaches or strategies.

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For “The Gentle Lena,” the focus group was required to actually begin the

writing of an update which I hoped would expose the apparent differences between the

students’ and Stein’s cultures, as more similar than different. I hoped that this activity

would invite the students to focus on the way that society has constructed their gender

identities and relationship patterns as it constructed those o f the characters of Lena and

Herman in Stein’s era. The focus group members wrote several scenes for a film

update. They eventually decided that “The Untold Lie” would make for a better update.

Time did not allow for the writing of that update, but many scenes were improvised.

Therefore, the workshop on “The Untold Lie” did not result in a student update, but led

to the writing of my own play (see Chapter 6), which came out of my own attempt to

write creatively as a method of inquiry.

In the final improvisational workshop, I invited all ten students to respond to

prompts (Appendix G) designed to elicit imaginative responses to each of the works

studied in the course. This workshop was planned to encourage the students to respond

to the individual works after they finished the course and had already responded to each

literary work as it was studied. I hoped that this activity would elucidate any changes

brought about by the teaching approaches and strategies employed in the study/class.

Critical Writing Activities

Marshall (1995) points out the importance of writing opportunities as validators

of student meaning-making (p. 87). For this reason, I also encouraged all thirty-five

students in the classes to explore gender issues in five-page critical research papers on

Washington Square. The Great Gatsbv. and A Farewell To Arms but included only the

papers of the focus group members in the corpus of the data. 1 selected these literary

works for the longer writing assignments because they are the full-length works studied.

Their Eves Were Watching God is a full-length work also, but it was the last work, and

it was followed by the students’ projects, many of which involved that novel.

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Literary Criticism

Scholarly critiques on the literature covered were assigned to the thirty-five

students in both classes to familiarize them with scholars’ commentaries on gender

issues in some of the literature. In all cases, the critical perspectives were gender-

related treatises; in some cases, they also focused on theme or authorial perspective in

relation to the representation of men and women and relationships. After reading the

literary critical works, students reported in classroom discussions on the effectiveness of

the points made by the critics, and on any insights, discoveries, or problems which

developed as a result of this reading

Final Projects

All thirty-five students completed final projects (Appendix J) in which they were

required to produce an artistic, journalistic, musical or dramatic work relating to or

emanating from an exploration of gender issues in the literature of their choice. I

included only the focus group members’ projects in the corpus of data for subsequent

analysis and interpretation.

Self Reflective Exploration

The Research Journal

As noted earlier, during the course of the study, I kept a research journal in

which I continuously entered field notes. In the journal, I commented on the students’

responses and on the challenges, successes and failures of my attempts to raise my

students’ awareness of gender bias through an investigation of the literature. My

reflections on the students’ struggles and my own play a central role in the study. My

reactions to all our contributions affected decisions about the use of certain questions,

activities and strategies.

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Creative Writing as a Method of Inquiry

Richardson (1994) foregrounded the understanding of writing as a method of

inquiry and explored the ways in which researchers have always used and continue to

use writing to help them think. Langer and Applebee (1987) reported that writing

shapes thinking and that the more we manipulate information, and work with it, the

more we learn. I wrote one short group of scenes to explore the ways in which students

responded to Emma Goldman’s ideas about marriage, which I believe helped me to

‘see,’ interpret, and communicate their reactions and positions more clearly.

I also wrote a full length short play as a method of inquiry and as a way of

interpreting the focus group’s investigation of the androcentrism in Sherwood

Anderson's “The Untold Lie.’’ I used lines from the short story and the transcribed lines

from the students’ improvised scenes and our dialogues to explore our collective

experience engaging in this study of the gender issues in the literature.

Through this experimentation with writing as a method of inquiry, I constructed

what Marcus (1994) calls ‘messy texts,’ straddling the fence between fact and fiction

and experimenting with an impressionistic approach to data analysis (Van Manaan,

1989). In the case of “The Untold Lie, ”I believe that this messy text serves as a

metaphor for the experience in which the students and I were engaged. The scenes

portraying the discussion of “Love and Marriage,” (1969 /1912) the focus group’s work

on “The Gentle Lena,” (1990/1906) and the short play depicting the study of “The

Untold Lie” (1977/1925) are integrated in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 in the order in which the

literature was studied.

Method of Analysis

Step One: The Transcriptions

In order to accomplish the analysis of the data, I transcribed all of the audio­

taped class discussions and audio and video-taped drama activities. I also transcribed

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all of the personal interviews conducted with focus group members, and each of the

group discussions and workshops in which the focus group participated.

Step Two: Initial Analysis

After reading through all o f the material, I organized the classroom data in the

order in which it was collected, including initial surveys, transcripts of literary

discussions and activities, written responses to gender issues in each literary work, and

final surveys. In addition, I organized the data from the personal and group interviews

with the focus group, the initial and final questionnaires, and the transcripts of group

discussions and improvisational workshops. In order to organize the data to foster the

successful completion of a systematic and comprehensive investigation of the general

and particular facets of the experience, I edited and combined the data from the general

classrooms with the data from the focus group activities. To aid me in weaving the

classroom and focus group data together and in interpreting those data, I organized the

data into two sections, with each section focusing on the data from a different

perspective. Section One was organized by the literature; Section Two was organized

by focus group participants.

Step Three: The Sections

Section One

The first section was organized according to the literary works, in the order in

which we studied them in the two classes. Under the heading of the specific literary

work, I inserted subheadings designated by A.M. and P M . classes, and the transcribed

audio- taped discussions and audio-and video-taped activities carried out in each

group’s investigation of the literature. From the transcribed audio-taped class

discussions, I selected segments, highlighting classroom investigations of gender issues

in each particular piece of literature. I then inserted these transcribed segments into the

proper category. I followed each of these segments with the focus group members’

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transcribed responses to these works during in-depth, extended interviews. Finally, I

included segments from the group interviews and workshops conducted to study

specific works. After reading these transcripts, I also included my responses to their

responses and my choices of discussion topics, activities and arguments.

Constructing Section One in this way allowed me to bring together the

transcriptions of the general and particular commentaries made on each of the works

using the various approaches described for a comprehensive investigation of where the

students were in relation to my research questions. It also helped to raise my awareness

about the different gender issues raised by the study of each of these literary works. In

addition, it helped to reveal the significant and/or representative contributions made

during interviews with the focus group members who would serve as spokespersons for

the group in the interpretation and presentation of the data. And, because I organized

Section One so that morning (A.M.) and afternoon class (P.M.) discussions were

followed by interviews of representatives from those particular classes, the method

elucidated the impact of the classroom community on the student representatives.

Finally, because I organized the literary works in the order in which they were studied

in the classroom, I was able to see how students’ perspectives developed and changed

over the course of the study.

Section Two

I organized the second section of data around each focus group member, and his

or her responses to each literary work, as the various approaches were used. I also

followed these transcribed segments with my own responses. This section, which

comprised mostly abridged audio-taped transcriptions of personal interviews, allowed

me to see the ideological perspectives held by each of these students with more clarity.

It also helped me to see how those perspectives played themselves out in their responses

to the gender issues in the literature. Finally, it allowed me to determine how each

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student approached the investigations of the specific works, and to identify which focus

group students to foreground in the investigation of each work for the interpretation and

presentation of the data.

Combined with these representative students’ surveys and questionnaires, essays

and projects. Section Two further elucidated the interests and perspectives of the

students, and the effects of various teaching approaches on their responses throughout

the course.

Step Four: Teacher/Researcher Journals and Creative Writings

In addition to the two sections of data, complete with commentaries on my

decisions, struggles and experiences conducting this class and study, the scenes and

dialogues I have written as a method of inquiry are a part of the corpus of data analyzed

for patterns and themes (to be discussed in the following section).

Interpretation of the Data

LeCompte and Preissle (1993) describe theorizing as “the cognitive process of

discovering or manipulating abstract categories and relationships among those

categories’’ (p. 239). It consists of playing with data and ideas, and engaging in such

tasks as perceiving, comparing, contrasting, speculating, aggregating, ordering, and

establishing linkages and relationships. Once data have been described, the reader

begins to analyze, to establish links to larger, previously identified theoretical

frameworks, or to develop a different framework based on the relationship between one

set of data and another.

Initially, I was operating from the position that my students might have some

trouble relating with characters who behaved in stereotypical ways unfamiliar to them

in contemporary post-feminist times. My reading of educational and feminist literature,

and my recent teaching experiences had led me to believe that most of these adolescents

I I I

would not share my feminist perspectives on gender equality or my level o f

commitment to raising the status of women. However, I was unsure of exactly where

they would stand, and how their stances would affect their reading and appreciation of

the literature.

The selection of the teaching strategies and methods of data collection, then,

were based on my position as an investigator, a feminist, and a teacher, who was

examining the process. My data were drawn from the written and transcribed responses

o f the students in the two classes, from the written and transcribed responses of the

focus group members, and from my journal reflections and plays.

Patterns and Themes

I have used Lather's (1993) concept of the interpretation of data to include both

description and analysis, both of which occur at the same time and influence data

collection. Because the study continued for a school year, and because the data were

interpreted during the course of the study, description and analysis did influence

subsequent data collection, particularly with respect to follow-up questions for focus

group members in interviews, and during group discussions and improvisational

workshops. According to Lather (1993), the first component o f interpretation is the

description in which the researcher looks for themes and patterns by coding and

categorizing the data in order to move on to the next step which is the analysis or theory

building component of the project.

Surveys, questionnaires, field notes, student writing exercises, teacher writing

experiments, transcribed interviews, transcribed audio and video-taped workshops and

discussions/inquiries constitute the data corpus, and are all components of which fall

under the heading of documents.' The coding and categorizing of this data helped to

identify the patterns and themes by which the assertions were warranted that defined the

investigation and the findings. As Marshall (1995) points out, the review of documents

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is “rich in portraying the values and beliefs of participants in the setting” (p. 85).

Because the documents represent varied activities ranging from discussion and formal

essays, to interviews, improvisational work, and my reflections on the process, the

documents served to offer breadth and depth to my interpretation.

To identify patterns and themes in the transcribed classroom discussions, I noted

the commonalities among the class members’ responses to the gender issues in the

literature. I also noted the similarities and inconsistencies in particular class members’

responses to similar issues in different literary works. To assess curriculum influences,

I noted the changes occurring over time, or as a result of various teaching approaches or

classroom cultures. I also looked for such patterns and themes in the transcriptions of

my interviews with the focus group members, and in their written and creative

responses.

I paid close attention to the ways in which the focus group members answered

questions during the various data-gathering opportunities. I related one set of data with

another. I considered survey answers in relation to literary analyses, and the

implications of similarities and inconsistencies. I compared the students’ survey-

reported background, family history, future plans, sexual preference, and belief system

with their stated ideas about gender equality, and their written and transcribed oral

responses to the gender issues in the literature. To clarify students’ perspectives, I

noted incidences where subsequent methods o f data collection reinforced earlier

responses reported by different method, or, on the other hand, altered them. In addition,

I also noted incidences where multiple methods of data collection revealed

contradictions in students’ thinking and in their positions. I found that the richest data

came from the contradictions that I discovered at the heart of many of the students’

perspectives and the struggles they reported experiencing as they investigated literary

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gender issues. I also attempted to compare the data gathered from the larger group with

those gathered from the focus group.

Finally, I continuously considered the students’ responses in the light of my

questions, the literature chosen, the approaches and strategies used, and my feminist

agenda. The data collection and analysis of my own responses was a process of

investigation and discovery of what techniques worked and what didn’t, with my sights

set on discovering and providing information to benefit other educators engaging high

school students in a study of gender issues in literature.

The Interpretation and Presentation of the Data

The presentation of the data in this study can also be seen as part of the data itself. I

have conceptualized the presentation of the data as layered tales using Van Manaan’s

(1988) three-tiered concept in which the “story” is told through three perspectives: the

realist tale, the confessional tale, and the impressionist tale. Using this format allowed

me to weave in and out of the students’ and my perspectives and experiences. It also

allowed me to incorporate alternative renderings o f our literary experiences (e.g., the

dramatic script in Chapter 6). The information derived from individual and group

interviews of the focus group, and the surveys, questionnaires, and improvisations from

both the larger group and the focus group, are presented in the form of a third person

narrated realist’s tale. Woven through this tale is my confessional tale through which I

reflected upon what I was observing and what the students were experiencing as well as

on my role in the teaching and research process. The impressionist’s tale permitted

experimental representation, which is manifested in a sequence of dialogues and

dramatic “scenes” between the students and me. Further discussion follows.

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Realist Tale

For the study of each literary work, two (a male and a female) focus group

members’ “stories” or experiences with a given literary work are presented by me as I

describe those students’ investigations o f the particular work studied. In most cases,

one student from each class discusses each literary work. The focus is definitely on one

piece of literature at a time, and on the experience that the two highlighted focus group

students (one from each class) had with the work and with the particular teaching

approach used.

Subsumed within a third person realist tale, their voices speak loudly and clearly

their responses to the literature. They speak of their struggles with the literature and

with the feminist approaches to the literature. They also speak of the contradictions,

which troubled their life decisions as well as their responses to gender stereotypes and

androcentrism. Their voices also speak o f their resistances to my pedagogical

approaches and/or my attempts to transform their reading habits and perspectives. Their

stories have not been objectified in a metanarrative constructed by an omniscient

narrator claiming universal, general knowledge (Richardson, 1994). They can be heard

as they tell the stories that combine with or conflict with mine. And, their stories clarify

their opinions as well as their values and beliefs. Together with my story, they help to

identify the pedagogical approaches, which effected consideration and change.

As I presented the students’ perspectives, I tried to resist installing them into

tidy compartments in order to justify a conclusion that I wanted to make about

pedagogy or gender studies. I felt an obligation to let their voices be heard as they

developed through the investigation and discussion of the literary works. I also felt

obliged to let them hear my voice and to let them be changed and enlightened by it.

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Confessional Tale

These “stories” of the ten focus group participants are woven together with my

own confessional tale (Van Maanan, 1988), through which I have attempted to

communicate the struggles and challenges involved in my study of gender and

relationship in literature with thirty-five students in a suburban high school English

class. Part of my confessional tale is an explanation of my perspectives on the literary

works. In order to introduce each piece of literature, I included not only the reason for

my choice of the work and a synopsis of the piece, but also my feminist literary critique

of the work. The critique elucidated the position that 1 hoped would be understood and

appreciated by the students. During the study, 1 continued to share with the students

any new perspectives that developed out of the investigations of the gender issues in the

literature.

Impressionist Tale

Through the use of an impressionist tale, which Richardson (1994) says is more

likely to recapture an experience than is standard writing, 1 constructed (as noted in the

introduction to this section) a sequence of dialogues and dramatic ‘scenes’ between the

students and me; and between the students and particular characters and critics. For the

most part, I used the students’ words to create these dramatic segments.

Because in the writing of these scenes 1 have taken responses from various

conversations and combined lines from essays, group discussions, improvisational

writings and interviews, these scenes have allowed me to express “what is unsay able in

other circumstances” (Richardson, 1994, p. 521). They are the “messy texts” (Marcus,

1994) which straddle the fence between fact and fiction in experimenting with an

impressionistic approach to data analysis (Van Maanan, 1988)). Since “meaning

changes depending on whether the interview was performed as a lecture, a narrative, [a

play] or a visit.” (St. Pierre, 1995, p. 212), this approach allowed a “shaping [of] an

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experience without losing the experience” (Richardson, 1994, p. 522). It blended

realist, fictional, poetic and dramatic techniques “to reconstruct the sense of an event

from multiple “as lived” perspectives” (p. 522).

My own responses to the research project and my creative writing as a method

of investigation were stimulated by the desire to develop an emancipatory pedagogical

approach. Most of my writing was part of a search directed toward the development of

strategies that would be effective at raising students’ awareness o f damaging

representations, limiting ideologies, and other evidences of gender inequality. This

search was driven by a desire to contribute some important knowledge to the field of

educational research in order to inform the future practices of others interested in

education for social justice. Because I was often surprised by my students’ positions

and reactions, I was constantly re-writing and re-asking questions, and re-visiting scenes

and characters in the search for an effective presentation of the issues. The effort to

clarify my questions is what I believe to be the part of the experience most valuable to

teachers interested in a feminist approach to literature.

Validity of Data

Scheurich (1996) defines validity as the method or criteria for deciding whose

work is good, acceptable, allowable, meaningful or useful. Validity, he states, “is the

deployment . . . of a division between trustworthy and not trustworthy, a two sided map

which indicates what is considered acceptable and what is considered unacceptable” (p.

3-4). Lather (1986) sees the need for a systematic establishment of trustworthiness of

data. She states “if we want illuminating and resonant theory grounded in trustworthy

data, we must formulate self-corrective techniques that will check the credibility of our

data and minimize the distorting effect of personal bias upon the logic of evidence” (p.

65).

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Many facts contributed to my need to address the issue of validity in this study.

Firstly, the primary focus of the study was on my own high school students. Secondly,

as the teacher and researcher in the classroom, I selected the literature, teaching

strategies and segments of discussions and responses to be included in the data. Lastly,

as the teacher and researcher, I attempted not only to assess my students’ positions, but

also to guide them toward a feminist consciousness of androcentric literary and social

constructs. For these reasons, I employed methods designed to demonstrate the

trustworthiness of my study and my research techniques.

Credibility and Confirmabilitv

To demonstrate credibility and confirmability, “a match between the constructed

realities o f respondents and the representation of those realities by the researcher”

(Lincoln, 1989, p. 286), I audio-taped and video-taped myself and my students as we

worked through the texts in the course and while we engaged in individual interviews

and group discussions. Credibility and confirmability are essentially achieved where

“more than one participant in the research process can attest to certain experiences

having taken place” (Lincoln and Cuba, 1985, p. 324). Credibility and confirmability

were also achieved through the following: peer debriefing of my interpretations by my

colleague and co-teacher. Miss Margaret Jackson; triangulation of data; prolonged

engagement; disconfirming evidence; and reflexivity. Through these methods, I was

able to confirm that the analyses, interpretations and findings were “grounded in the

events” (p. 324), while also, admittedly, a consequence of my “own personal

constructions” (p. 324).

Peer Debriefing

Peer debriefing confirms that the findings emanating from the inquiry process

were “grounded in events rather than the inquirer’s personal constructions” (p. 324).

Because I was studying my own classroom and my own students, and because my

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interpretations were key to the description and findings of my own study, the necessity

for peer debriefing was stronger than usual. To insure validity, I engaged “a

disinterested peer in a manner paralleling an analytic session, and for the purpose of

inquiry that might otherwise remain only implicit with the inquirer’s mind” (p. 308).

Margaret Jackson, my colleague and fellow English teacher at Werthlin, was present in

all the classes. Sharing my interpretation of the study with Margaret kept me honest as

she also read, reflected on, and commented on the write-up of the data. It also

broadened my capacity for ‘seeing’ and challenging the suppositions inherent in my

interpretations of what had gone on in the classroom/study. In addition, because

Margaret functioned in the class as a co-teacher, she was invaluable as a sounding board

for many of my struggles and questions.

Margaret's feedback was very important for the validity of the study. Her

objectivity in the classroom stimulated the kind of conversation that fostered thought

and reflection. Her objectivity enlightened me to the value of students’ arguments that I

had overlooked. She read students’ papers and shared conversations about students’

perspectives. She also discussed my interpretations of class dynamics with me.

Triangulation

In addition to peer debriefing, my study meets the criteria of credibility and

confirmability through the triangulation of multiple methods of data gathering. These

methods included: class discussions, the use of a focus group, surveys, questionnaires,

interviews, group discussions, improvisational workshops, written responses, critical

essays, peer debriefing, and self-reflective exploration through journals, field notes and

creative writing as a method of inquiry. The triangulation of multiple data sources

verified the data from discussion, for example, by allowing me to compare findings

from one data source with those in others.

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Prolonged Engagement

Because I met with the two classes of students three times per week in class for

a semester, and continued to meet with the focus group for private interviews, group

discussions and improvisational workshops for another semester, I also achieved

confirmability through prolonged engagement. The length of the study, combined with

the repeated use o f methods designed to elicit response to multiple literary selections,

provided a pattern, which often confirmed or denied the validity and trustworthiness of

the findings on students’ early responses. Finally, the prolonged engagement with the

group, and my prior engagement with them in the school community, helped to

establish a rapport and a trust which maximized the opportunity for honest responses,

particularly in the interviews (Glesne and Peshkin, 1992; Cuba and Lincoln, 1992).

Disconfirming Evidence

Erickson (1986) has written that to test the evidentiary warrant for an assertion,

the researcher should conduct a systematic search of the entire data corpus, looking for

disconfirming as well as confirming evidence (Erikson, 1986, p. 146). According to

Lather (1993), it is the disconfirming evidence that provides the richest possibility for

data depth. On more than one occasion, disconfirming evidence alerted me to the need

for further inquiry, and led me to revised conclusions. Often, patterns of disconfirming

evidence alerted me to attitudes that students had, but denied and argued against.

Students’ responses to sexism in the literature and to my questions and discussion topics

were varied, and did not fit neatly into tidy classifications. For example, the students’

responses could not always be categorized as “sexist,” “progressive,” “resistant” or

“traditional.” More often than not, their responses suggested their alternation between

these extremes. In addition, the perspectives of authors and characters were often also

difficult to categorize as having an “androcentric” or “feminist” perspective. For

example, Hemingway creates a submissive female character in A Farewell to Arms.

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while he seems to critique male dominance that brings about such submissive behavior

in “Hills like White Elephants.” In addition, characters like Daisy Buchanan are

complex, embodying submissive and dominant characteristics. The responses of human

beings and the characters created by human beings are always complex. I attempted to

acknowledge that complexity in this study.

Reflexivity

The trustworthiness of my study is enhanced by the focus of my research, which,

in addition to an investigative approach, is a record of my own struggle to awaken my

literature students to the sexist stereotyping and androcentrism that I see in classic

literature and in society. As Glesne and Peshkin (1992) point out, “[m]y subjectivity is

the basis for the story that I am to tell. It is the strength on which I build“ (p. 104).

And, as I have written above, it is the raison d ’être of this research topic, energy and

goal. 1 have followed research scholars’ recommendations by considering subjectivity

as a virtue for this study.

I was able to incorporate what Lather (1986) calls ‘construct validity (p. 67) in

my research design by striving to be aware of, and to record my personal biases so that

they were not unduly privileged in my research, but rather, became one of the topics for

exploration. In order to work with my biases and still organize my work from an

interpretivist paradigm, I was forced to look at my own biases and reconsider my

positions as the starting point for discussion. In the study, I was continually engaged in

a rigorous reflexivity to keep my biases and those of the students in the open, and

subject to the kind of dialectical investigation that promised more enlightened thought

and collaboratively built knowledge for the field. Some of the discoveries made during

the study were simply the documentation of conflicts involving those biases, and I have

not eliminated them from the description. During the study, we essentially developed a

learning community where our biases and perspectives determined our direction, our

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conversations, and our conclusions. We did not find hard and fast answers, but

unearthed important questions. These questions were important for the design of a

pedagogy that would address the students’ needs as well as attempting to raise their

awareness to sexism in the literature.

Transferability

My hope in conducting a study such as this one is not that any of these

findings’ or interpretations will be generalizable as an exact model for the curriculum

writing for the teaching of gender-responsible American literature. In fact,

“ [generalizabilityj is antithetical to those tenets that undergird the emancipatory

qualitative paradigm” (James-Brown, 1995, p. 90). My goal is to problematize the

status quo, to investigate possibilities, to identify connections and to build more

understanding through collaborative work with specific high school students. My

ultimate objective is to encourage a more critical approach to the reading of literature to

prevent the continued appropriation of patriarchal versions of masculinity and

femininity through literary engagement (Taylor, 1993).

Two Classrooms

The fact that the study was partially conducted with two classrooms enhances

transferability. What educators might see as an anomalous situation in one classroom in

an alternative school may appear to be less so when evident in two classrooms. A

similar response from students in two classrooms suggests the possibility that successful

strategies may be repeated in other classrooms.

Focus Group

Transferability is enhanced by the emphasis on each of the ten focus group

members. Stake (1994), for example, points out that that there is value in a focus on the

individual case “because it is believed that understanding it will lead to better

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understanding, perhaps theorizing, about a still larger collection of cases” (Stake, 1994,

p. 237). It is my belief that the struggles experienced by the particular focus group

students who are highlighted in this study reflect the experiences of the larger group of

students, and represent the struggles that will be experienced by other adolescent

readers of these texts.

My story is mainly told by means of the individual voices of the ten focus group

members. It is told by highlighting the single literary investigations of these individual

students (a male from one class and a female from another) as they explore the gender

and relationship issues generated in their respective class discussions o f one of seven

literary works. Hopefully, their individual voices resonate with the interests and

responses of others, and hold out the promise of providing valuable insights for

educators dealing with young men and women facing similar issues in the same or

comparable literature. Teachers reading such a study may make distinctions between

their classroom cultures and mine, but see applications for their educational spaces and

for their students.

Lincoln and Cuba (1989) argue that it is not the responsibility o f qualitative

researchers to “specify external validity of an inquiry because they cannot; they can

only provide the thick descriptions necessary to enable someone interested in making a

transfer to reach a conclusion about whether a transfer can be contemplated as a

possibility” (p. 310). In an effort to provide transferability from my study to other

classroom situations, and make my research as trustworthy and relevant as possible, 1

have attempted to provide rich description and make as many connections as I could to

the perceived commonalities in high school classrooms everywhere.

Co-educational Studv

Transferability is also enhanced by the fact that this study has not limited itself

to the investigation of only girls’ responses to gender issues in literature. This study

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extends the value of the study of gender representation beyond women’s studies

departments and into co-educational high school classrooms. The inclusion of boys into

the dialogue provides teachers in co-educational high school classrooms with useful

data about the ways in which male and female adolescents negotiate gender

representations and textual ideology. A study which includes the responses o f both girls

and boys to literary gender issues may provide a model for literature teachers as they

engage with students of both sexes to explore the ways in which gender impacts on

readers’ responses to and enjoyment of literature.

Reflexive Studv

Lastly, the self-reflexive aspect of this study enhances transferability. It does

this by not only providing data about how boys and girls respond to gender

representations and critical approaches to the text, but also by providing a teacher’s

reflections on her own decisions, her own struggles with the materials and strategies,

and her own analysis of the success and failure of her choices. Such reflexivity

provides of self-analysis important for other educators concerned about how a similar

pedagogical approach might work in their classrooms.

Conclusion

The research design o f this study, its multi-stanced reflective interpretivist

feminist perspective, and its three-tiered approach to the presentation and interpretation

of the data, has allowed me to conduct and present a study which has the potential to

offer new knowledge for the field of gender studies and English education. Because the

design frames the study of the effectiveness of various teaching approaches on students’

awareness of gender issues in literature, it also has the potential to inspire an

emancipatory pedagogy. The validity of the study, brought about by the employment of

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triangulation, peer debriefing, and reflexivity, insures the transferability of the study to

teachers in other classrooms.

The analysis and the interpretation of the data is included in the following three

chapters, introduced by an explanation of how the three chapters are organized.

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CHAPTER 4

PREFACE

The Format

The research data is analyzed and interpreted in three chapters: Chapters 4, 5,

and 6. Chapter 4, “Marriage and the Generations,” includes the study of James’

Washington Square. Goldman’s “Love and Marriage,” and Stein’s “The Gentle Lena. ”

Chapter 5, “Images of Romantic Relationships” includes the study of Fitzgerald’s The

Great Gatsbv. Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arm s, and Hurston’s Their Eves Were

Watching God. Chapter 6, “Voices of Men and Women, ” is dedicated to Anderson’s

“The Untold Lie,” and the dramatic portrayal of that literar>' investigation that I wrote as

a method of inquiry.

I have organized the three chapters by dividing them into sections headed by the

title of each literary work investigated. The works are listed in the order in which they

were studied in the course. Each literary piece is introduced by my explanation of why

the piece was chosen, followed by a synopsis and my ‘reading’ of the work and the

‘gender issues’ I identified therein. My readings’ determined pedagogical choices

made, directions taken, and the literary and ideological views that I brought to the

discussions.

Each section is also headed by the names of the students who are featured in

each literary investigation. The “story” of each literary investigation, then, is told by

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highlighting two focus group students—one focus group participant from each class— to

represent his or her class in the literary discussion of the particular work. Into this

discussion, 1 included my supporting and/or challenging remarks and those of the other

students in the class. Each section/ literary investigation then, includes the analysis of

each focus group participant within the context of the classroom study.

Focus group members were identified to be featured in particular literary

investigations either on the basis of their thoughtful exploration of the particular work,

or their insights concerning significant, recurring issues and questions raised during the

course. Focus group participants, then, elucidate their issues, those issues that surfaced

in their classrooms, and those likely to surface in other classroom investigations of the

specific literary works. In this way, the focus group participants function “evaluatively”

(Goetz and LeCompte, 1984; Cuba and Lincoln, 1981; Patton, 1980), and are

illustrative of “a still larger collection of cases” (Stake, 1994, p. 234).

Although all focus group members, who were selected during the first weeks of

the course, participated in the investigations of all literary works during the course, for

purpose of efficient description, each focus group member is highlighted in the

description of only one literary investigation. Therefore, in order to represent the

breadth as well as the depth of the actual study, I integrated the focus group members’

references to other literature studied in the course with their responses to the particular

literature under investigation. This allowed for a comprehensive investigation of the

students and their responses to gender issues in the corpus o f the literature.

The format of each literary description, or “story” follows the sequence used in

the classroom study of each work. All students’ responses are organized according to

the particular approaches used in the classroom: written responses, discussion and

dialogic investigation, critical writing, responses to critical readings, social imagination

activities (creative writing, drama and art), and final projects. I also included sections

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on extended discussions and dialogic investigations that took place in interviews with

individual students. Occasionally, 1 have either diverted from this sequence or

combined two approaches (e.g., critical reading and critical writing) if the direction

taken by a particular class required a follow-up more appropriate for the study.

There are several other exceptions to the prescribed format explained above.

Firstly, in Their Eves Were Watching God, the focus is on two girls from one classroom

instead of a boy from one class and a girl from the other, which is the usual model. This

change was based on the way in which visiting professors conducted the study of the

novel in both classes. Secondly, for two literary works (Goldman’s essay, “Love and

Marriage” and Anderson’s short story, “The Untold Lie,”) I have dramatized the

students’ investigations rather than narrating them. I organized’ the material into

dramatic scenes because I believe that this form more clearly illustrates the challenges

encountered by the students and by me during these literary investigations. With the

exception of transitional lines, these dialogues and scenes were developed from the

participants’ responses, taken from the transcripts of interviews, class discussions, or

written work.

The description of the study of “Love and Marriage,” read early in the course, is

included in Chapter 4 to elucidate students’ development during the study. The “Love

and Marriage” section combines written and verbal responses of students in the larger

group (both classes) to illustrate the ways in which the students responded to the various

points on love and marriage made by Goldman. “The Untold Lie ” features all members

of the focus group instead of highlighting one from each class. In addition, the focus

group continued the work begun on the study of “The Gentle Lena” beyond the

classroom in group discussions and improvisational workshops. An explanation of that

portion of the study is included at the end of the section on “The Gentle Lena” in

Chapter 4.

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In addition to the studies of each o f the literary works by the highlighted

students, there is the analysis and interpretation o f initial and concluding surveys

administered to the larger group of thirty-five. The discussion of the final survey is

included in a Postscript following Chapter 6. The following is a discussion of the initial

survey.

Initial Surveys

In order to evaluate students’ development as critical respondents to gender

issues in literature over the course of my study, I administered a survey (Appendix A) to

all students before beginning the investigation of the gender representations and

ideologies in the literary works.

Part One of the survey was designed to assess the students’ educational

background as it relates to gender studies (familiarity with feminism: terms, concepts,

history, goals) and to indicate the level of awareness of gender issues. The questions

were designed to help me to determine the ground upon which to meet the students in

the forthcoming study. The following table illustrates the students’ responses

RESPONSES TO PART ONE (Background in Gender Studies)

% Understanding ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ as synonymous100%

% Having experienced minimal gender-related education5%

% Understanding the word “feminism” in a negative light 90%

% Seeing gender as a combination o f biological and social influences

90%

% Feeling limited by labels of masculine/feminine behavior5%

Table 4.1 Responses to Initial Survey (Part One)

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In the survey, students reported that they had received no formal education on

identifying sex role stereotypes in literature or sexist images in advertising. They also

reported that they had been exposed to some literature written by women, but had been

introduced to no formal study of the history of women’s literature or women’s history

per se, prior to their entrance into high school. Since entering high school, there had

also been no formal study of images of men and women in the media, women’s

literature, or women’s history. Four students in the group of thirty-five reported that

one high school history teacher had included information about women suffrage while

covering the struggle for the right to vote in America. Two students referred to an

English teacher who occasionally addressed women’s issues in discussions of stories

read in his class.

None of the students was able to make a distinction between gender (socially

constructed characteristics) and sex (biologically determined characteristics) and most

initially saw them as synonyms. However, all but three reported that, although they

thought that biology accounted for sexual differences, they saw some behaviors as the

result of socialization. Only one of the thirty-five students reported that he would

identify himself as a feminist, and that student was male. Several did point out that they

shared some feminist ideas, and were sympathetic to some causes, but did not want to

be called ‘feminists.’ Most students saw the word “feminist” in a negative light.

None admitted that he or she was personally limited or troubled by expectations

for ‘masculine’ or feminine’ roles or behaviors, and several stated that they believed

that most gender discrimination was passé, .although students listed traditional

characteristics such as ‘quiet,’ soft,’ ‘sensitive,’ ‘compassionate,’ ‘helpless’ and

‘manipulative’ among feminine characteristics, and ‘com petitive,’ ‘egotistical,’

‘intimidating,’ patronizing,’ strong’ and ‘logical’ among the masculine traits

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Several female students admitted that getting women into more positions of

political power would be good and a positive step for women. Most o f the boys

reported that women now had the rights to be whatever they wanted to be, and that there

was no longer a need for quotas to assist women in gaining jobs or equality.

Part Two of the intial survey dealt with essay questions designed to evaluate

students’ experiences reading classic literature that may have involved a gender gap.

The questions in this part of the survey were designed to determine students’ reading

experiences and to help them to monitor their reading practices and their responses to

the representation of gender. The responses were less definitive than those given in Part

One of the survey and leant themselves more easily to a narrative description than a

table.

The majority of the older students claimed that when reading across historical

periods, they often dismissed gender or sexist issues in the literature as indicative of a

bygone society, thereby using an intellectual approach to bridge the gap between their

culture and the literary one. Some claimed the ability to empathize emotionally with the

human condition, or make connections on the basis of similar experiences they were

able to share with the characters. The younger students claimed that they did not have

enough reading experience to answer this question. And, of the students who answered

the question, none reported having had the experience of being drawn into a story while,

at the same time, resisting it on some personal, cultural, or ethical grounds. Thus, they

had not yet experienced Bogdan’s (1992) “misrecognition scene.”

After the administration of the surveys, I selected the focus group participants. I

then administered an initial questionnaire (Appendix D) to the focus group participants

in order to gather in-depth demographic information, educational background, reading

habits; and students’ sexual preferences, sexual activity, and attitudes about feminism

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and gender equity from the group o f ten. This information is included in the

descriptions of each focus group student highlighted in the following three chapters.

Following the administering o f the surveys and questionnaires, the students in

the two classrooms and I began the course with the reading of Washington Square.

While I was frank throughout the course about my perspectives on each piece of

literature and the gender representation and governing patriarchal ideology therein, I did

not begin the class by defining my feminist politics. I was interested in fostering an

open dialogic encounter with the students, and in stimulating questions and the art of

problematizing. I did not want to declare my perspectives out of the context of the

discussions of the gender issues in the literary works. Basically, however, over the

course of the study, my perspectives on gender equality became clear (See Chapter I.

For list of perspectives in the ‘Rationale.’ section).

With this information informing my course design, I began the study of the

literature that is interpreted in the following pages of this and the subsequent two

chapters. At the end of the course, I administered a final survey to the larger group and

a final questionnaire to the focus group participants. The results o f the final survey will

follow the literary discussions in the comprehensive interpretation of the data. Here, the

final surveys then can be seen in reference not only to the intial surveys but also to the

literary investigations in which the students and I engaged.

Results from the final questionnaire administered to the focus group are included

in the section in which the particular focus group students are highlighted, and also in

the section at the end of Chapter six which focuses on final responses of focus group

members to the final survey, the final questionnaire, and a final improvisational

workshop in which they participated.

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CHAPTER 4

MARRIAGE AND THE GENERATIONS

Learning to read and write against the grain . . . is therefore about learning to read and write against conventions that construct women in ways that are demeaning and restricting. It is about learning to read and write in ways that offer constructions of female subjectivity that are not fixed and static, but are dynamic and shifting. It is about learning to understand the discursive construction of subjectivity and the potential spaces for resistance and rewriting.

Gilbert and Taylor, 1991. p. 150

“Literature and the ways that we talk about it have the power to define

what we perceive as acceptable in our culture.”

Pace and Townsend, 1999, p. 43

Introduction

This initial chapter in which data is analyzed and interpreted is comprised of the

investigations of three works: James’ Washington Square. Goldman’s “Love and

Marriage,” and Stein’s “The Gentle Lena.” These three literary works were the first

three works investigated in the study. They are grouped together not only because they

follow in chronological order, however, but also because they all deal with the theme of

“Marriage and the Generations. ”

Students investigated this theme and the ways in which the particular authors

dealt with it during the study of the three works.

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WASHINGTON SQUARE

By Henry James

DECONSTRUCTING STEREOTYPES

CANDY AND MAYNARD

When we recognize that complex Jamesian judgments are. in many cases, universizable, we recognize something important about the way in which a novel offers ethical education and stimulates the ethical imagination. □

Nussbaum, 1990, p. 38

Propositions about women can tell us nothing, then, until we ask. Who utters them? In what circumstances? In what tone? With what qualification by other utterances? And, most important of all: What is the quality of our emotional response, point by point and overall?

Booth, 1988, p. 399

Choice

I selected this piece because of the importance given to the author in the American canon. It is the shortest of his pieces and the one studied in high school when James’ work is part of the high school curriculum. I began with James as he is chronologically first in a study of early twentieth century writers. I think his work is important to this study because he is concerned with women’s place in the society of his time and with the conventions of marriage and the family.

Svnopsis

Catherine Sloper, James’ heroine in Washington Square, is the heiress to the combined fortunes of her father, and her wealthy, deceased mother. Dr. Sloper resents his extremely devoted daughter, whom he deems to be plain and dull-witted. So, when the dashing Morris Townsend comes to call on Catherine, her thrill at being courted by such a handsome suitor is only surpassed by her father's suspicion about Morris’ motives.

After Sloper finds Morris to be financially dependent, he works to break the engagement, first, forbidding Catherine from seeing Morris; then, forcing a separation by taking Catherine to Europe; and eventually withdrawing her inheritance. Catherine, deeply in love with Morris, chooses to have her lover with or without the money. The irony of course was that the doctor is not only righteous but also right. Predictably, Morris betrays Catherine with a refusal to marry her once she is disinherited.

Morris’ betrayal causes Catherine an unfathomable deepening of sorrow. However, when Morris does return after Sloper’s death to ask for her hand once again, she refuses him. Although she loses her faith and her interest in romance for the future, this act allows her to reclaim her lost dignity. She lives out the rest of her life, contentedly, as a single woman caring for children and doing charitable works.

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Mv Reading

In Washington Square. Henry James contests social institutions in America,

particularly the manipulation of women in romantic and marital relationships.

According to Nussbaum (1990), in the novella, as in The Bostonians. James holds up

the station of women for examination and “shows the ethical crudeness of moralities

based exclusively on general rules (p. 37). In Jam es’ polite New York City society,

women are powerless pawns in the mating game, with only beauty guaranteeing them

worthy admirers. Because Catherine Sloper is neither beautiful nor clever. Dr. Sloper

asserts that “love and romance would not be a man’s motivator for her hand” and that

she could only expect to attract a man by means of her fortune. He prevents that from

happening without much of an initial struggle from Catherine. Through the struggle

between Dr. Sloper and Morris for Catherine’s soul and money, James depicts his

heroine as a commodity in a battle in which she is squeezed into near oblivion between

her father and her suitor.

James created the dramatic irony that exposes the cruelties of the social system

and its main characters. He did this by means o f a third person narrator, whose

disclosure of the inconsistencies between Sloper’s view of Catherine and her own

dignity, raises Catherine to the stature of heroine, while damning Sloper and Townsend

as villains. In the end, James has Catherine triumph with integrity as she grows beyond

victimization and a childish worshipping of her father, to transcend the forces working

against her.

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CANDY (AJVI.)

Sexism is a moral issue. The mindframe of one sex being superior should be changed. All people are th e same. We are equal. I think it is ridiculous that men dominated relationships. I try not to let my relationships be that way. Candy

Like I always ask the guys I am dating, like a lot of times, like are you sure that you really like me or are you ju st using me? Candy

Candy is an attractive, sixteen year-old junior. She has an exotic look, with high

cheekbones, carefully applied make-up, and long black hair. She is always coifed and

stylishly dressed and most often surrounded by the circle of male and female friends

with whom she seems to enjoy easy relationship and communication. Interestingly,

however, in my class. Candy sat quietly in the back of the room and burrowed safely

and comfortably into the woodwork from September through January. She did not utter

more than three sentences throughout the entire fall semester, and those were uttered in

response to questions specifically directed at her. Neither did her non-verbal

communication suggest any interest in the subject or literature at hand. She seemed

disinterested. For this reason, I chose her as a student to interview.

In our conversations, as I attempted to “probe the many reasons for the silence,”

she claimed that her silence had nothing to do with the fact that her particular class was

top-heavy with extremely conversational boys—boys who may have intimidated her

and many of the other girls into silence (Gilligan, 1982; Pipher, 1990; Sadker and

Sadker, 1994). “I have never talked in class,” she said. “It doesn’t have anything to do

with the fact that there are guys in the class, it’s just that there are a lot of people in the

class. I just don’t like talking in front of big groups of people.” According to her, she is

confident and isn’t afraid of what others are going to think or that she will make a fool

of herself. “It just really bothers me and I am real scared of it basically for some

reason,” she said. She claimed that she believes, as do all of the other students

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interviewed, that her silence and the silence of the other girls in the morning class was

due to the fact that she and most of the other girls were just very quiet people by nature.

Others also agreed that there were few naturally quiet boys in the class.

Candy is not at a loss for words, however. She had much to say in the one-on-

one conversations. In fact, although she described herself as quiet, she said that her

close friends think o f her as loud and funny. In addition, she is a prolific writer who

does not hold back her many and strong opinions in writing. She wrote lengthy

responses to the readings and class activities throughout the course. Most staff

members have experienced this verbal/written inconsistency. One teacher calls her an

introvert who opens up when asked the right questions. While I apparently never asked

the right questions in class, I had more success in the interviews. She was extremely

forthcoming during our conversations about gender issues and literature. Her classroom

silence on literary characters and situations proved to be an ineffective yardstick for the

measurement of either her engagement with or her interest in the literature or the gender

issues.

I found Candy to have an interesting combination of characteristics. On the one

hand she projected a feminine deference when she spoke of her boyfriends and

relationships; on the other hand. She had a strong no-nonsense intolerance for any kind

of poor treatment from the opposite sex. For example, during a conversation about

Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsbv. she expressed strong irritation at the way that

Daisy silently accepted Tom’s cheating and bad treatment without really doing anything

about it. “She should have left him, that’s what she should have done,” said Candy.

She clearly connected with Daisy and took her part (Golden and Guthrie, 1986; Tierney

and Pearson, 1983). This independent Candy sees herself as having characteristics that

are more masculine than feminine. She calls herself independent in relationships and

reports that if someone cheated on her or hit her she would not say, “oh, it’s ok, sweetie,

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don’t worry about it” or suffer in silence like Daisy, and so many other traditional

literary heroines did (Walkerdine, 1984, p. 182). “I’m gonna get mad, that’s what I’m

gonna do, and I’m either gonna leave or kick some ass.”

She expressed similar sentiments when discussing Their Eves Were Watching

God. She claimed that if Jody had hit her like he hit his wife, Janie, that she would hit

him back. “I don’t let people tell me what to do,” she said. That’s just the way it is.

You’ve gotta tell them what to do. You’ve got to put them in their place.” While she

definitely sees her friends being controlled by boyfriends and letting them dominate, she

says she tries not to let her relationships be that way. She attributes her strength to the

fact that nobody has ever told her what to do ever since she was little. She also

attributes her strength to her mother, who has raised her and her older sister since her

parents’ divorce when she was four.

Candy resists the notion that women are fragile and can’t speak or do things for

themselves, and believes that “women are Just as capable of leading relationships as

men are.” She believes in her own independence and complains about the fact that so

many girls are not independent, or don’t know how to be, and don’t think that they can

do things on their own. She expresses a belief in the construction of gender as opposed

to a biological imperative (Butler, 1999; Davis, 1992; Gilbert and Taylor, 1991; Lewis,

1990; Martino, 1995; Obbink, 1992; Walkerdine, 1984) when she says, “girls just need

to learn how to do things for themselves. If a lot of people did, all of a sudden it would

become like this independent gender and we would not show as much need for men.

Then, I think it would change because the view of women would change.” She thinks

that marriage may be good if you find the right person, but she personally doesn’t think

that she will get married.

Candy, like so many of the other students, made the strongest connections with

fictional characters with whom she shared some common traits and/or circumstances

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(Rosenblatt, 1978). Interestingly, however, she saw her connections with Daisy Fay

Buchanan tGatsbv^ and Janie ("Their Eves Were Watching God) on the basis of the more

dependent side of herself. She reported connecting with them on the basis of the fact

that both of the women were chosen by their husbands because of their beauty and little

else. A recurrent theme in Candy's conversations, in addition to her pride in her

independence, was the view that she is used by guys who are more interested in her

looks than anything else. “With lots of relationships,” she said, I basically feel like I am

just a trophy, and that is all I am and that is all I am worth to anyone.” When asked

what it means to be a trophy, she replied that “they don’t really care about how I am on

the inside, and nobody really takes the time to get to know me.” Candy said that when

she talks they hear what she says but they are not really listening. She said that this

kind of treatment makes her feel like that is all that she is worth. She feels that although

she looks the part of the ’typical girl’ and that many think of her that way, she is totally

different on the inside.

According to her, having been used as a trophy has resulted in her losing trust in

guys. This loss of trust, unfortunately, has relegated her to a place where at the level of

desire (Walkerdine, 1984), instead of being able to sustain her conscious identification

of herself as an independent young woman, she is inclined to question her self-worth.

She is also inclined to give over her power to the guys with whom she is involved

(Lewis. 1990; Brown and Gilligan, 1992). “I always ask them a lot of times,” she said,

“are you sure you really like me or are you just using me? I ask them so many times

because I just don’t trust them. They can tell me that they are not using me as much as

they want, but 1 just don’t believe them.” Somehow, even for this independent girl, the

guys are still seeing girls mainly in terms o f looks (Wolf, 1991) and determining the

female reactions, setting the tone, and calling the shots. Considering her view of herself

as one who is used by guys and questionning her self worth as a result, it is not

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surprising that in addition to relating to Daisy and Janie, she also connected strongly

with Catherine Sloper from Henry James’ Washington Square (Rosenblatt, 1978).

Written Responses

Candy’s connection with Catherine was among the bits of information she

provided in response to my prompts to elicit the students’ initial written responses to the

literature (Appendix C). The prompts were:

1 .In terms of gender representation, are men and women and the love relationship(s) portrayed realistically? Could this story take place today?

2. Did you relate to any characters? Relationships? How? If not, what were the issues that made relating with the characters or relationships difficult?

3. Did you find that your difficulty to connect with characters or relationships (due to culture-based 1 gender disparities) affected your appreciation of the text?

4.What do you think the author’s point is in this story? What is his/her attitude toward main characters in this story?

Because I had wanted unmediated responses. Candy and the other students

answered the questions without the benefit o f introductory discussion about the novel

(Soter, 1997). Because we had not yet engaged in any conversations about the book I

was uncertain about their reactions to Washington Square per se.

1 used the prompts to 1). Focus the students’ attention on gender issues in

literature itself, 2). Determine students’ connections to the characters, 3). Determine

whether and to what extent these older gender representations/ ideologies diminished an

appreciation of the literary work, and, 4). Determine what students believed to be the

author's attitude about the scenarios and characters created. I wondered: Would they

find Catherine Sloper an anachronism? Would they see any connection between her

relationship with Morris Townsend and relationships they witness today? Would they

find Catherine’s relationship with her father irrelevant by today’s standards? Would

these anomalies jeopardize students’ enjoyment of the novel? Would they be able to

interact (Iser, 1983)? Would they pick up on James’ critique o f the culture?

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Initial responses indicated that with the exception of Candy and a few others,

most of the boys and girls in the morning class had difficulty with the novella. Half of

the students in the class volunteered their dislike for it in written responses. Although

more than half of the class reported that the story was “realistic for its time,” most

students reported that it was difficult to relate to the novella at all due to the fact that

“things have really changed and things are really different now.” They cited longer

courtships before marriage and diminished parental authority in their own society as

two examples of things that are different now. Almost all of the students, with the

exception of Alicia and Ellen (two immigrant girls who described their families as

traditional), had trouble understanding the kind of authoritarian father Catherine had.

Students also reported that they also found the novella difficult to relate with

because of what they called Henry James’ wordy and old-fashioned writing style. They

judged it to be slow, too descriptive, and too long. Students reported that they “were

quickly bored with it,” “were anxious for it to end,” and “would have stopped reading it

altogether but for the fact that it had been assigned.” “There wasn’t a whole lot of

style,” said Dale, one of the focus group participants in the A M class. “And, you’ve

gotta have style.”

In spite of their general rejection of the novel, like Candy, the majority did

report connecting with Catherine Sloper as she was portrayed in the earlier part of the

novella. Almost two-thirds of the boys and girls in the class related with Catherine on

the basis of their sympathy for her oppression by her father and her betrayal by Morris.

However, only one boy and none of the girls (including Candy) in the morning class

related with the Catherine who became strong in the end. Most of the students didn’t

see James’ critique of the treatment of women and patriarchal courtship in the novella.

They judged Catherine as flawed because of her eventual choice to be alone, and

indicated that that she was responsible for being ‘emotionally dead’ at the end because

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of her inability to move on. I concluded that the kind of resolution offered by James

might have been jolting to these readers. I assumed that they were more familiar with

romances in which endings either find the suffering heroine taken out of her misery and

rescued by the ‘prince,’ or abandoned in loss to pick up the pieces and start another

relationship (Walkerdine, 1984). Washington Square does not end with its heroine’s

triumph through love or even the hope of new romance, but rather in her triumph

through dignity, bom of acceptance, humility, survival and self-sufficiency. The

students’ disappointment and lack of understanding for Catherine’s singular status and

apparent contentment at the end of the novella echoed the confusion expressed by Dr.

Sloper and Morris Townsend who also question her decision not to ever marry.

In their written responses, all of the girls in Candy’s morning class rejected the

idea that the kind of sexism evident in Washington Square was at all present in their

lives. A few cited some difficulty bridging the cultural gap threatened their

appreciation of the book, saying such things as: “people no longer assume anything

about anyone because of age, race or gender but by personality.’’ However, most of

them used the rationale of the cultural gap to resolve the issue. One student stated that

“at first it was hard [to relate] with the book because I believe in total equality, but

since it was written so long ago, I tried to understand.”

Candy concurred with the girls, finding the relationship between Morris and

Catherine only realistic today in terms of the fact that some people still enter into

relationships for money. She, like most of the other students, however, found the

characterizations “realistic for their time,” although not for the present time. Ellen was

the only one in this class who found no cultural gap, claiming “I think that no matter

how old the book is, women and men have certain characteristics that will never go

away.”

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Responses from the boys in the morning class echoed the girls’ responses in

terms of a difficulty with cultural differences. “Things like this happened a hundred

years ago but not today,’’ said one boy, and “men don’t think they are better than

women anymore, ” declared another. In addition, the boys often expressed value

judgments about the ways in which Catherine was treated, which none o f the girls did.

"I didn't like the way the Dr. made Catherine seem worthless. Men had so much power over women. Catherine had no power."

“I fe lt pity for Catherine. She was being abused by both men."

All o f th e women seemed like objects as if they couldn't think for themselves."

“Women then had no say. They lived their lives for men. Their fathers chose the mates and they were like property. I t was terrible!"

One boy, however, held Catherine somewhat accountable for her victimization

by writing that “it was a pity that she allowed herself to be conned.’ And, another boy

expressed an awareness of and a reaction to the fact that “men looked like bastards in

the book. ” Only one boy in this class expressed the belief that Catherine’s submissive

status and the fact that she was judged on her beauty, were things that he sees in

everyday life today.

Interestingly, Candy would eventually rate her connection with Catherine as the

strongest of all connections with the literary characters read, because she too had been

“used by guys, not for money but for other things.” However, the connection would be

a one-on-one, personal one. She did not see the connection within the wider context of

a patriarchal society that, in my opinion, still defines women’s roles as submissive and

men’s roles as dominant in relationships. Her failure to see this as a pervasive cultural

problem may have been due to the competing and more consciously accepted image of

herself as a spirited, independent girl who is anything but oppressed by guys (Lewis,

1992). “I have no gender or sexist issues so they didn’t affect what I thought of the

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book,” she said. Though she knew she “had been used by guys,” she didn’t connect that

or the fact that she “was only appreciated for her looks,” with male dominance in

society or with W olfs (1991) beauty myth.

In addition. Candy had difficulty seeing what I believed to be James’ feminist

project. Unlike many other students, who claimed that “James was just telling a story,“

she did express in one interview, that James seemed like a feminist at the end of

Washington Square, but that she did not think he was at the beginning. She explained

that “in the beginning, Catherine was still listening to her father and doing what he told

her to do and didn’t start changing until the middle or end part.” She felt that later,

James was more of a feminist “because at the end she was fine by herself.” She

explained that when Catherine made the decision that she didn’t want the guy and she

didn’t want the money, she was happy just alone.” My suggestion that Catherine, the

victim,’ and Catherine, The sadder but wiser’ woman, fit together as two sides of the

same character created by the same author had no immediate effect on her. Though

Candy was beginning to see beyond the story as story, she and most of the others were

still resistant to consider the hand or the mind of the artist in the construction of the

story. Though she appreciated Catherine’s growth, she could accept that the story was

■feminist’ only if the character was 'feminist’ or independent and strong.

Discussion

The initial discussion on Washington Square confirmed some of Candy’s fears

about men using women—especially for sex and beauty. The discussion also succeeded

in putting into question some of the written responses which argued that the kind of

sexism evident in Washington Square was at all present in their lives. Although nearly

all of the students sympathized with Catherine, many boys said they easily understood

why a plain girl such as Catherine Sloper would not get many suitors (Lewis, 1990).

Many of the boys also understood why Dr. Sloper would want to protect his plain

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daughter from being used by gold diggers like Morris. They assumed the father knew

that men would not be interested in her for anything but her money. They explained

that physical attraction is more important for boys than it is for girls. One male student

admitted that he aspired to being the character in the story who married the lovely

cousin whose beauty was constantly contrasted with Catherine’s awkward plainness.

Believing that James was making a critical statement about a social system

which, among other things, focuses on external decoration at the expense of internal

beauty, I was disappointed to hear this student’s opening remarks over one hundred

years after James’ critique. I was particularly discouraged because I had decided to

begin the course with Henry James’s novella mainly because of what I saw as its not-so-

subtle challenge to women’s inferior status in turn of the twentieth century New York

society. 1 also saw the easy application of this challenge to women’s status at the

beginning of the twenty-first century. 1 believed that through this James novella, 1

could gently introduce the students to the subject of gender relations in romance, and

engage them in the beginnings of a conversation about the ethical implications of

gender inequality in literature and in their lives. 1 hoped to do this by referring to

characters engaged in, or victimized by sexist activity as critiqued by James. I assumed

his attitude to be closer to their 21st century paradigm than the perspectives evident in

some of the literature to follow. However, many students’ early responses indicated

either a difficulty with or a resistance to apprehending authorial attitude and, like

Harper’s (2000) girls, a lack of sympathy for victims of sexism and the double standard.

Though their comments echoed Morris’s, they were blind to the connection between

themselves and the objects of James’ critique.

As we shall see more clearly in the P M . discussion of the novella, Howard, a

student from the P.M. class and focus group participant, suggested in his initial written

response that he had seen evidence of the story’s stereotypical and sexist behaviors in

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his own life. He claimed that boys were still more interested in girls’ looks than in

anything else; that girls were still often used as trophies; that they were often seen as

second class citizens; and that fathers still controlled girls more than boys. Thinking

that this connection might inspire a similar recognition in the students in the morning

class, I shared his response with them. Students in the class did not take up that

discussion for more than a few minutes, preferring the topic of ‘marrying for money.’

For the time being, most o f the students in this class were not making strong

connections between the sexism in the story and any in present day society, even though

their verbal responses indicated continued sexism. For the most part, they focused on

financial issues and comforted themselves with the belief that these issues were

predominantly affecting the upper classes. People like them, in the middle classes, had

a better chance of marrying for love, they argued. Marrying for love was, for this

group, the only reason to marry. There was some discussion about the possibility that

Catherine and Morris could learn to love each other, and could be happy together in

spite of Morris’s initial love for Catherine’s money. However, most of the students

spoke from within the discourse that valorized a romantic ideology untarnished by any

practical considerations. Confirming the research, they believed that “in the long run,

sexual relations are ultimately channeled into monogamous relationships within a

context of romantic love ” (Taylor, 1993, p .133).

Critical Readings

Continued discussion of the book led my co-teacher Margaret Jackson and me to

the realization that James’ style, his upper class characters, and the time frame of the

novel, resulted in some confusions about not only plot and characterizations, but also

authorial perspective. We were disappointed that so many students had given so little

thought to the book’s possible meanings, had missed some important points of plot and

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characterization, had been blind to the tone, with little interest in determining James’

perspective.

I uphold Rosenblatt’s (1995/1938) view that “[l]iterature speaks to the reader in

literary experience because o f the synthesis of what the reader already knows and feels

with what the literary text offers” (p. 259). My students’ responses, however, did not

show the responsibility to the text that Rosenblatt insisted upon. Therefore, I decided to

encourage critical response by encouraging Bogdan’s (1992) call for students to

“supplant initial responses to a story with a more precise measuring of their responses

against a closer look at the text” (p. 121). She recommends re-reading texts, reflecting

on responses, and reading literary criticism as ways to begin to move students into the

critical realm. As the book was too long for a re-reading, I opted, at this point, to share

some critical readings with the students. My solution was to distribute critical readings

to them so that they could benefit from some scholarly perspectives, and possibly

expand their literary critical horizons.

I selected two critical pieces, one by Blackmur (1962) and another by

Wagnenknecht (1983). Essentially, they were meant to engage the students in critical

thinking about the literature, and provide models for ways of thinking about the story. I

included what I saw as Blackmur’s position that “Catherine had been progressively

tampered with . . . and eventually tampered with herself in response to all of these

tamperings” (p. 10), and Wagenknecht’s (1983) contrasting argument that “Catherine

alone among the characters in this novel, was capable of growth” (p. 72). The articles

did not effect too many changes. After the reading, most of the boys reiterated their

disappointment that Catherine “didn’t have a man in the end,” that she “blew Morris off

in the end,” that she was “responsible for being alone in the end,” and that “she should

have allowed Morris to come back. ” One summed up many of the boys’ responses by

saying:

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I f I were to rewrite the book, and edit what I wanted, I would have changed th e ending. In James’ ending, Catherine ends up alone and miserable. James leaves the reader thinking that she’ll not fall in love again, which I thought to be a pathetic end to a so-so book. Instead, Catherine should have been out and about looking for a true love in a new suitor. I found it humorous that James let the tamperage that Catherine received turn her into a failure, which is what her father perceived her to be.

He and one other girl from the class agreed that Washington Square had no

deeper meaning. The student wrote that she didn’t really understand why all the critics

were trying to get something out of the book. She didn’t think James meant anything by

the book. “He just sat down and decided to write a book,” she said. Many of the girls,

on the other hand, had different responses that, in my estimation, reflected some literary

growth on their part. One said that Catherine was a heroine in the end, risking the

mainstream way and not getting married. She suggested that she “became a role model

for all those girls.” And, another said, “Catherine did not need Morris to complete her

cycle.” Candy was one of the students whose ideas about the book developed as a result

o f the critical reading. This growth was particularly evident in her critical essays.

Critical Essav

When Candy had the opportunity to complete the assignment which involved

reacting to two critiques of Washington Square, she began to see the novella somewhat

more holistically, as a story dealing with the growth of the female protagonist from

dependent victim to an independent and self sufficient woman. Reading the critiques by

Blackmur (1962) and Wagenknecht (1983) clarified her own opinion on Catherine and

caused her to begin to see James’ hand in the narrative from beginning to end. The

writing of the paper helped her to capitalize on her strong connection with, and

sympathy for Catherine. It led her to develop a challenge to Blackmur’s (1965/1962)

claim that Catherine “tampered with herself . . . and tampered so deeply that she

excludes herself from all ordinary life” (p. 10). In challenging his opinion she also

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challenged some of the students who did not appreciate Catherine’s growth and

development in the book. This challenge represented her own rejection of other

students' idea that Catherine was emotionally dead at the end of the story. For her, it

seemed that blaming Catherine for what happened to her was tantamount to taking the

responsibility off the two men who were complicit in implicating her in a misogynistic

game of romance which in my opinion, James saw clearly and critiqued memorably.

She was beginning to interact with the text.

I believe that her struggle with Blackmur (1962) represented a struggle between

her own subconscious fantasy to be desired, loved and appreciated in relationship, and

her conscious belief in her own self-sufficiency (Brown and Gilligan, 1992). It also

represented her own struggle between her penchant for deferring to boyfriends’

opinions of her, and a growing awareness that that such capitulation is often done at the

expense of a woman's self-respect (Lewis, 1992). Finally, it represented a growth for

Candy that was similar to the growth experienced by Catherine. As a result of the

paper. Candy reported an awareness of a connection with Catherine that was based not

only on her deferential self, but on that side of herself that she so valued, and that she

now saw in Catherine -her independence.

By adopting Wagenknecht’s (1983) assertion that “Catherine’s great virtue lay

in the fact that she alone among the characters, was capable of growth’’ (p. 74), Candy

showed that she had brought together a pity for Catherine for missing the experience of

love, with a pride in her for turning Morris down in the end. Although Candy shared

with Catherine the dubious distinction of having been used by men as either trophies or

money magnets, it seemed to me, if not to Candy, that she also shared with her the

strong, independent nature which made itself known, by the end of the novel. In the

final analysis. Candy had begun to tap into her own independent side to connect with

the independent Catherine by means of the writing assignment.

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Continued Discussion (Interview)

Because I also wanted to raise students’ awareness of their own personal gender

issues, I had hoped that the novel would also have served as a vehicle for Candy’s

investigation of the anomaly at the center of her personal life and the social forces that

constructed it (Hines, 1997; Rogers, 1997). That anomaly was characterized by the fact

that she played the role of the typical girl, while insisting that she was not really like

that on the inside. It was also characterized by the fact that she formed her self-concept

from the ways in which males attended to her, while insisting that she was in charge.

That anomaly was still not obvious to her. Neither the preliminary discussion, nor the

critical reading and writing had stimulated a recognition of the formation o f Candy’s

own subject position as the passive party in her own personal relationships, or the

society's part in the construction of gender roles which privilege men.

I continued to struggle to understand what prevented her from seeing boys

“using her,’’ “not listening to her,’’ and “not caring what she was like on the inside’’ as

gender issues for consideration for her and other girls and boys living today. I even

asked her if she thought that she might be selecting the wrong partners or if she had

asked enough of these boys, as I had thought she deserved more, and should be

conscious of that. To her credit, she did consider the possibility of this. However, I

suspected that the answer lay deep within preconstructed fantasy levels about what it

means for a teenage girl to be ‘feminine’ and for a boy to be ‘masculine’ within a

heterosexual paradigm (Davies, 1992; Walkerdine, 1984). I also imagined that the

existence of such fantasy levels fit together somehow with her negative attitudes about

‘feminism,’ her resistance about being identified with feminists, and her belief in her

own independence (Harper, 2000). While she claimed that her experience with boys

made her “look on guys as the whole male gender,’’ she still stated after the writing

exercise that she did not identify herself as a feminist.’ She, like Harpers’s (2000)

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girls, argued that she had no gender issues in her life, and that as a rule she does not

resist sexist stereotypes in either literature or in life. In fact, she said, “I might even

reinforce them by being an ‘extreme girl’ as far as appearance, clothes and make up

go.

I feared that for Candy some resistance to feminism may even have been

reinforced a bit by having read Washington Square. Where a more traditional happy

ever after’ situation might have acted to temporarily resolve Candy’s conflicting

feminine identity issues by satisfying her desires for love and relationship, Washington

Square may have served to locate Candy in the middle of her struggle between romantic

fantasy and a more self-sufficient identity (Brown and Gilligan, 1992; Davies;

Walkerdine, 1984; 1992). Walkerdine points out that while feminist texts “might well

provide the vehicle of an alternative vision, for some readers, they may feed or fuel

resistance to the feminist alternative unless other fantasy resolutions are offered by the

text, fantasy resolutions that somehow operate on the level of desire and not reason”

(Walkerdine, 1984). Candy and others may have been experiencing a conflict between

a desire for knowledge and their embodiment as sexually desirable human beings,

which, according to Lewis (1990), lies just below the surface in a feminist classroom.

“Feminist politics,” says Lewis, “confront the compromises many women (and girls)

have made in their lives and in their relationships with men (and boys) (p. 481). Brown

and Gilligan (1992) found this to be true in their study of high school girls. They

pointed out that one by one, the girls revealed the inner division they experience in

adolescence as they feel compelled to “dismiss their experience and modulate their

voices in making the compromise between a relationship with themselves and other

women, and their romantic relationships with boys (p. 7).

Williamson (1981) states that “we cannot teach ideologies—or even teach about

ideologies, but only try to bring students to an understanding from their own

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experiences of the way that we are all caught up in ideological processes in our

everyday lives”(p- 137). Drawing from this point, I proceeded with some activities that

would promote experiences which I hoped would stimulate Candy’s personal

recognition (Dewey, 1922) and that of the others.

Social Imagination Activities

Humans develop through time and may only come to know who they are and who they might become by seeing how it is that they play various roles, inhabit various characters, or create new characters. Unless we can put ourselves in the place of another, unless we can enlarge our own perspective through an imaginative encounter with the experience of others, unless we can let our own values and ideals be called into question from various points of view, we cannot be morally sensitive.

Mark Johnson, 1993, p. 199)

In an effort to try to move Candy beyond her location at the center of her

struggle between romantic fantasy and an investment in independence, 1 attempted to

engage her imagination in the creation of an alternative relationship with the text. 1

hoped such a relationship might intensify her engagement with the text in a way that

would increase reflection on her own life (Greene, 1995). 1 strove to intervene and raise

issues with her to broaden the repertoire on which she was drawing to construct her

understanding of what it means to be female. 1 knew full well, however, that

“ [r]ecohstructing femininity in new ways is difficult and challenging because it involves

deconstructing dominant ideologies and challenging subjectivities” (Taylor, 1993, p.

136). Believing that the kind of consciousness that I wanted to bring about would

necessitate a stronger fusion between romantic fantasies and a persona of independence

and self sufficiency, I asked her and the others to create some “alternative fiction”

(Walkerdine, 1984, p. 184) by responding to the literature artistically. I adopted

Greene’s (1995) idea that the arts give rise to shocks of awareness that can leave us

somehow ill at ease, prod us beyond acquiescences, or “move us into spaces where we

can see other ways of being ” (p. 135). I hoped with Greene, Freire (1987) and Scholes

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(1985) that this approach to reading would in time move the students to wonder about

going beyond reading the world to “transforming it by means of conscious, practical

work” (Freire, 1987, p. 35).

1 provided a prompt for the writing of a letter (Appendix H) and Candy

responded to my request to create an alternative fiction by writing in role as Catherine

and delivering some lines that Catherine did not speak, but might have spoken, as the

“the sadder yet wiser’ Catherine at the end of the story. She spoke the following words

in Catherine’s voice:

I am going to do what I want to do whether you want me to or not. I t is my life, not yours. And, I will make my own decisions. Maybe I am alone but I still have myself (I guess).

Candy’s response illustrates the beginnings of a connection that Candy was

making not only with the two sides of Catherine, but with the two sides of herself. In

this response she exhibits an understanding of the Catherine that emerged at the end of

the story. She also shows her understanding of sacrifices that she knows that Catherine

(or she) would have to make to find resolution in terms of her lifestyle though the

dramatic positioning of her “I guess.”

The lines also expose the bifurcation that has and continues to characterize her

experience when it comes to romance and relationship. The T guess’ at the end reveals

her ambivalence about being alone and paying Catherine’s price of solitude for her

integrity and her self-protection. The exercise provided the stimulation for

contradiction that Kohlberg (1986) insists is necessary for the development o f moral

reasoning. The question is, will that awareness of the ambivalence and bifurcation

serve as a stepping stone toward increased self-knowledge? Will the awareness help to

integrate the parts of herself that represent the warring cultural messages that

contemporary adolescent girls experience (Brown and Gilligan, 1992; Christian-Smith,

1993; Taylor, 1993; Walkerdine, 1984)7

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While Candy wrote her response “to be directed toward Dr. Sloper,” it is hard to

read it knowing what we know about Candy's relationships with some boys. It is hard

to read it without thinking that it is her own cry for a new kind of determination to value

herself and her own desires as well as those of her boyfriends. Will the ‘I guess' lead to

questions that lead to further reflections on how boys and girls come to adopt the

particular subject positions they adopt in romantic relationships even today? Will those

questions be followed with more questions about the social forces pressuring them?

i j i f<T H E | Ç > Z O sI M t l Q Z O S

Final Project

Candy's final project was the construction of

a magazine that traced some of the gender

issues of the early twentieth century through

various media. It did not focus on Washington

Square, but did require a study of the feminist

movement in the 1920s which contributed to

her knowledge of the social forces.

Figure 4.1: Amanda’s Project

Reflections

My experience with the study of Washington Square with the morning class

shocked me into the awareness that as far as Candy and all but one male student

(Charles) in the class were concerned, gender issues of the kind that existed in James'

society, did not trouble their lives. At the same time. Candy said that boys were still

using' girls and were focused mainly on their looks; that “many girls are not

independent, and don’t know how to be;” and that many struggle for appreciation for

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the person they are on the inside. Candy struggles between being ‘■feminine’ within a

heterosexual paradigm (Walkerdine, 1984), and being an independent female.

Because students found it difficult to identify James’ tone and theme, they had

trouble making the connections that did exist between their lives and the characters’

lives. They had trouble in spite of the fact that the boys’ comments in the early

discussion betrayed their belief that girls would be considered desirable only on the

basis of their looks. Many resisted the idea that James had a point to make at all, much

less one that related to them.

For Candy, though not for others, critical readings did offer insights into her

connection with Catherine’s independent self as well her vulnerable side. And, while

the novella did not promote an awareness of the social construction of her subject

position within a sexist culture, writing in role helped her to begin to see herself as one

compromised between being true to herself and successful in heterosexual relationships

(Brown and Gilligan, 1992).

In Candy’s initial written response, she had reported that she “tried to put herself

in their [characters’] shoes to make a bridge but it was hard because of the time

difference and the fact that Catherine had let people run her life for so long.” By the

end of her study of this work, through essay writing, writing in role, and discussion

which “made her think about things more,” she had moved slightly beyond her initial

opinion that “this story could not take place now.” She now considered the ways in

which the story was relevant for her time, and for her.

Candy’s struggle helped me to understand the difficulties experienced by high

school girls in integrating their need for power, independence and equality, and the need

to identify themselves as ‘feminine,’ ‘pretty’ and ‘submissive’ in the traditional sense.

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MAYNARD (PJM.)

Stereotypes come from real example. They are not just plucked out of nowhere. They begin because that type of person does that type of thing. Stereotypes are not good, but a lot of the time they can be true.

Maynard

We tend to agree that women have been written out of the histories of culture and literature that men have written, that women have been silenced or distorted in the texts of philosophy, biology, and physics, and that there is a group of embodied beings socially positioned as ‘women’ who, now, under the name of feminism, have something quite different to say.

Butler, 1999. p. 324

Maynard, though a quiet, mild-mannered senior, was an active participant in the

discussions that took place in the afternoon class, particularly in terms of Washington

Square. His presence added a voice of reason to a group marked from the start by the

clashing of ideologies and strong personalities. Maynard often positioned himself as the

moderating influence on two students (Marie and Richard) whose oft-stated opinions

were diametrically opposed in terms of gender assumptions, religion, culture, and just

about anything else one could consider. This was particularly apparent during the

discussions of “Love and Marriage” by Emma Goldman and “The Gentle Lena,” by

Gertrude Stein. Maynard was able to bridge the gap between Marie, a fundamentalist

Christian female, for whom premarital sex, divorce, homosexuality, and feminism were

abhorrent, and Richard, who described himself as an atheist and a bisexual, open to

multiple alternative lifestyles.

Like Mark Twain, Maynard claimed to not like people (in general) but, unlike

Twain, he has sometimes tried to annoy them by wearing clothes that they (especially

baby boomers) won’t like, and playing his music loudly so as to annoy. He says the

music he refers to is metal music and German techno’. In my class, however, this

rebellious nature did not show itself. He impressed me as a really nice, polite and soft-

spoken kid with a great blend of strong masculinity and sensitivity. His remarks in

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class were always intelligent, well thought out, and considerate. Because he is a

thinker, his views were usually unpredictable. His long hair and black clothes didn’t

seem to put anyone off, including other staff members. One staff member pointed out

that “he wears black but seems nice,” and that he looks like a tough guy but isn’t.

Another claimed to be more impressed with him the longer he was at the school.

Several teachers said that he was not afraid to discuss and give his opinions in class, and

another referred to him as creative.’ One staff member pointed out that he had

overcome much adversity in his life.

In terms of adversity, Maynard talked about coming to terms with his father’s

death during his freshman year of high school. The death followed a long illness, many

hospitalizations and surgeries, and consequent financial problems and depression. He

and his brother were living with his dad at the time of the death, and had been since his

parents’ divorce when Maynard was three. His dad had been the primary care giver of

his childhood years. Because his dad was a working, single parent, Maynard was called

upon to do a lot of housework. He helped with the cooking, and learned a fair amount

about how to do household chores. Since his father’s death, he has been back living

with his mother, his stepfather, and his fifteen-year-old stepbrother. He remains

extremely close to his own twenty-one-year-old brother who is now in college. He has

a few close friends and a girlfriend whom he has been dating for about a year and a half.

In the future, Maynard hopes to work in the music production industry and,

because of his childhood experiences, is intent on having a very secure financial

situation. He has good feelings about marriage as the ultimate expression of love, he

says, and when his finances are secure, and if he meets the right person, he would like

to get married and possibly have children. “Kids are nice when you are older . . .to

know that you have helped someone grow and become something, and maybe get grand

kids even. But, when you are younger,” he says, “you still want to get out there and do

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things and be part of everything.” He hopes to have “a spontaneous job” where he can

go places and meet people and work with new things and new technologies. “It’s going

to be something where I am always active. I ’m gonna be in a city, and going places and

doing things all the time. So, it is going to be really active. So, that is why it will be a

while before I will ever settle.

In spite of the fact that he claimed not to like school, he has usually maintained a

‘B’ average. In addition, although he said that he does not like to read, preferring

listening to music and watching movies, he was always prepared in my class,

completing assignments and participating in discussions. He was actively involved in

the discussion of Washington Square.

Written Response

As in the A.M. class, students in the P.M. class reacted negatively to James’

writing and the book. In fact, nine of the fourteen claimed to have not liked the book

for reasons that echoed the morning class’s reasons. Only two students liked the book,

and both were focus group students (Sarah and Howard).

Again, to Margaret’s and my dismay, the students were, but for one, unaware of

a critique of the society James may have been making. Marie, one focus group

participant in the P.M. class who related to none of the characters, remarked that she

thought “it was one of the most pointless books [she] had ever read ” (Pichart and

Anderson, 1977). James “goes on and on with nothing to say,” she argued. “You read

to take you out of life and this doesn’t do it.” She chanted the feelings she experienced

while reading the book: “please let it be over; please let it be over; please let it be over. ”

While over half of the students responded to the initial written response prompts

(Appendix C) by reporting that the story was ‘realistic for its time, most students

claimed that they had some trouble appreciating the story because o f the fact that things

are so different now. “I am not submissive,” wrote JoAnn, who was also the student

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who had picked up on Jam es’ social critique. “I can’t relate with anyone who is

submissive because I never understood how someone could be like that. Girls are not

taught to be submissive as girls were then,” she wrote. Another student pointed out that

it was also hard to relate to the story today because “now parents do not tend to favor

boys over girls or because o f looks over intelligence anymore. Men and women are

considered equal.” A third girl agreed that the parental control and sexism in the book

was now passé.

Discussion

The first discussion was initiated by the girls’ responses. Although most of the

girls had reported in written responses that they had related to Catherine, in the

discussion, the largely female PJvI. class argued much more strongly than the male-

dominated A.M. group from a perspective that Britzman (1995) had dubbed

“heteronormativity” (p. 24). They posited that because Catherine did not engage in

another relationship, “she hadn’t come very far in the end” and “she hadn’t matured in

relationship.” One student said that “maturing in relationship meant being able to get

beyond the trauma of one painful relationship to be able to participate in another.” That

same student argued that “some happiness would be better than none.” She argued that

Catherine’s lack of self worth and integrity of commitment were responsible for her

final downfall. She said that she was “an inhuman, who neither loved nor lived and

exiled herself to her own private hell.” She called her “the one and only loser in the

story.” Only one student (JoAnn) related positively to what she saw as the stronger

Catherine at the end of the novella, pointing out that “Catherine became strong, and that

is better than any repeat of stories with endings like Cinderella. ”

Again, I believed that their arguments reflected a desire on the girls’ parts for

fictional resolutions more compatible with their romantic fantasies about ‘the happy

ending’ (Davies, 1992; Lewis, 1992; Taylor, 1993; Walkerdine, 1984). I also believe

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that their arguments reflected confusion about what to do with a heroine who didn’t find

love in the end. I suspected that their reactions were based in their conventional

romantic fantasies. I attempted to stimulate a consideration of James’ attitude toward

Catherine at the end, but failed to be able to effect that conversation. JoAnn, who might

have been capable of engaging, was quiet, and is a freshman reluctant at this point to

put forth her ideas in conversation.

The second part of the discussion was stimulated by the fact that three of the

four boys in this class had made strong connections in the initial written responses

(Appendix C) between sexism in the book and in their present society. Because none of

the girls in either class, (and only one boy in the A.M. class) had made such an initial

connection, I continued the discussion with the class hoping to translate a reaction to the

book into a conversation about their lives. “Men and women have not changed, Howard

had written. “I know girls who remind me a lot of Catherine.” Richard, a progressive

thinker and self-defined bisexual, had agreed, and had written that “the book is realistic

today because there is still an issue that there are less women bosses, less money­

making for women, and no women presidents. Although they have all their rights on

paper, they don’t necessarily have it all.” Howard claimed that “before the women’s

rights movement, a lot of women were like Catherine, afraid to take a stand when it

came to anything. He also said, “though women are now more liberated, there are still

Catherines who are taken in by Morrises.”

In spite of the fact that the girls had initially seen no connection between their

lives and Catherine’s in terms of dominant/submissive behavior between males and

females, Howard claimed in the discussion that he had seen a connection between

Catherine and girls of today. He had even recommended that several of his female

friends read Washington Square to gain some insight and self-recognition about their

floundering relationships and ill treatment from boyfriends. He claimed that he had

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recommended that they examine Catherine and her experience with Morris to gain

insight into their own lives. When I asked the girls in the class what they thought of

this, no one responded.

While this discussion stimulated an interesting investigation about sexism in

love and marriage then and now, there were no real resolutions. I followed up on the

discussion by administering the assignment I had given to the A M. class, assuming that

it would bring out new discoveries.

Critical Readins/Writins

The writing assignment in which the students responded to the criticisms of

Blackmur (1962) and Wagenknecht (1983) had a much greater effect on the students in

the P.M. class than it had had on the students in the AAÏ.class. While they started out

making little connection with Catherine, many of their initial written and verbalized

opinions were eventually tempered by the arguments of Blackmur (1962) and

Wagenknecht (1983). These critics helped them to begin to wonder about James’

project and to consider the value and the meaning of Catherine’s transformation at the

end. The initial written responses had reflected the mostly female class’ difficulty

relating with Catherine as she had developed in the end. The written critical papers

revealed deeper understandings of Catherine and more appreciation for her growth.

One girl pointed out that

Catherine changes much from the beginning of the book to the end. She went from always trying to please her father to standing up to him. At first I thought that she should have taken Morris back. But, now, after having read these articles, I have a better understanding as to why she did not. She had been through enough.

Another noted out that:

Blackmur made me see things I had not seen before, re: tamperage. But, we should see Catherine as strong in the end. She found out that she could live with being single.

A third added that:

1 6 1

I think people should se e her as a beautiful, strong individual in the end.She should be admired for realizing who Morris really was without her father deciding for her.

Maynard himself, although he still maintained that he did not like the book, appreciated

Catherine's growth into her own independent person in the end.

My personal opinion of Catherine is that at the beginning of the book, she was very timid and shy due to all the years she was insulted and verbally abused by her father. When she met Morris, she couldn't believe that he actually liked her. She was naive and had low self-esteem when she met him. He gave her confidence and a shred of pride in herself. The fact that Dr. Sloper told Catherine that Morris would never like her for anything other than her money probably didn't help with her already damaged self image. By the end of the book, she seemed more mature and experienced.She showed this when she turned down Morris and stood up to her father.As time passed, she got over Morris and grew up, so to speak.

Although Maynard had been affected by the critical readings, he had not been

one of the three boys making an initial connection between sexist behavior today and

that evident in Washington Square. While he found the book “realistic for its time”

because “women were still considered inferior to the men then,” he stressed that “now

women are considered equal and would never be treated like they were in this book.”

When I questioned him about what he thought James' project might have been in the

novella (hoping to then encourage a connection with sexism today), he answered that

James “was just telling a story” and argued that he was not trying to get any big point

across. When I suggested that some had argued that through the novel James was

presenting a feminist expose of the impact of late nineteenth century mating rituals on

women such as Catherine, he reiterated that he thought it was “just an entertaining

story” and that he saw no feminist perspective. “A lot of times people dig in too deep

and try to pull out something that this person might have had or done or believed in,” he

said. “[ can’t see him being a feminist or the story being a feminist statement at all.”

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My discussion with Maynard and other students again alerted me to students’

difficulty in picking up subtleties in the novel. I realized that in order for them to

identify irony, tone, governing ideologies, and gender representations later, they would

need to be better able to distinguish between the perspectives of the implied author, the

narrator, and the characters. To help them with that, I introduced them to some

narrative theory by providing them with a handout defining several terms. Among

those terms were: ’narrative audience,’ the audience a reader must pretend to join for

the fiction to work; ‘implied author,’ “that consciousness responsible for the choices

that create the narrative text; and the ‘narrator,’ the sometime reliable and sometimes

unreliable teller of the story (Phelan, 1996, p. 218).

The handout also provided Rabinowitz’s (1987) four types of reading

conventions to further help them improve their reading. They were: Rules of Notice,

for prioritizing certain textual aspects, i.e., titles, first and last sentences, etc.; Rules of

Signification, for inferring the significance of specific textual aspects; Rules of

Configuration, for inferring patterns to predict outcomes; and Rules of Coherence, for

conceiving how disparate parts of the work fit together (p. 112).

Both classes attempted to apply some of this knowledge in discussions about

Washington Square. I introduced them to some clues that illustrate how the text steers

readers into forming specific conclusions about Catherine, Dr, Sloper and Morris. 1

identified indicators that I believed were present in the text to substantiate my idea that

the implied author (Booth, 1961) favored Catherine, and not Dr. Sloper or Morris, and

that the novella critiqued the patriarchal mores of the day. To do this, I pointed out

differences between the narrator’s choice of words in descriptions o f Dr, Sloper vs.

Catherine. I also noted ironies set up through the Juxtaposition of Sloper’s view of

Catherine’s intelligence vs. that of her aunt and the narrator, and the treatment in the

end, of Catherine’s ability to transcend and triumph in dignity. I welcomed students’

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opinions but continued to persuade them to accept my point by citing the values in the

fiction that I thought evidenced James’ attitude. For, as Fish (1980) has said, '‘a teacher

will always have an opinion that s/he will want to argue and persuade others to accept,

and until he exchanges one opinion for another, s/he will not be able to see that s/he

should do anything but argue for his or her present opinion” (p. 359).

Maynard did begin to see the artistry. He did agree that Dr. Sloper was drawn as

the character not to be like, with the author trying to show how pompous he was. And

others saw that Sloper “had to be a caricature as no one could be that bad.” But,

Maynard, like many, stopped short o f seeing a central perspective, much less a feminist

one. When I pushed it a bit further, questioning him about the meaning of Catherine’s

triumph at the end of the novel and her contentment as contrasted with the losses of the

men, he again argued for it being “just an entertaining story.” He did identify with

Catherine, as he would eventually with Jay Gatsby, because of his value for true love.

Catherine was “looking for true love and to be happy for the rest of her life,” he said,

and “I somewhat know how it feels to not find it.”

In spite o f his sympathy for Catherine, however, his acknowledgment of

Catherine’s growth in the end, and his acknowledgment o f Sloper’s shortcomings,

Maynard made his most intense identification o f the semester with Dr. Sloper. He

based this connection on his understanding of how a father would react to a man

moving in on his daughter. “I felt kind of bad for her dad,” he said. “He was looking

out for his daughter’s best interests, even though he was being a jerk about it.” He

pointed out that while Dr. Sloper was a stereotype, stereotypes are reflective of reality

even today. “This is often an issue in sitcoms and in movies now,” he said. ’’There is

always a feeling of losing your territory.” He claimed that he understood Sloper’s

protective attitude toward his daughter. Sloper didn’t like or trust Morris, he said, and

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“while you might feel better about a guy you like moving in on your daughter, you

would still react negatively to anyone moving in on your territory.”

His understanding about Catherine’s need for protection from Sloper, and his

view of Catherine as her father’s ‘territory,’ startled me as it seemed suggestive of a

view of women as chattel. I challenged him to explore his identification with and

acceptance of this stereotypical father by contrasting a daughter's ‘need’ for protection

with a son’s lack of that need in more prevalent incidences of women pursuing men for

money and security. In response, he drew a clear distinction between this sort of thing

being seen as ‘mooching’ or even stealing’ in a man, and only a desire or need for

support in a woman. Clearly he still saw women as dependent and needing support.

Maynard didn’t deny what appeared to me to be his support of a double

standard. He admitted that he sees men as wanting to be in control, and said that in

social situations, they usually dominate. He said that he does not see this changing

because of fundamental differences in men and women. Women, he says, are more

emotional. “It is not a weakness,” he said, “but more of a handicap. They don’t seem

as established,” he said. He thinks they have characteristics that men could use,

however, like being nurturing and caring, and especially loving. And, he sees women

as a little more sensitive when it comes to emotional things, and not as angry as men.

“They don’t have so much hate,” he says. Fundamentally, he stands by a belief that

women are different than men and that they should stay that way. He sees the

difference, in good part, as biological, although influenced to some degree by society.

“It is not a coincidence,” he said. “I see it in males and females everywhere.” He said

he didn’t understand how anyone could think of the sexes as equal. “They should have

equal rights, but they are not equal at all.”

Because he sees the difference as predominantly biological, he believes that it

might not be a good thing to try to change that in the name of equality. “That might

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mess up something,” he claimed. “If it is true that it is biological, it might be that way

for a reason.” He said that he supports women fighting for the right to gain equality in

business and political areas, and thinks that that is happening. However, he thinks that

in social situations and relationships, “males are still going to try to be in control and a

lot of women are going to allow it.” I don’t know if that is wrong, he said. “Men

always seem to be at the top and the main focus o f whatever is going on in careers

because “men are the foundation of everything.” He does see that if he were female he

might be feeling limited because of problems with moving up in careers, getting respect,

and being treated as sexual objects.” Hearing his opinions made me wonder if these

arguments were an additional way for women to be kept down, and later used that as a

class discussion topic.

While Maynard does stand behind biological difference, his references to

changes in what women will put up with from men; what the law will now prohibit; and

the changes in relationships since the days of the Slopers, alerted me to a contradiction

at the heart of his argument. Following Harper (2000), I investigated that contradiction

as well as the discrepancy between his stated ideas about fixed gender identification,

and his admission of serious gender bending in his own life. Maynard claimed to be

happy being a male, and said that he does not feel at all limited by his gender. He did,

however, admit to an awareness that he does not strike some others as a conventional

male because of his long hair, his black clothes, and, as he says, “some feminine things

that I have done.” As a freshman in a traditional middle class suburban comprehensive

high school, he used to go to school with nail polish, rings, barrettes in his hair, fishnet

pantyhose on his arms, and legs and really tight shirts.” In his younger days, he says, “I

would do whatever I could to aggravate the masses.”

He admitted that he was completely aware that his ‘Goth’ appearance, and

related androgynous look’ made people uncomfortable, and even caused more ‘macho

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football player types’ to pick fights with him and call him ‘gay.’ “I would wear that

stuff and people would be sitting next to me and they would feel really uncomfortable

with it because they weren’t familiar with ‘the look’ and they were confused. They

didn’t know what to do around me; they didn’t know if I was a weirdo or if I was gay or

straight or normal,” he said. But, his campaign to ‘deconstruct’ conventional notions of

gender were rooted in a desire to ‘shake things up.’

What he seemed to be doing with this exhibition, was rebelling against

traditional gender stereotypes, and simultaneously attempting to show, like Candy

before him, that “what you see on the outside is not necessarily what you get on the

inside.” He seemed to be making an attempt to set up a distinction between the exterior

and interior gendered self. My challenge to him on the contradiction between his own

personal troubling of gender roles and his position on the biological imperative stated

earlier, was met with his distinction between gender differences which seem

fundamental vs. those that are simply decorative.

I t is more of what's on the outside that I have a problem with people judging. I t is more . . . because you are wearing this, or because this color is on your nails, that you are considered somewhat of a d ifferent gender.You are acting like a different gender, but what does that mean? That's society putting that on there. Society is saying that if you have paint on your nails, you are feminine because that's what women have done, not the guys. Girls have always worn dresses, not the guys. And, when someone, like a guy, wears that people call him gay because they think it's more what a woman should do.

Maynard said he reacted negatively to the ways in which others judged men

superficially, by calling attention to what he saw as non-essential indicators of

masculinity. On the other hand, he was not willing to engage in a challenge of those

‘superficial,’ non essential indicators of women’s femininity (beauty, submissiveness,

deferential behavior) by challenging them. He continued to hold the notion of

attractiveness to men as a measuring stick of women’s worth, not only in the men’s eyes

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but in the woman's eyes as well (Wolf, 1991). His double standard regarding beauty

was emphasized in a subsequent conversation about the lost dreams implicit in

marriage, emanating from Sherwood Anderson’s “The Untold L ie.” In this

conversation, Maynard identified the male’s fears regarding lost dreams as those

involving freedom, an investigation of the world, and being with a beautiful woman

who is not “a funny looking housewife. ” In contrast, he identified women’s fear of lost

dreams in marriage as those connected to male desires and not the women’s own, citing

loss of beauty, sexual attractiveness” (Taylor, 1993).

Maynord: Women can be very bitter about what has happened to them. I mean, there are a lot of reasons to say, “I used to have a nice figu re , and look at what happened to me because I had these kids" and “I used to be so pretty, and, now I am not as good looking as I used to be, and my husband doesn't find me attractive and doesn’t really care."

Pat: This business of looks . . . you have brought up its importance several times with women and not with men in reacf ing to the story. A critic called Rosalind Coward (1984) says that the emphasis on women’s looks becomes a “crucial way in which society exercises control over women's sexuality" (p.77). Do you think there is still a higher priority placed on how women look to men and on how women feel about how they look as opposed to how men feel about their own looks?

Maynord: I t is still important. You see it in movies all the time. There is a married couple and the wife is home while the man is at work all day. And, the woman, the most activity she has all day is going to the market to get food for the kids for th e dinner. They stay home all day in a robe while they vacuum and clean the house.

Pat: Is that real or is that a stereotype?

Maynard: It's real and a stereotype. There is a kind of mix there. But, I mean, you know. They stay home.

Pat: Do you think there are many people that are doing that these days, or is that some sort of holdover from the 40s and 50s?

Maynard: I t is less today, because you know, there are many women out there working. And, they have people taking care o f the kids. But, it is still here. And, there are always going to be housewives.

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Pat: Do you think that the way women look is still a centrally important thing for men?

Maynord: Yeah, it will always be.

Pat: Is that reciprocal?

Maynard: I think it is more prevalent for guys to judge women on their attractiveness because men are more superficial. Women can see through that more and look for a good man. But, it is still . . . yeah, you still have to find the man attractive, but it is more important for men because, you know . . . that is what we look for first.

Although he was, like Candy, located in a contradiction between traditional

stereotypes and a desire to explode those stereotypes, his ability to see through what

Judith Butler (1999) calls gender performativity in his own experience was not

replicated in any awareness about the superflcialit>' o f comparable female stereotypes.

And, his focus on the women’s ‘looks’ signaled a truth in Wolf’s (1991) argument that

the more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly

and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh on them. Wolf

(1991) claims that “[a]s women released themselves from the feminine mystique of

domesticity, the beauty myth took over its lost ground, expanding as it waned to carry

on its work of social control ” (p. 269). And, Maynard seems to confirm that women

must continue to value “beauty” because men value it in them, even if it is “because

[men] are superficial.”

Maynard’s ability to challenge male stereotypes, however, made me believe that

he was capable of engaging in an investigation about the ‘flip side’ superficial

indicators of women’s femininity and value, which Candy had experienced often, and

which James, in my opinion, was holding up for examination in the novel.

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Extended discussion

I drew on Williamson’s (1981) position that students learn about ideologies

when they actually have to confront them through a practical situation rather than a

purely intellectual connection. And, I began with Maynard by addressing the

similarities between his and James’ challenges to the kind of gender stereotyping which

results in people being judged and valued only in terms of superficial indicators.

Connecting Judith Butler’s (1999) ideas to Maynard’s story, I decided to 1). Introduce

him to as much as I thought he could handle of Butler’s notions of gender

performativity to “trouble” gender difference and stereotypes and 2). Stimulate an

ethical conversation about the ways Catherine and any contemporary versions of

Catherine were/are treated because of their female identities.

Essentially, Maynard had “troubled” gender constructs in the way in which

Butler (1999) attempted to trouble them: by insisting on gender performativity and the

use of parody to disrupt staid and confining gender identifications (1999). Butler’s

point is that gender is social artifice, and she argues that “what we take to be an

“internal” feature of ourselves is one that we anticipate and produce through certain

bodily acts, at an extreme, an hallucinatory effect of naturalized gestures.” (p. xv).

Performances involve gesture, dress, action movement, and language. In the treatise,

she uses performativity such as the ‘drag’ with which Maynard experimented to

illustrate a troubling’ of what we see as the reality of gender:

If one thinks that one sees a man dressed as a woman or a woman dressed as a man, then one takes the first term of each of those perceptions as the “reality” of gender: the gender that is introduced through the simile lacks “reality” and is taken to constitute an illusory appearance. In such perceptions in which an ostensible reality is coupled with an unreality, we think we know what the reality is, and take the secondary appearance of gender to be mere artifice, play, falsehood and illusion (p. 175)

Foucault (1980/1976) argued in The Historv of Sexualitv that the body is not

sexed in any significant sense prior to its determination within a discourse throughout

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which it becomes invested with an idea of natural or essential sex (p. 117). Butler

(1999/1990) drew from him in positing in Gender Trouble (as Maynard attempted to

demonstrate on his own), that there is no underlying, fixed, gender reality. She says:

That the gendered body is performative suggests that it has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality.This also suggests that if that reality is fabricated as an interior essence, that very interiority is an effect and function of a decidedly public and social discourse . . . . In other words, acts and gestures, articulated and enacted desires, create the illusion of an interior and organizing gender core, an illusion discursively maintained for the purposes of regulation of sexuality within the obligatory frame of reproductive heterosexuality (p.173).

When we behave in gendered ways, claims Butler (1999), we are not enacting

something that is already fixed in the world, but rather actually constituting it, creating

the social fiction that these gender differences exist separately from the acts and deeds

with which they are inextricably connected. Butler draws from Foucault’s notion that

any oppositional approach designed to disrupt the dominant systems of knowledge, may

always already be inscribed in what it hopes to transform (Foucault, 1980). She

suggests that the one avenue for agency in this hierarchical society is the road Maynard

took: the deliberate parodie repetitions of the original performance, designed to “compel

a radical rethinking of the psychological presuppositions of gender identity. This kind

of parodie repetition, she believes, would enact and reveal the performativity of gender

itself in a way that destabilizes the naturalized categories of identity and desire (p. 177).

1 thought that a connection between her work and Maynard’s actions was a way

in to a consideration of the social or performative construction of gender with the

students and an eventual ethical discussion about how women got to be subjugated and

why that system continues to stay in place. Maynard was trying to do what Butler

(1999/1991) was advocating: attempting to “invert the inner/outer distinction and

compel a radical rethinking of the psychological presuppositions of gender identity and

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sexuality . . . [to] compel a reconsideration of the place (emphasis Butler’s) and stability

of the masculine and feminine” (p. 177).

I briefly shared the information on Butler in the afternoon class, which drew

great interest only from Richard, the member of the afternoon class who had admitted to

being bisexual. He understood what Butler was saying perfectly, and her theory

addressed him personally. Others, including Maynard who did not make a cormection

with Butler’s ideas, seemed skeptical, however. Addressing the skepticism, I informed

the students that before Butler (1999), others such as John Stuart Mill had suggested in

The Subjection of Women, that “what is now called the nature of women is an

eminently artificial thing” (Mill in Nussbaum, 1999, p.40). Mill had concluded that

“women’s nature derives from and shores up hierarchies of power, and womanliness is

made to be whatever would serve the cause of keeping women in subjection” (p. 40), or

as he put it, “enslaving their minds” (p. 40). And, I pointed out that more recent writers

like Walkerdine (1984) had “argued that the conventional understanding of gender roles

was a way of ensuring continued male domination in sexual relations as well as in the

public sphere” (Nussbaum, 1999, p. 40).

After the discussion of Butler’s (1999) ideas of performativity and the others’

notions of gender identifications that are socially constructed to serve the interests of

men, I returned to Maynard with specific questions about Washington Square. I

assumed that anyone engaged in troubling gender the way he was, would empathize

with an author who, like James in my opinion, was engaged in an expose of the

treatment of the feminine gender. I cited specific lines from the novel wherein I felt

James (1959) troubled conventional ideas of femininity and a woman’s worth in terms

of beauty and cleverness in turn of the century New York society. This included

conversations about her cousin’s marriage; Sloper’s emphasis on Catherine’s plainness

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and dress; and Sloper’s remarks equating women with chattel evidenced by Sloper’s

conversation with Catherine when he has taken her to the mountains in Switzerland:

I have done a might good thing for him [Townsend] in taking you abroad; your value is twice as great, with all the knowledge and taste that you have acquired. A year ago, you were perhaps a little limited—a little rustic; but, now you have seen everything, and appreciated everything, and you will be a most entertaining companion. We have fatted the sheep before he kills it (p. 143).

I wanted to see if our discussions had resulted in any connections made between

his gender politics and James,’ attempt to address the limitations o f the gender

•constructions of his day (Hines, 1997; Rogers, 1997; Rosenblatt, 1978). I was

interested to see if his awareness about his own dissatisfaction with male constructs had

translated into either a consciousness of current female as well as male stereotyping, or,

into a resistance to the stereotyping o f women as well as men.

Pat: Did the conversation or any activities that we did with this book make you look at the situation at th e heart o f the book, and, say, “th ere is something wrong with the way that Catherine is treated in this novel by her father and her lover?" Did you say “I hope I don’t reproduce that kind of setup, that kind of behavior, or are you saying, “that is just th e way it is."

Maynard: That could very well just be the way it is, depending on the father . . . well . . . and . . . ju st depending on the father and the daughter and how naive he thinks the daughter might be, if she is not ready for this . . . if she is being taken advantage of . . . or if the father is very protective of the child. I t just depends on each family whether this might happen again.

Pat: When you read the book did you think that you didn't want Catherine to be treated this way? Or, that you didn't think Dr. Sloper needed to be taking on this kind of masculine protective attitude?

Maynard: Yeah. I fe lt sorry for her because she had never really been in with anything . . . because she was rather plain looking and nothing special.I fe lt sorry for her that this all happened to her. Yeah, but it is something that happens.

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Although he had seen and rebelled against the ways in which his own gendered

self had been constructed, his words showed that he still has not been as resistant to

constructs which keep women subjugated and men like Sloper trapped in controlling

positions (Martino, 1995). I wasn’t sure whether I was more disappointed in Maynard’s

failure to reflect on his apparent belief that plainness resulted in her being 'nothing

special’; his failure to challenge Sloper’s responsibility to ‘determine her readiness for

romance’; or his “it’s something that happens” response to my moral question. But,

reflecting on it, 1 am sure it is the last of the three. I had believed that James’ position

on Dr, Sloper and Catherine would “offer ethical education and stimulate ethical

imagination” (Nussbaum, 1990, p. 38) to Maynard and others when they read one of

James’ works. 1 had hoped that “this book would become” for Maynard, “a signpost, a

continuing presence in [his] life” (Coles, 1989, p. 68) that would give “a warning . . . to

take a hard close look at the world ” (p. 39). It did not turn out the way I had hoped.

Social Imagination Activities

“The imagination is what above all, makes empathy possible”

Greene, 1995, p. 3.

Social imagination activities often allow students to go beyond discussion to

connect with some deeper realities about a character. Through such activities, they are

often able to ‘see’ some previously unimagined significances of a narrative’s meaning

or theme, or to become more aware of their own personal responses to the literature

through experience (Dewey, 1922; Edmiston, 1998; Heathcote, 1984; O ’Neill, 1995).

1 hoped to deepen the class’ connection with Catherine’s situation and Sloper’ and

Townsend’s abuse of her by encouraging the students to construct “alternative fictions”

(Walkerdine, 1984, p. 184 through social imagination activities. I engaged the

afternoon class in the same activity as the one conducted in the morning class. Most of

the students, in their letters of advice to Catherine, warned her of Morris’ designs on her

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money and on her need to consider her father’s perspective in making her decision to

accept Morris. Maynard’s letter to Catherine followed that pattern.

Catherine:I think you should be more careful about this guy Morris you are with. You have to watch out for th e moneygrubbers. Do you think this guy really loves you? I hope for your sake he does. Your dad seems to be awful upset about all o f this. Just think about who you are with?

Unfortunately, this exercise did not lead Maynard into a deeper consideration of

the inequities in the gender roles in the story. However, it did illustrate his connection

with Dr. Sloper.

Social Imagination Activities/Final Projects

The use of social imagination activities in final projects resulted in deeper

reflection on the part of the students for Catherine’s difficult situation. One student in

the class, who had originally said that Catherine hadn't come very far in the end” and

that “she hadn’t matured in relationship, ” argued that Catherine's lack of self worth and

integrity of commitment were responsible for her final

downfall. To fulfill the requirement to create an ‘alternative

fiction,’ the student chose to make the red dress that

Catherine Sloper wore at the beginning of the story. She

chose it as a symbol because she thought it represented “the

beginning o f seeing how terrible Dr. Sloper was to his

daughter.” When Catherine walked through the door wearing

Figure 4 Catherine’s Dress

that dress her father said, ironically, “Is this beautiful creature my daughter?” (James,

1962 p. 22). Then he stated how beautiful her mother had been wearing that dress.

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To make the dress, the student formed the base out of wire mesh and then

covered it with a plaster paste. She painted the paste with acrylic red paint, and then

covered it with shattered red glass.

Her description of her sculpture of Catherine Sloper’s dress suggests that she

had moved from her original position to afford Catherine some dignity not previously

given, and to place the blame, not on Catherine, as she had originally done, but on Dr.

Sloper. She explained, “the glass is shattered to symbolize the sharp pain her father

bestowed upon her. The glass is heavy to symbolize the weight and pressure she was

given by her father to be a good woman.

By engaging imaginatively with the text, she was able to tap into another

interpretation of Catherine, which allowed this book to become a ‘signpost’ for her own

reflections and developments, than it had been. The dress served as a symbol. Through

it, the student was able to show how the weight and sharpness o f her feminine role

brought Catherine pain and suffering. She said that the activity clarified her view of

Catherine's oppression by her father and Morris. And, I think that her sculpture and

Candy’s poem could be brought together to make a creative statement about Catherine’s

ambivalence and struggle, and the ambivalence and struggle the girls experience as they

make their way toward a less passive subjectivity.

Maynard’s choice for the creation of an ‘alternative fiction’ was to use popular

music to enhance his understanding of characters and situations in the novel. I

welcomed this choice as tunes, rhyme schemes, rhythmic patterns and literary devices

such as alliteration, synecdoche, metaphor and metonymy can enlighten students to

unconscious moods and conflicts present in the literature. Also, themes and images

emerging from poems and songs can put students in touch with their own feelings and

those of the characters and writers. Maynard chose four songs; his first choice was “All

Over You ” by Live’ and illustrated “how Catherine felt when she and Morris were

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together. She was in love and happy that a man accepted her, not shunning her for

being plain.” Assigning the lyrics from this song to Catherine showed a growing

consideration of the feelings that Maynard had not shown evidence of having reflected

upon earlier. Through this song, he lets her (and himself) speak o f the initial joy of her

relationship with Morris, showing his awareness o f her aborted happiness. This

represented his deepening understanding of her circumstances and showed that he had

internalized her perspective. The song reveals the speaker/Catherine’s emotional

complexity as she experienced this joy even in the face of the acknowledged threat that

the “angel” will be “pinned down and abused” by her father. Dr. Sloper. Before long,

however, Sloper does darken the day and pin down the angel.

Maynard's second tune is from Sloper’s point of view and is directed toward

Morris. The contrast between the imagery of brightness in “All Over You” with the

darkness of “Swamp Song” illustrates the distinction that Maynard drew between

Catherine’s lightness with Morris, and the harshness of Sloper’s perspective. Looking

more closely at the song, however, one sees that it reveals the understanding of Sloper’s

feelings toward Catherine, which Maynard claimed to have understood -throughout the

class. The authoritarian tone of the speaker almost suggests jealousy, rather than anger,

and reveals the depth of Sloper’s pain as Maynard has imagined it. The lines “so

suffocate,” “get out while you can,” and “No one told you to come, I hope it sucks you

down,” suggest a desperate Sloper rather than a diabolical one. This may account for

Maynard’s sympathetic attitude toward him and helps to explain it. In a further

exploration of that response (Bogdan, 1997), Maynard explained that Sloper may have

reacted the way he did out of jealousy, suggesting that Catherine’s marriage would

leave him alone once again. He substantiated this by arguing that James had portrayed

Sloper as having been grief-stricken at his wife’s death and that Catherine’s departure

would also be devastating.

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His final choice was “Fell on Black Days” by Soundgarden. He described it as a

song about what you thought your life would be before it changes for the worse.

Catherine wasn’t expecting Morris to leave and she had to learn to live without him.” he

said. Again, he put himself into her role, allowing himself to express her heartbreak.

Here Maynard speaks in Catherine’s voice to express the true pain of “doing time” for

Morris in her “Black days.” Like Maynard, I find the pathetic wail o f “How would I

know that this could be my fate?” a particularly poignant expression of Catherine’s

grief, especially when seen in juxtaposition with “Just when every day seemed to greet

me with a smile.” This expression of Catherine’s grief is particularly interesting when

juxtaposed with Candy’s final utterance, spoken in Catherine’s voice. Both show the

depth of Catherine’s response. Candy, in the end, expressed her connection to the

stronger side of Catherine; and Maynard allowed himself to experience the pain of the

woman squeezed between Morris and Dr. Sloper.

Reflections on P.M. Class

Most of the students in this class experienced what Soter (1997) calls ‘aesthetic

restriction,’ and did not appreciate the text because they saw little relationship between

their culture and James.’ In addition, they argued that sexism was now passe'. Their

failure to see James’ critique further prohibited them from fully appreciating the

novella. Thus, this part of the study substantiated Jauus’s (1982) claim that “we never

come to cognitive situations empty but carry with us a whole world of familiar beliefs

and expectations” (Jauss in Godzich, 1994, p. 41).

Three of the four boys in the afternoon class saw a link between Catherine and

girls today, arguing that they knew girls who reminded them of Catherine, and that

“although girls have all their rights on paper, they don’t necessarily have it all.” No

girls in this class saw what the saw. My attempts to bring the students to an awareness

of some comparable limitations in contemporary times were somewhat successful. The

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literary criticisms resulted in critical essays that showed more sensitivity to Catherine’s

plight than was evident in the morning class. And, the imagination activities did foster

an introduction to an understanding of Catherine’s position for Maynard.

However, while Maynard was able to sympathize with Catherine’s position, he

found himself more connected to Sloper and sympathized with his choices (Golden and

Guthrie, 1986). This was part of the reason that he had some difficulty connecting with

James' perspective. While he posited that sexism was passé, unlike the three boys in

the class who saw sexism in our society, he vigorously supported a double standard and

an acceptance of women as territory.’ The contradiction at the center of his argument

had him engaging in ‘gender bending’ to discourage his being identified by non-

essential traditionally ‘masculine’ attributes, while hesitating to engage in the critique of

women being seen in terms of non-essential feminine,’ categories.

My attempts at a dialogical approach with him failed to change his perspective.

Maynard did, however, tap into an awareness of Catherine’s position to some extent

through the critical readings. He also tapped into an awareness of Catherine’s position

through the imagination work he did with the music in the final project. However, he

mainly used the activity to explore Sloper’s character.

Conclusion

The study of Washington Square revealed an acceptance of traditional sex role

stereotypes on the part of the two focus group students and the majority of the boys in

the AA1. class. Ironically, with the exception of three boys in the P.M. class, and one

boy in the A.M. class, the study also revealed that most o f the boys and girls in the

larger group do not believe that their lives are troubled by the sorts of gender-based

limitations evident in Washington Square.

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“LOVE AND MARRIAGE”

By Emma Goldman

A FEMINIST APPROACH

Choice

The second literary work was “Love and Marriage,” by Emma Goldman, whose work follows chronologically after Henry James. She provides a radical twentieth century view on sexism that I wanted to share with the students to stimulate a consideration of an alternative perspective.

Synopsis

“Love and Marriage” is an example o f the speeches and essays that Emma Goldman wrote in the early part of the twentieth century. As a feminist, anarchist, and labor activist. Goldman promoted ideas, which were radical for their time. Goldman spoke on the subject of love and marriage to enlighten women to the ways in which traditional marriage robbed them of freedom and independence, not to mention love. The essay promotes the idea that love is a spiritual connection, and marriage economic systems of controls, by which women are reduced to slaves and dependents, chattel and second class citizenship.

Mv Reading

Goldman was a true iconoclast who was ahead of both her time and the second

wave of the feminist movement, which would take shape long after her death. Her

essay shows her ability to see how traditional marriage stunted women’s growth and

curtailed their freedoms—all in the name o f love. Goldman (1969/1911) spoke out to

prevent a continuation of the kind of institution which robs women of their names, their

self respect, their economic independence, and their ability to perform as productive

members of society, substituting ownership for love between equals. Her words inspire

women today to resist the romanticizing of patriarchal marriage, which still subjugates

women, though in more subtle ways. They encourage us to develop an institution

through which men, women, and love may flourish.

Note: See Chapter Four Introduction for an explanation of my decision to describe the

larger group’s (A.M. and PA/I.) discussion o f Goldman’s essay “Love and Marriage” in

dramatic, rather than narrative form.

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FEMINIST RALLY AJM7PJVI. mix).

LIGHTS UP UPSTAGE RIGHTEmma Goldman, Feminist speech; kids in audience listening. W omen’s Flag in background

Emma: Marriage and love are not synonymous. They have nothing in common. They are as far apart as the poles. Marriage has nothing to do with the continuation of love.

Marie: That is ridiculous! Of course it does!

Charles: Marriage has nothing to do with love. If you love a person you don’t need a contract. Love should be enough.

Joe: You don’t have to have a ring on your finger to have love.

Marie (to Joe): If that isn’t love, what is?

Hillary: She doesn’t like the whole idea of marriage.

Richard: Marriage is a piece of paper and love is forever,

Maynard (To Marie): The idea that marriage and love have nothing in common is one of the worst things I have ever heard.

Marie (to Maynard): I don’t think she understands.

LIGHTS OUT

SCENE #2 TV POLITICAL RALLY

(A M yPM . mix).

LIGHTS UP, DOWNSTAGE CENTER

Emma Goldman, Feminist Leader, speaking on TV; Kids watching in living room

Emma: Love needs no protection. It is its own protection. Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact. If a woman’s premium is a husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, and her very life, “until death do us part.’’ Moreover, the marriage insurance condemns her to life-long dependency, to parasitism, to complete uselessness.

Marie: She is like attacking women!

Brenda: She is not attacking women, she is attacking men! She is saying women are second class. Has she been married and had like a hard time or something? To some people, marriage is the best thing in their whole life. She is making marriage such a bad thing when it is not! She is trying to take what is a generally accepted thing and poke a hole in it! Her marriage opinion just bothers me.

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Candy: She is not bashing men, but when women get married the men take over.

Peter: Once she marries the man, she loses individuality.

Alicia: Is she saying it is the men or the institution?

Dale: If she is not bashing men, how is it that this happens in the institution? Instead of bashing men she is trying to empower women, and in so doing, she is raising women above men!

Alicia: No. She is saying, “girls, girls, girls, look what is happening to you!”

Raoul: It is just like you women to shut us up. Yes, we must have marriage. We must control you!

LIGHTS OUT

SCENE #3 LABOR RALLY

(PJVI. class)

LIGHTS UP: DOWN STAGE LEFTEmma Goldman; Labor Organizer (ROSIE THE RIVETER FLAG BACKGROUND

Emma: The woman considers her position as a worker transitory, to be thrown aside for the first bidder. Has she not been taught from infancy to look upon marriage as her ultimate calling? Marriage guarantees woman a home only by the grace of her husband. There she moves about, year after year.

Hillary: She is down on women who would stay home. I have a problem with what she is saying. My mother has stayed home and is a housewife. My mother is completely content staying home and taking care of my brother and me . . . making us nice dinners. That is what she likes to do.

Howard: It’s a wakeup call. That’s all it is.

Richard: Yeah, she is telling women to wake up and see that women are being treated poorly and are lower because they take it. Stop being subservient! Mute beast fattened for slaughter, a parasite, an absolute dependent!

Sarah: Girls still dream of the big wedding. They will buy the dream house like Ken and Barbie. It is still a typical belief.

LIGHTS OUT

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SCENE #4 ANARCHIST RALLY

(P.M. class)

LIGHTS UP, DOWN STAGE RIGHTSpeaker: Emma Goldman Anarchist (FLAG EST BACKGROUND)

Emma: Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy: how can such an all compelling force be synonymous with that poor little state and Church-begotten weed, marriage?

Marie: The part about the church is outdated. You have to be counseled before marriage now. The church is very careful about that stuff, actually. They have something to offer. They are not being controlling.

Sarah: It would have been more acceptable for my grandmother to kill her abusive husband than divorce him.

Kelley: Men and women of some religions must get married because without it, living together is unacceptable. Marriage is too institutionalized. And if you get married and are miserable, why are you gonna stay with it? Someone could kill you!

Marie: Because you are living for someone outside of yourself. Because you have a cause. If isn’t about you and what is good for you but another.

Margaret Jackson: Are you saying that if your life is in jeopardy you should stay?

Marie: But, where do you go that isn’t an abusive situation?

Margaret Jackson: Are you saying that if my husband is beating me . . . are you actually saying that it is not a cause to do something about it?

Marie: I don’t want to say that people should stay in an abusive relationship. But,there is the heat of the moment.

LIGHTS OUTSCENE # 5 .

SCHOOL (AJM. class)

LIGHTS UP, DOWNSTAGE RIGHTTeacher (reading Emma’s words): The less soul a woman has the greater her asset as a wife, and the more readily will she absorb herself in her husband. It is this slavish acquiescence to man’s superiority that has kept the marriage institution seemingly intact for so long a period. We have not yet outgrown the théologie myth that woman has no soul, that she is a mere appendix to man.

Dale: The word 'dyke’ comes to mind when I listen to her, here. Bitter and hateful toward the opposite sex. She is totally talking about how men control women. She seems really bitter about relationships and men whether they may be controlling or not. She seems falsely upset about al lot of stuff.

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Rob: I think she just wasn’t getting any.

Steve: I think she’s a lesbian.

Pat: That is not true. She had lots of men.

Steve: Are you serious? She is so gross.

Pat: I am telling you . . .she had lots of men.

Raoul. Lots of ugly men.

Pat: There was beauty in her soul. You sound like Dr. Sloper

Jim: Look at her (a picture). She is so ugly. She had lots of men, so she didn’t know what love was.

Teacher: How do you know she didn’t know what love was?Girls, what do you think? The guys are saying she is angry with men. Is that what is she saying? That they are being controlled and oppressed? Was it the case in her time? Is it the case now? You are young women. This is your life we are talking about. What do you think?

Girls: no response

LIGHTS OUT

SCENE #6 COLLEGE GRADUATION

Emma Goldman: Graduation Speaker (AAl. class)

LIGHTS UP, UPSTAGE CENTER

Emma: Now that she is coming into her own, now that she is actually growing aware of herself as a being outside of the master’s grace, the sacred institution of marriage is gradually being undermined.

Steve: She shouldn’t have pointed the finger at marriage or men, but at women for letting that happen. If some women didn’t want marriage, it wouldn’t happen.

Charles: I don’t think it is the woman’s fault, because if you are told something from the time you are bom, it is hard to get out of it.

Maynard: This is all outdated because now there is equality between men and women.

Brenda: Marriage was probably not as great then as it can be now.

LIGHTS OUTTHE END

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Reflections

By dramatizing a series of discussions on “Love and Marriage" in both classes, I

have attempted to capture the students’ traditional perspectives on marriage and the

level of resistance with which they responded to alternative notions of marriage and

relationship rather than taking up her ideas for consideration. By combining their

remarks into dialogue, and juxtaposing them with Goldman’s critical perspectives on

marriage, I have been able to demonstrate the larger group’s general response (and the

• responses of most focus group members) to this work in a more dramatic fashion than

would have been possible through extended narration.

In assigning the essay, I had hoped to foster students’ consideration of

Goldman’s critical views on the effects of marriage on men and women. I hoped that

while they might not accept some of Goldman’s views, they might consider them as

they reflected on traditional patriarchal marriage. While I expected them to resist some

of her ideas, I was not prepared for the level of resistance to and rejection of her

critique, as her ideas hardly seem as radical today as they may have in 1912.

Most of the students defended the value of the traditional institution of marriage

without reflecting at all on the possibility that it might have privileged one sex over the

other. Many of the girls were unable to distance themselves from the status quo in order

to hear’ her objections to women’s identified sacrifices in marriage, without assuming

that she was either attacking women or attacking men. Of the larger group participants,

only Candy could admit that men take over in marriage, and only Sarah could see how

the “fairytale marriage ” continues to lure women into potential subjugation. Her remark

that “it would have been more acceptable for [her] grandmother to have killed [her]

abusive husband than divorce him ” would have seemed funnier had Marie not resisted

divorce even in the face of abuse, accepting the existence of abuse in the name of living

for another. Only Alicia was able to make the distinction between an institution and the

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men and women in it. Even when that distinction was made, some of the boys

continued to insist Goldman was bashing men because of her critique of an institution

which limited the men and women of her time.

The most frightening aspect of the investigation was the ways in which some of

the boys resorted to name calling and blaming women for the problems Goldman

identified. They reacted to her charges by calling her “bitter,” “hateful,” “gross,”

“ugly” and a “dyke,” apparently assuming that these labels would diminish her

credibility. These retorts and Steve’s remark that Goldman shouldn't have pointed the

finger at marriage or men, but at women for their part in the undermining of marriage as

an institution, were tactics that not only validated Goldman’s remarks but also served to

intimidate those sympathetic with Goldman's point of view. Of the boys engaged in the

conversations, only Charles was able to see the distinction Goldman made between love

and marriage, and only Howard and Richard were able to see the essay as the wake up

call I believe it to be.

The resistance (Harper, 2000; Lewis, 1992,) shown by Brenda, Marie and

Hillary, to the critique of the subjugation of women and women’s acquiescence to male

superiority was even more astounding than many of the boys’ reactions to Emma’s

looks and her suggestion that women played a submissive role in relationship. But their

responses supported what Davies (1992), Martino (1995), Lewis (1992), Obbink, (1992)

and Walkerdine (1984) have argued with respect to the ways in which girls and boys

continue to be unconsciously enculturated into traditional gender and relationship roles.

Their responses also validated Walkerdine’s (1984) argument that rationalist anti-sexist

literature fails at reaching girls and boys if it assumes that a passive reader will change

as a result of receiving the correct information about how things really are (p. 164).

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“THE GENTLE LENA”

By Gertrude Stein

ISSUES OF ENFORCED HETEROSEXUALITY

DALE AND SARAH

We all operate within a particular language, culture, social formation, and historical moment, collectively referred to as language or discourse (Marshall, 1992). This language shapes who we are, what we can say and know, how we think, what we can mean, what vexomes visible and what is possible. W illett, Jeannot, 1993, p.483

Choice

Before introducing the works of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Anderson, I decided to introduce a story by Gertrude Stein. This work, which chronologically fits in here, is beginning to make its way into the canon. In addition, after having seen their responses to Emma Goldman, I wanted to present the students with a fictional account of compulsory marriage to provide them with yet another view of marriage to consider.

Synopsis:

This story by Gertrude Stein is one chapter in the novel. Three Lives (1906). In the story, Lena is brought over from Germany by her aunt, Mrs. Hay don, to live with and work for her family. She is discriminated against by the other children in the family for being second class, German, and a bit on the naive and slow side. At a certain point, Mrs. Haydon decides it is time for Lena to get married. She contacts her friends the Kreders, and they all decide that Herman Kreder and Lena should get married. Lena isn’t really interested in marriage, as she is happy just being with her girlfriends, for whom she experiences ‘gentle stirrings.’ that she cannot define. But, “it never came to Lena’s . . . nature to do something different than what was expected of her just because she would like it,” so, she goes along.

Herman runs away to his sister’s house right before the wedding. He isn’t interested in marriage either and much prefers to hang around with his male friends. He does not appreciate women and has no interest in having them around. Despite this attitude, his father goes after Herman, explaining to him that “a bargain is a bargain.” His sister “did not want him not to want to be with women,” and talks him into going back with the father, explaining that marriage would “do him good.” He returns, and he and Lena marry. Lena becomes less and less interested in taking care of herself, and has less and less interest in life as the years go on and the babies are bom. She has no interest in babies either, as opposed to Herman who does enjoy raising the children. She eventually fades away in this relationship, becoming weaker as the years go on, and eventually dies giving birth to her fourth child.

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Mv Reading

In the story, Stein is attempting to subvert the dominant story line in romance

genre that posits marriage as the only possible ending, and marriage and motherhood as

the ultimate satisfaction for women (Harper, 2000, p. 22). Essentially, she attempts to

disrupt the system of compulsory heterosexuality (Butler, 1990; Rich, 1972;

Walkerdine, 1984) and its required ‘happy endings’ that fail to raise alternatives and

signify closure by indicating only one kind of future. By writing what reads like an

allegory, Stein has Lena's semi-catatonic character sleepwalking through the marriage

to her death, the ultimate result of this enforced heterosexuality and the hegemonic

system, which undergirds it.

DALE (AJM.)

We have been conditioned since birth with fairy ta les about knights and princesses, fair maidens and princes, stu ff like that, where we have come to accept an ideal of heterosexuality and may not even realize everything that is going down with us. We get this idea of what is normal and we chase after it until we either catch it or we get too tired of chasing a dream and die. Dale

Dale is an extremely bright seventeen-year-old junior boy and a happy member

of both his school and his family communities. He lives with his parents, both

professors, who have been married for twenty-seven years. “They try to oppress me but

not very hard,” he says, “and we are all cheerful.” His hobbies include seeing and

analyzing films, hanging out with his girlfriend, listening to music, playing video games

and wishing he were in a rock and roll band. With respect to religious affiliation, he

describes himself as agnostic.

Dale is the king of the witty repartee. He contributed to literary discussions

more often and more enthusiastically than any other student in the combined group did.

Much of the conversation in the A M . class was either initiated or enriched by him.

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And, discussion suffered when deprived of his contribution. He always came prepared

for class and always promptly handed in assignments. In general, he showed a high

interest in the class and the literature, and a strong desire for literary exploration.

He has a girlfriend, a few close friends, and a smattering of acquaintances who,

he says, see him as funny and silly. He is well liked by friends and staff, and is

generally successful at school. He does not like school, he says, but knows he needs it.

Most staff members enjoy him very much and appreciate his intellect, but think that he

does not work to his potential. And, he admits he is lazy. However, in this year, he

successfully taught a film class at the school. Film is his passion.

He is conflicted about his feelings about feminism. On the one hand, he admits

to guilt by association, and, he credits his mother for the awareness he has about gender

issues, such as the wage gap, the pressure to perform certain tasks, and the fact that it is

more acceptable for guys to be wrapped up in work than it is for women. He is also

conscious of how ingrained some gender prejudices are, even in himself. On the other

hand, he has a negative perspective on feminists. “While some of their causes are just,”

he says, “there is a caricature that makes young people not want to-get on board.

Society has characterized them as shaved headed, lesbian, butch, mean people, which

really isn’t accurate, but I still react to that stereotype.” He was the student who, when

responding to Emma Goldman’s point about women in the teens being an appendix to

men in marriage, said, “the word ‘dyke’ comes to mind when I listen to her.” However,

he says he thinks feminism itself should be called humanism’ and not ‘feminism’ “so

we can unite rather than divide and embrace the oneness in terms of gender and sex.”

He has often reacted negatively to some feminist literary criticism as well.

When reflecting on Leslie Horst’s feminist reading of Kesey’s (1969) One Flew Over

the Cuckoo’s Nest, which suggests that Kesey attributed society’s problems to the

women, he said that the critique “is defensive to the point that it turns around and starts

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to do the same thing that it is criticizing. It bothers me because it is not any better.” He

also admits that he does not like to think o f literature in terms of author’s sex role

stereotyping of characters because it lessens the enjoyment. “Reading is supposed to be

a form of entertainment . . . so you don’t want to be just looking for that stuff and

overlook the good things in the story. ” On a personal note, he thinks that feminists have

taken some things too far . . . like open doors for women. “I started opening doors for

girls because it made me feel slick and James Bondesque,” he cracked. “I don’t want to

stop.”

He does, however, see gender as more of a construction than a biological

imperative and while he thinks feminists have taken things too far, he says that he is “all

about bending gender” himself. He thinks that it is a combination of fun and a

statement which says ‘don’t accuse me; 1 will accuse myself.’ He has admitted to an

understanding of confusion about sexual preference and of the ways in which society

pushes role-following. When I asked about the trend of many kids declaring themselves

bisexual and bending gender, he said that he believes that gender is the last, or at least

the latest frontier of civil rights— “the next battle that everyone is going to be having. It

is the whole. I’m black and I’m proud of it thing,’ only being gay, and not black.” He

thinks that throughout history, we have had these two separate little groups of people

with the girls and the guys, and this is a way o f not even having to be that separate

anymore, and allowing everyone to be the same.

Written Response

Dale made his most intense connection of the course with the character of Lena

in Gertrude Stein’s “The Gentle Lena. ” He understands, he said, how she got shoved

into something because she didn’t know what she wanted. He relates to that, and he

found a point where no one else did—that the story was a metaphor for ideological

coercion. As opposed to the other boys and girls in the A.M. class, who reported that

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they thought the narrative was ineffective and dull, repetitive, uninteresting and

simplistic. Dale pointed out in his response that the simplistic form “revealed a

complexity beneath the surface.” Other students in the class felt that a situation like the

one in “Lena” was unrealistic for today because no one is still as lame or slow as Lena.

They also argued that people now would say ‘no’ to parents pushing them into

marriage. Dale disagreed, pointing out that:

I t still happens; it's not like something that just happened in the early 1900s. You could be Lena now. Lena's been going through life just trying to make the best of things. She moves on with life and then she meets this guy and keeps telling herself that she's going to get through it and then she dies.

Discussion

The class struggled to identify a message and to make some connection with the

story in early discussions, but to no avail. They argued with and heatedly repeated the

attacks that they had leveled against Lena in their written responses, calling her

“mentally handicapped,” “cardboard,” “oblivious,” and a waste of skin.” Dale also

argued that the repetition and slow pace of the story were devices used to develop her

theme and build characters. One student from the class retorted that he could have

written the story when he was in kindergarten. That student, looking for support for his

distaste for the story, finally asked me what I thought of it. I confessed that I focused

more on what Lena had to say than on her repetition, but agreed with Dale that in some

way the repetition helped to develop Stein’s characterization of Lena as well as her

theme. I offered up my idea that Lena might be suggestive of people who are herded

into particular behaviors by society. I was hoping to bring about the awareness of the

allegorical and metaphorical qualities of the story. I asked, “Does she represent people

who sleepwalk their way through life?” “Is she comparable to the plain and simple girl

who does what her parents tell her?” and “Is she blind to alternatives?” Margaret

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Jackson asked whether Stein might have been saying that the patriarchal society turns

these people into sheep. From there, the same student asked why Lena was so stupid,

and this time Charles responded by saying “that is all society expects from her.”

Charles, who was beginning to see Dale’s point as well as mine, went on to

explain that “she’s a childlike little person and that was why it was written in a childlike

little form.” Dale agreed, saying that her whole situation was built around how

childlike she is. Charles then realized that “at that time, a woman’s societal duties were

to grow up, get married and give the man children.”

In attempting to bring the story into the students’ present day consciousness to

stimulate engagement (Bogdan, 1990, 1992; Hines, 1997; Jauss, 1982; Rogers, 1997;

Rosenblatt, 1978; 1995; Scholes, 1985), Margaret and I tried to lead the students into

some awareness of a current situation that might elicit a ’sleepwalking type’ response in

them—a situation in which they were coerced to behave in a certain way. They had

shown much difficulty in understanding why Lena could not just say no’ when there

seemed to be few pressures of this sort exerted. I somehow had an idea that things

hadn’t changed entirely since I was a girl, and Sandra Taylor’s (1993) research had lent

some credence to that. She found that “[f]or teenage girls, relationships are still usually

seen in terms of marriage and motherhood (p. 130). So, working from her idea that in

developing a feminist classroom practice it is necessary to consider lived social

relations as they relate to the construction of masculinity and femininity (Taylor, 1993),

I shared my life experience with them. I explained how conscious I was of doing what

was expected of me by marrying early and avoiding the threat of becoming “the old

maid” at age 22. Drawing on the students’ openness to and familiarity with

homosexuality and bisexuality today, and their knowledge of the history of gay

oppression, Margaret and I asked a few questions such as, “What if you don’t care to be

married?” What if you liked hanging out with the girls in the park better than you liked

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the idea of a guy?” “What if you were a guy and you didn’t really like having women

around?” Our questions prompted a question from Charles, which changed the

direction of the conversation: “Was Stein suggesting that Lena’s husband was a

homosexual?” he asked.

We had studied Stein’s autobiography while working with some of her poetry,

so the students saw a possibility in Charles’ suggestion, and they began an intense

exploration of whether Stein was suggesting that either or both of the characters were

gay. They considered that possibility as well as the possibility that the two leading

characters just weren’t interested in the opposite sex. Although they knew Stein herself

was a lesbian, and entertained the idea that she might be creating a lesbian character, no

one was certain. Charles suggested, however, that if it were about not being interested

in a heterosexual relationship but being forced into one, then “it takes a whole new

meaning if that is the way you look at it. ” The group agreed and became more

interested in the discussion and in examining the text for support for this thesis. As they

talked, they became a bit more aware of the continued pressures society places on

individuals when it comes to heterosexuality. Candy, was, uncharacteristically, one of

the three girls who spoke during the conversation. In considering the idea that Lena

might have been gay, she realized how difficult it would have been in the early

twentieth century to follow that option. She made a most interesting point, suggesting

that for Lena, who was so constructed by the society’s pressure to marry when she

didn’t want to, that the only way out marriage was to die.

Dale pointed out that, as far as he was concerned, either of the two characters

(Lena or Herman) might have been gay. He cited Lena’s “gentle stirrings” for the girls

in the park, Herman’s preference to be with the boys, and both of the characters’

resistance to marriage as proof. He went on to say that while that avenue of thought

was interesting, more important to the story was the idea that they were victims of

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enforced marriage and the insensitivity with which society leads, and the blindness with

which people follow.

The thing that attracted me about th e story was that I am fascinated by repression and people doing things that they think they have to do to get b y . . . people cutting themselves o f f from their emotions and doing what they think they have to do. That fascinates me and that is really what the whole story is about with Lena. I don't know if a lot of people find that boring or don't get it.

When I asked Dale about how he thought Lena was repressed, he said that with

Lena, more than Herman, she was just ‘queer’ in the sexual sense and also in the social

sense, but she didn't want to be. He thought that she wanted, deep down, to be the same

as everyone else, and to do what was expected of her. “Not wanting to do what was

expected of her didn’t make any sense to her because she had always done everything

that people had asked her to do. He explained that after being led into it, she thought,

“Oh, o k . . . marriage . . . I guess it won’t be anything different than the rest of the

stuff.’” Dale’s idea was that she tried it and didn’t want to come out and say, “This

isn’t working for me.” Instead, she just kept trying to make it work. Picking up from

Candy’s idea, he said, “eventually she just tried less and less and then she died.” His

idea about Herman was that he was not necessarily gay, but not particularly interested in

married life. Dale thought, however, Herman was interested, like Lena, in doing what

was expected of him.

Criticism

While 1 did not introduce any of Walkerdine’s (1984) theories to the A M . class,

I did share her theories with Dale during one o f our interviews. Dale was open to her

notions about gender identification and sex role behavior being enculturated,

particularly as it constructed heterosexuality. Although he had earlier resisted

Goldman’s (1969/1912) ideas about heterosexual marriage, he understood Walkerdine’s

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(1984) points regarding Lena and Herman on a fundamental level, and worked within

her perspective to analyze the story in his writing.

Writing

Dale was so interested in continuing to investigate the story that he decided to

write his own adaptation of it that would allow him to further explore the same spirit of

social construction and resultant repression but from a contemporary point of view.

I have this feeling that if I just reread Lena and then sat down in front of a computer, I could make it work. The thing is, you hove to illustrate the invisible pressures in a not-too-obvious way, whereas back then, the pressures seemed more obvious. Our pressures come as much from within as without. There's a tremendous yearning to be normal.

Dale pointed out that while people have learned to accept homosexual

celebrities, they are often much less tolerant of gay people closer to home. He stressed

that the idea that he is part of a generation where people can do ‘whatever’ they want

with no social repercussions, is a mistaken one. “It is more like the illusion of “you can

do whatever; but, it has to be some sort of ‘whatever’ that is socially acceptable.’’ He

said that while young people today are not constrained, they still know that there is

always going to be some reaction and that guys always have to take that reaction into

account before doing anything. “You decide, ok, is this going to be worth being called

a fag?” The status quo was confirmed during the conversation about the story when one

boy in the class suggested that “if Lena and Herman just opened up to each other in this

relationship, they would like the opposite sex a little more.” We pointed out to him that

his attitude and that of Lena’s aunt and Herman’s sister were identical.

Although Dale preferred discussion to any other approach to processing a

literary work, I thought his choice to write would provide the ideal vehicle for his

further exploration of thoughts about Lena and the ways in which her issues play

themselves out in current society, so I encouraged it. Cixous (1980) has observed that

“writing is precisely the very possibility of discovery and change, the space that can

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serve as a springboard for subversive thought, the precursory movement o f a

transformation of social and cultural structmes (p. 249).

In describing his experience with the writing of the adaptation, he talked mostly

about his frustrations attempting to create a situation in which the repression could be

replicated, and feeling that he had failed in doing so. In attempting to show that Lena

did not have the linguistic apparatus to be able to translate her discomfort into “I don’t

want to get married,” or “I want to be doing something else,” or “I like girls better,” he

portrayed her as someone who meekly followed the rules. He explained that

I think the way I did it was th at she would always say, “I like hanging out with the girls." She would never say "better" and she would never say “I don't want to do this." She would just say “I like hanging out with the girls."They would say, “but you have to get married," and then she would say,“oh." She wore herself out ju st doing what was expected and not having a problem with that.

In attempting to adapt the story for a contemporary version. Dale realized that Stein was

able to do something with the people of her time that he was having trouble doing in an

update with characters representing men and women of today.

Stein would have been much happier if Lena could get up and say "No, I am not going to get married now," but she still understood that for a lot of people, that is just not something they are capable of doing. She showed, though, that this is what happens to those people. Stein has great empathy—at the same time, knowing what the person should be doing and knowing she is not doing it, or even capable of it but loving the characters anyway. She has got it!

In my effort to get him beyond his writer’s block, we worked to identify

comparable yet contemporary gender-related societal pressures which still result in

standardized rituals and behaviors that rob individuals of uniqueness and personal

freedom. However, we were unable to replicate the combination of oppression,

conformity, and repression that so effectively demonstrated the loss of self and

spontaneity in the main characters in 'The Gentle Lena.” In the end, although he wrote

an adaptation, he considered it a failure and said that he believed that what the story had

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to say was not important enough for today’s audience. He believed that what “The

Gentle Lena” was able to portray was indicative of repressive gender roles and

perspectives that our progress toward equality. He said that

We are just beyond the problem but we are aware of the problem. And, sometimes that can just make things worse because we are aware of the problem and we are tying to fix it but we still can't. And, then, you know that you are failing and it breaks you down. Knowing something is wrong and not being able to fix it is worse than having something wrong and not knowing about it. That is where we are now. We are aware about our prejudices about women, but it is still so ingrained into our psyches, that you don't know what you can do about it.

Believing that there still existed a possibility to update “Lena” for contemporary

audiences, and that more exploration on the connections between Stein’s world and ours

would put the students in touch with the coercive ideologies robbing individuals of

alternative options today. Dale and 1 continued to explore possibilities. To keep the

investigation going, I eventually called the ten focus group participants together to bring

Dale's ideas to fruition through group discussion and improvisational drama.

Social Imagination Activitv/final proiect

For a creative writing project. Dale did write a screenplay updating “The Gentle

Lena. ” However, although the thinking process in which he engaged was beneficial to

his understanding of social pressure per se, both he and I felt the screenplay to be a

replica of lines the students had come up with in the focus group (see end of this chapter

for discussion). Dale also wrote a screenplay in which he brought the protagonist in

Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms beyond its last page and into the future. His

character, Frederic, moves on after the death of his beloved Catherine, and like his

creator, Hemingway, he goes to Paris where he meets Gertrude Stein and Alice B

Toklas. While Dale does not deal with the story of “The Gentle Lena ” per se, he does

continue his own investigation of society’s ambivalent perspectives on homosexual love

through a love triangle involving Fred, Gertrude Stein, and Alice B. Toklas. By

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juxtaposing Frederic’s response to the lesbians, with Gertrude and Alice’s responses to

his challenges. Dale presents a conflict between traditional and alternative approaches

to homosexuality.

In the beginning of ACT II in Dale’s screenplay, Fred and Rinaldi discuss

Gertrude and Alice’s relationship.

RINALDIBaby, what’s wrong?

FREDWhat do you think about Gertrude and Alice?

RINALDIOh. I’m a big fan of theirs. They’re nice ladies, very nice.

FREDYes, I agree. But, doesn’t it strike you as a b i t . . . odd?

RINALDIOdd, how do you mean?

FREDYou know, for two women to be . . . like that.

RINALDIYou mean gay?

FREDYeah, that’s exactly what I mean. It just seems like . . . it’s not the way it

oughta be.

RINALDIThey’re very happy. Are you saying they shouldn’t be?

FREDNo. no. not at all. Just the way they go about being happy . . . . is quite

unusual, that’s all.

RINALDIOh, baby, you crack me up.

FREDI’m perfectly serious.

RINALDIYou’ve got a bit of a crush on old Gertrude, don’t you?

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Further on in ACT II, he has Alice speak after Gertrude tells her she loves Fred and Dale explores his 'normal theme:

ALICEYou love me! You love me! I don’t know how else to explain it. You’re sick of being viewed as an outsider; you want to be normal. So you find a man who has “feelings” for you . . . who thinks he knows what love is, and he tells you you’re in love. Well, you know what? That’s bullshit! It’s bullshit! You’re . . . GOD [that’s taking the Lord’s name in vain, not proclaiming GERTRUDE as God]. You’re so smart and beautiful and everything . . . How could you fall for it? Do you think you’re going to be happy with him?

GERTRUDEAlice . . . I am happy.

ALICENo, you’re not!

GERTRUDEAlice, I’m sorry.

Through the play, Dale worked through Gertrude’s love o f Alice, her

experimentation being with a man, and Fred’s experience loving a lesbian. At the end

of the play, he eventually brings Alice and Gertrude back together. He brought out his

own and others’ biases and attitudes and resolutions. Through the use of his

imagination, he was able to explore what he had not been able to explore as completely

even in the many discussions. As Maxine Greene has pointed out.

Not always but oftentimes, the extent to which we grasp another’s world depends on our existing ability to make poetic use of our imagination, to bring into being the ‘as if,’ worlds created by writers, painters, sculptors, filmmakers, choreographers and composers, and to be in some manner, participants in artists’ worlds reaching far back and ahead of time. (Greene, 1995, p. 4)

Reflections

With the exception of Dale, the students in the A M. class began the study of

“The Gentle Lena” experiencing little or no connection to any of the characters, no

relationship to the plot or theme, and no appreciation for either Stein’s style or her point

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of view. Dale really appreciated “The Gentle Lena.” He also appreciated Stein’s style

and the story’s connection to contemporary situations. “Lena exists now, ” he stated. He

argued that people in his generation are still pressured to do the acceptable thing, and

that the idea that they can do ‘whatever’ they choose is an illusion. Regarding gender

equality, he argued that “we are somewhat beyond the problem but still aware of the

problem, which makes it harder to fix.’’

Discussion is Dale’s favorite way to learn, but writing the screenplay helped to

put him in touch with the gender issues in “The Gentle Lena’’ and the social pressures in

contem porary life. He was able to explore the issues of enforced

marriage/heterosexuality through the attempt to write that screenplay, and he was able

to continue that exploration and extend it to an investigation of bisexuality in his update

of A Farewell to Arms.

Dale’s perspectives on “Lena ” affected the rest of the group. While the rest of

the class did not grow to appreciate the way in which the story informs contemporary

societal influences as much as Dale did, his attention to the story and its connections to

adolescents today had an impact on Charles and, eventually, the rest of the group.

There is a dramatic difference between students’ resistance to the story evident in

written responses to the characters and Stein’s theme in the beginning of the

investigation, and their ability to discuss the story toward the end of the unit. Focus

group participants from both classes continued to explore possibilities for updating the

story. This work is described at the end of this section.

SARAH (P. M.)

Sarah is the antithesis of the rich, ultra-feminine, ultra-manipulative Fitzgerald

heroine, the demure Catherine Sloper, or the submissive Lena type. Rather than finding

her in gauzy white linen, or red velvet you are more likely to find her in a black or faux

leopard halter, exposed belly, black pants and boots. She is direct and down to earth,

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but is not masculine by any traditional standards. She says that she has different

tendencies than a lot of girls that have had a strong female influence, because she was

raised without her mother, for the most part. “I am not dainty, she says. "‘I would not fit

in with the mainstream high school girls.” She claims that growing up, she had many

chances to fit in with “cutesy, manicury types,” but it never interested her. She thinks

that a lot of ‘how a woman acts like a woman’ is learned. She has learned to

communicate a lusty earthiness.

Sarah speaks her mind, even when opinions are different, and they often are.

She says that sometimes that results in admiration from people, and sometimes in

frustration. “ I respect myself and those who earn it,” she says. “I’m open and

intelligent because I know it’s important to be if I want to be happy. ” The fact that she

is open and independent in her thinking means that she often “chooses the truth over

tactfulness,” she says. “There is a reason I don’t put up with idiots, but it doesn’t mean

I am not nice or kind.” She is more a critic of the society than of individuals, and is

veiy respectful of and sensitive to individuals. She considers herself very social, but

concentrates on a few good friends. The staff describes her as popular with her circle of

friends. They also see her as strong, confident, unconventional, and competent.

Sarah is very bright. Her hobbies include visiting museums, traveling, watching

films, and appreciating art and music. She does very well in school, likes to read and

reads a lot. She says she is committed to everything but math. Her sharpness is really

apparent in her ability to see through the social pretenses and hypocrisies, however, and

she does this with a great deal of aplomb and witty sarcasm. Besides describing herself

as independent, she also thinks she’s ‘eccentric,’ funny,’ genuinely weird, and a lot of

fun.

She finds her suburban hometown neighbors generally small-minded, and claims

that she does not like living in the town. She resists the conservatism and uniformity of

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thought, dress, and behavior that she thinks characterize the town. She also resists the

ways in which people can be categorized in unfair ways, and she has, at times, felt that

she has been the victim of unfair categorization.

Sarah is an atheist. She is also open and has a progressive look and an open way

of looking at marriage, sexuality, behavior, and gender construction. She is

heterosexual, has dated a lot of guys in high school, and has had a steady boyfriend for

about a year now. She is open to all kinds of people and lifestyles, and she openly

challenges those who are judgmental about others’ choices. She herself has no

intentions of getting married. She can’t predict the future, so if she vowed her love for

all eternity, and took it back later on, she wouldn’t see herself as a very honorable

person. On the other hand, Sarah says, “if I waited to get married to have sex, I would

not have it at all, ever. ” She claims that “I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me I’m in

love. If I really want a symbol of my love with another person, we can still use rings or

whatever else we want.” She thinks love is stronger if finalized by the couple and not

someone else. She does think it is difficult to follow your own way because there is just

as much social pressure now as there ever has been. She says that the only difference

now is that “not only are we being told to follow the norm, but we are also told to be

unique and independent individuals. She is not surprised that this results in confusion

for many people.

Sarah has had a unique background. Her father raised her from the time she was

three, and she describes her relationship with him as extremely casual. “I was raised by

a bunch o f guys,” she says. 1 was pretty much raised roughhousing and playing. Her

dad, his friends, and her godfather are among those having the greatest influence. Her

mother was in her life somewhat but not as a role model for femininity. She thanks her

grandmother for that. She says she was a strong role model for conventional femininity

and taught her to behave ‘like a girl.’ When she thinks about femininity, however, she

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equates it with strength. “Being strong is feminine, dammit” is her mantra. “I am

strong, but I think of myself as ‘feminine.”

When asked about feminism, her reply was that she “doesn’t like obnoxious

loudmouths” but that she does respect those who do what they feel is right. And, she

thinks there is cause for feminists’ concern. She was the one in the Emma Goldman

scene who understood that “it would have been more acceptable for her grandmother to

have killed her husband than to divorce him.” And, she does think that the feminist

stand on abortion rights is right on. “It is the woman’s right to choose, not the man’s,”

she insists. But, she adds, “men can be feminists too. I don’t think it is just women by

any means.” She does point out, though, that she doesn’t think that feminism is socially

acceptable in her town, especially if someone is the kind of feminist who is outright and

very forward. “That is definitely not acceptable here,” she says. She thinks that there

are about four feminists in the town, saying that “it is about as rare as Michael’s

(another student) family being Bahai. ”

Sarah also claims that there is still sexism in our country on a high level,

evidenced by the lack of women in public office. “We can have social role models and

rock stars, ’’she says, “but having some women up there in some high ranking positions,

that’s a different thing. ” She says that to have women in high-ranking positions “you

would have to have a country full of open minded people, and this certainly is not that

country.” She also says that

Women seeking political office would have to be tough. I t would be hell to go through. You would have to be strong, intelligent and not too emotional and thin skinned. You would have to be wonderful in every womanly kind of way and feminine and flowery but you would have to be able to be strong and take on a manly position.

She says that there is a lot of oppressive stuff going on, “it’s just more subtle

than it used to be.” She believes that there is still strong pressure on guys to be manly,

and strong pressure on girls to be pretty and cute. She claims that because young people

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get pressure from both sides, “they are constantly trying to find the balance between

extreme sex role stereotypes.” She sees teenage girls reinforcing stereotypes.

“Teenage girls love being pretty for boys who want to play,” she says. And, she says

that there are many really strong girls now, but there are still many saying, ”love me

love me love me need me need me need me.” She thinks gender roles are definitely

learned, but it is not a conscious thing. She drew from Butler’s ideas in saying;

There is nobody teaching you that this is right and this is wrong. But eventually you pick up on it. Watching people. Watching a woman g e t . . . as sweet as it is, you know, chocolates and flowers and things. You know, just the whole . . . people go out. Man wears slacks. Girl wears a skirt. I t is not enforced or not all bad or anything like that. I t is Just learned s tu ff you pick up along the way.

Sarah thinks the media exacerbates stereotypical gender roles by playing to

extreme gender constructions, but realizes that this sells. She thinks that these issues

are apparent in the books we read too, and that reading the novels and stories has made

her realize how constructed people are in terms of gender. But, “people aren’t bad,” she

says. “People don’t have wrong views, it is just that society eventually has put this

impression on all of us without our knowing it, that this is the way it is supposed to be.”

She has a commitment to change things but prefers to address personal issues rather

than to attempt to work with society at large. “Protesting is useless, she says, “personal

strength is best.” She thinks that proving your own life and your role in it is the best

way to approach some things. “Men and women should be on a more equal footing, “

she says. “At this point, guys still need to understand that women are equal. Women

need to realize that and.practice what they preach. Don’t fawn all over men!

Sarah also thinks that there are many teenagers who get love and infatuation

confused. She finds many girls and women exceedingly dependent. “Many teenage

girls think that if they lose this one person they are with, that there will never be

another.” She thinks that one thing girls need to realize when they start dating is that

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they should be able to picture themselves alone before they start picturing themselves

with someone else. She really appreciated Catherine in Washington Square and Janie in

Their Eyes Were Watching God for their independence. I found this interesting

considering that Candy related to these characters through weakness at first. Sarah

thought that Catherine was too docile in the beginning, but admired her in the end

because she ended up not marrying somebody and not really listening to her father.

“She evolved as the book went. It is nice to see characters evolve into something.” She

also liked Janie in Their Eves Were Watching God because she was a good role model

for the strong and independent woman. “If you haven't decided that you are going be

ok on your own, then you will not be good with somebody else.”

When Sarah reads, she says that she does not initially notice sexism in the

novels or short stories, so she thinks it is important for teachers to help students to point

out stereotypes and sexist paradigms. “Otherwise,” she says, “students will just have

the usual discussions about the books and pick up the wrong things from the book or

maybe not really get the point.” She feels that the fact that she had never really been

introduced to gender issues before is because it is such a sensitive topic.” I mean

schools are so sterile: middle, elementary, and high. People are so careful about the

way that they talk about things here in this town.

Sarah thinks that revising the literature and playing with it to bring out the

sexism is a healthy thing for those who are reading it. She thinks that it is especially

important right now when people are starting these serious relationships.

You are actually entering young adulthood and reading something like that .. . like I said . . . very unconsciously you will pick up on things. I mean you are gonna get an impression of life that may not be true but that is what you get a fter a while because you see it so much. I t sort o f osmoses into your psyche.

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Written Responses

The written responses in this afternoon class mirrored those from the morning

class. Here too, the students’ initial reactions were negative. They echoed each other’s

judgments that the story was ‘dumb’ and ‘boring,’ that they could not relate to either the

characters or the story, that none of the characters was realistic, and that the story could

not take place today. Their main complaint, however, was that the writing was

repetitive. They had thought that repetition had worked in Stein’s poetry, which we had

read before “The Gentle Lena,” but that it did not work in Stein’s fiction. Sarah initially

made no contact with any of the characters in the short story, and. like most of the other

students, had difficulty understanding Stein’s point or appreciating her style.

Discussion

Howard, the student who had seen Goldman’s treatise as a wakeup call, argued

passionately, as Dale had done in the A.M. class, for the value of “The Gentle Lena. ”

However, his argument that the point of the story was to show that all the characters are

one-dimensional and that “they don’t change or deviate,” went unheard by the rest of

the class. He continued to argue for his hypothesis, recalling the section on how

Herman’s sister pushes the status quo: “Go along. Don’t be afraid of women. Just get

married and you will be happy. Go along with Papa now and you will get married and

be happy,” he chanted ironically. But, no one could either see Stein’s point or

appreciate her style at the beginning. Brenda said that it would have been much more

interesting had she not repeated everything fifty times. Howard disagreed, saying, “the

repetition helped to drive the point home that she was so gentle, and compliant and

naive. He argued that if this had been reduced to a 1 and 1/2-page story, it wouldn’t

have been as effective. “The message would not have hit so hard.” The message

unfortunately seemed only to have hit him and Sarah. Sarah suggested that Stein might

have used her style to reflect Lena’s personality.

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In an effort to move the discussion beyond stalemate and toward a line of

thought that might engage the students in a more personal consideration of the story’s

theme (Bogdan, 1997, 1999: Rosenblatt, 1978, 1995), I retold my coming of age story

and Margaret Jackson shared her experiences with social pressure. We then asked the

students to consider today’s mores in terms of both the pressures on Lena and Herman

to marry, and the pressures on me to not be ‘an old maid.’ I asked my first question:

“has that kind of social pressure to marry gone away?” If so, if someone were

reproducing this story today for a current audience, with what kind of pressures would

they be dealing?” Responses to that question resulted in a discussion about sex and

sexual mores of today. What struck me were the contradictions under which these

students were living.

The class responded by elucidating the forces in the culture that do pressure

them in terms of sex and marriage. One student admitted the pressure that his friends

put on him because he is still a virgin and he confessed his worst fear: remaining a

virgin until his wedding night. At the same time, he did admit a preference for a

virginal wife. Both girls and boys confirmed the thriving double standard, which his

statement revealed. “If a girl has sex you call her a slut, but if a guy has sex, you say

“Congratulations.”

Sarah had jokingly said that because her parents are so liberal, they “don’t care

what she does as long as they don’t have to pay for it.” And, because of the fact that

she had little parental pressure to do the appropriate thing,’ she thought that she would

not have a tendency to walk blindly into marriage like Lena had. She did, however,

relate to the issue of girls and guys calling girls sluts as an example of sexism and

pressure to behave in appropriate’ ways that she had experienced. She says that

women are still held to a different standard than men regarding sexual activity. If a

woman scores with a couple of guys she is a slut, if a man does it, he’s a hero. She

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argued that this kind of sexist slur doesn’t just come from men. She thinks women put

other women down more than men do because of competition generating from Jealousy.

This opinion had been borne out in the class with both girls and boys accusing

such female characters as Louise Bryant (in the movie Reds) of being a slut. Despite

my many attempts to deconstruct the word and discuss its capacity to control the

behavior of women but not men, it did not stop. Even my attempt to have students

consider Louise Bryant's decision to two-time Jack Reed by writing a poem or diary

entry, did not really stop the tendencies to peg certain women as ‘sluts'

Sarah herself had been called a ‘slut,’ she said, and that slur had hurt her.

However, she feels that she has gotten beyond the sting’ of it by realizing that “name

calling is usually something that is the result of some unresolved issue. If someone

calls me a ‘slut,' it is because they have a problem with me, and that is just it, it is their

problem. It speaks about their insecurity.” She has also gotten beyond it by realizing

that such slurs come from the fact that teenagers get love and sex confused, and look

down on sex that doesn’t involve love. She did say that, although she has gotten past

most of the pain of the comments, it is difficult to get through that kind of pressure and

criticism. It is especially painful because the word is not used for men; it is another

example of the double standard.

The other girls pointed out that they still react to the mixed messages and

consequent pressures and confusions that such a double standard still exerts on them.

Narratives such as “what a man wants is to be a woman’s first love and “what a woman

wants is to be a man’s last romance” were recited and it was confirmed that they still

play out in their heads as maxims by which to live. According to the girls, such

narratives pressure them to behave in certain ways but also serve to confuse them when

delivered’ side by side with contradicting narratives insisting on the freedom to do

what they want.

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Sarah made several references to the effects of contradicting narratives offered

by the society and the ways in which teens are impacted by those contradictions. She

said that she is more and more aware that she is being told to follow the norm but also

while doing this, she is obligated to be a total individual. She said, “everyone is telling

you to ‘follow this certain path and specific rules, “ but be totally yourself and unique

and go for it.” It is hard to put the two together,” she says. And, while virtually all the

students had difficulty relating to Stein’s fictional world defined as it is by parental

authoritarianism, enforced m arriage, absence of divorce and blindness to

homosexuality, they still expressed an awareness of the mixed messages sent out by

their society on many of these issues.

For example, although in discussion of both Washington Square and “The

Gentle Lena,” Hillary mentioned that parents don’t have the same kind o f control over

adult children that they did in the past, she still related Lena’s situation to her own

deference to authority by means of her direct response (Bogdan, 1992; Soter, 1999).

Because Lena is gentle and sw eet that probably meant that she was shy like me and didn't want to speak up. Like me, she might have fe lt that her guardians knew what was best for her. In a way, I am kind of like Lena too because I don't like to rebel. I think if my parents told me to do something that was really wrong, I would probably say something, b u t . . . otherwise it would be hard for me.

And, though Brenda pointed out that “most everyone in America won’t have to go

through a forced marriage, Sarah replied that she thought pressures like Lena’s were

still there, but “just more subtle.” Furthermore, although Hillary mentioned that “it is

now more acceptable not to get married if you are a woman,” she and several others

mentioned that as far as their parents were concerned, there is great pressure that they

already feel to eventually marry and have children. As far as my parents are concerned,

“I was put on earth to have children,” said Brenda. And, although there is freedom to

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divorce when things go wrong, realities make it as difficult as ever. She reminded the

others that

You guys asked, “why didn’t she ju st get divorced?" But, seriously, when you are married and you have children and you have a stable home, if you leave that it will break it all up and there is this huge obligation to just stay there and deal.

On the subject of homosexuality, while many of the students could agree that

gays are more accepted now, they still admitted that society still “looks down on people

who are gay and think it is wrong.” And, though some even admitted to a trend which

pressures kids to experiment with bisexuality and alternative lifestyles “to be hip,” there

is still an awareness of society’s bifurcated stance on the subject. One boy captured the

ambivalence when he said, “I’ve never looked at a gay couple in the park and said,

"damn, that looks awesome. I want to be gay too!”’

Marie explained how she addresses society’s mixed messages and her

ambivalence through religion. She has vowed not to have sex until she is married. “It is

always a bad decision to have sex before marriage,” she argued, and stated that she

hadn’t even kissed a guy. “It is that much more of an accomplishment in a society that

is all about having sex,” she said. “I would never call anyone a hussy for kissing

someone,” she said, “but there are very undeniable standards of right and wrong. Sarah

has not drawn the same moral conclusions, and has not chosen celibacy, admitting that

she suffers the consequences of her decisions in spite of this ‘open’ society. “First of

all, “ she says, “ it is fantastic that Marie is proud that she had not kissed a guy, but I am

not going to lie. People in here know that I am not a virgin. All I am saying is I get

called names. You get called names on both ends, either a prude or a feminazi. Even if

I am in love, I am a ‘slut.’”

Other students offered contrasting kinds of unique pressures in an attempt to

understand Lena’s situation. Hillary pointed out that

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Lena might have fe lt that she needed to get married because it was her only offer . I know I haven't kissed anyone, because I haven't had any offers. So. I think after a while, you sort o f wonder, “will I have any offers?" I t was important in Stein's time to get married. She might have realized she was shy and didn't talk to people and wouldn't have another chance.

All in all, the girls and boys reacted in ways that seemed to suggest that

contemporary teenagers were at a crossroads marked by contradictions and mixed

messages that resulted in some ambivalence, and they reacted to Lena in terms of their

personalities and life situations. While discussion suggested to me that the double

standard still thrives, there is more openness now for kids to make individual decisions.

I concluded that an attempt to conjure up a contemporary version of “Lena” that

could address the ways in which people today are anesthetized into behavior

comparable to Stein’s characters, would be a challenge, but an important one. I was

beginning to see that Dale’s idea about the existence of an internal, rather than external

pressure to be normal” was the clue to an update that would represent contemporary

society. The update, while exposing current methods of anesthetization, would also

have to speak to the tension between the individual freedom that kids experience, as

well as the subtle pressures to live up to society’s dicta and the desire to be ‘normal.

What was normal for these kids? I wondered. And, how did normality relate to gender

identification? I hoped to address those issues in continued discussion.

The first part of the conversation with the afternoon class had led to my

awareness that I needed to address the subject of enforced heterosexuality (Rich, 1986;

Walkerdine, 1884; Butler, 1999; Davies, 1992), particularly in view of the many

references to gays that were made in both classes discussing “Lena. ” So, I asked my

next question based on both Dale’s point about being ‘normal’ and Stein's celebrated

lesbianism: “What if we looked at “Lena” as a commentary on the kind of culture that

is so caught up in a basic heterosexual narrative (romance, love, and then marriage), that

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it is insensitive to any other options, lifestyles or individuals.” I hoped that this question

would eventually lead to an identification of comparable pressures in their lives and the

tensions between these pressures and the belief in their individual freedom (Rosenblatt,

1995/1938, 1978).

This began a discussion, dominated by Marie, that, although extraordinarily

difficult, proved a very significant one not only for the identification of contemporary

social pressures which involve gender and sexism, but also for the students’

investigation of attitudes about homosexuality, which according to Helen Harper

(2000), is an important issue not dealt with enough in the schools. The discussion also

reinforced the ideas emphasized by both Dale and Sarah regarding the multiple and

conflicting messages coming at teenagers today with yet another example.

Mostly all of the students struggled with Marie’s abhorrence of alternative

lifestyle options and her connection of homosexuality with crime and sin. Richard had

a particularly difficult time as the philosophy threatened his beliefs and bisexual

lifestyle. They both devoted much time attempting to make the other understand his/her

perspective.

Pat: What if we look at this story in terms of a commentary on enforced heterosexuality in our culture?

Marie: Of course heterosexuality is enforced. I t is ridiculous to think that it wouldn't be. I t ’s what happens naturally. Think about it.

Richard: But sometimes naturally, other things occur. Like being gay or bisexual or lesbian. Bisexuality and being gay and lesbian is natural as much as heterosexuality is. I t is natural because I think that genetically a person is born that way. They can't help it. And, you shouldn't criticize or ridicule people for being that way. They can't help it. And I think it was a good point that Stein was making.

Marie: I f people are born into homosexuality or heterosexuality, why do people switch back and forth so much?

Richard: Because they are confused.

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Marie: Richard. No. I t just doesn’t work th e same way. I t isn't genetic. Do the diagram. The actual equipment, it works with a guy and a girl, not really another combination. We have talked about how males and females are quite d ifferent emotionally and just the way that mentally they think. They complement each other very well, and it just seems unnatural to me. You can’t say that because society accepts something that makes it natural or that makes it even right. Society accepts abortion as being right. In our society, you can murder someone and walk away from it.

Richard: I am bisexual, and so when you say that it is a sin to be who I am it is a slap in the face. I can’t help who I am.

Marie: But you can help who you are.

Richard and the class reacted in strong opposition to Marie’s position, which,

incidentally, I realized served as a comparable governing mindset to the one that had

created the social climate that Stein was challenging in “’Tlie Gentle Lena,” and the one

to which Lewis (1992) and Walkerdine (1984) had referred. It was clear to most

everyone that the unchallenged adherence to the bible that Marie exhibited could be

seen as synonymous with Lena’s aunt’s compliance with the mores of her time.

Sarah's perspective was illustrated in this conversation as she tried to speak for

those who were feeling attacked by Marie’s connection of homosexuality with crime.

Sarah : You’re comparing homosexuality with crime. With crime, you’re hurting someone.

Marie: Ok, Greed. Compare it to greed. Compare it to any other thing that that bible names a sin.

Sarah : I would say that as far as crime goes you are directly hurting someone else. With homosexuality, who (sic) are you hurting?

Marie: You are hurting yourself.

Sarah: You are hurting yourself? You’re making yourself happy with someone you love.

Marie: No, you are not. You are falling into like something that society has conjured up.

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Sarah: People have to be real careful about comparing sexuality to crime because that is just dangerous.

This discussion alerted me to one of the difficulties inherent in employing

critical feminist pedagogy, and that is the tension experienced when the feminist agenda

conflicts with sacred, cultural, or religious ideology. I was reluctant to tamper with

Marie's religious beliefs, as I neither felt that it was my right to do so, nor did I see any

possibility for change. At the same time, there were people in the class who needed

protection, and I felt it was wrong for them to be accused of being sinners. So, while I

believed that the issue of compulsory heterosexuality was an important one for

consideration in any discussion of this story and this author, I also realized that this

particular class would not benefit from a continuation of the ideological argument about

the immorality of homosexuality.

While I believe, with Pitt (1994) that “[rjesistance, like any communicative act,

changes all those involved in the experience, and can open up possibilities for dialogue,

communication, and even community between unlikely parties”(p. 32), I was aware that

these possibilities could only be opened up when teachers and students alike were open

to critical reflection. I did not see Marie, at this point, as open to critical reflection on

this subject due to her religious beliefs. Therefore I decided that further exploration of

the relationship between her and Lena’s compliance would have been inappropriate.

The argument was not effecting any kind of change on either side and it was beginning

to be upsetting to those, like Richard, whose lifestyles and beliefs were considered

immoral. Although the strong sentiments against alternative sexual preference troubled

many of the other students, they also confirmed the power o f the intolerance of Stein’s

society, as well as intolerance operating in today’s society.

Although the students were tempted to take it on in an extended conversation, I

felt that Marie, Sarah, Richard and the other students would benefit more from a

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different approach. Therefore, I chose to eventually focus on the potential for our

insensitivity and discrimination of ‘the other’, when we are committed to the belief that

our ideas are as appropriate for everyone as they are for ourselves. And, I chose to

focus on what one student called ‘Lena’s struggle to run her own life.’ By taking the

focus off the political/religious argument, and putting it on the ways in which blind

insensitivity impacts on the ‘victims,’ I believed I could leave the door open for

individuals to consider various reasons why enforced marriage might be abhorrent to

some, be they homosexual, heterosexual, or simply not interested or ready for the

institution. This decision also left the door open for students to draw their own

conclusions about social conditioning today. As one student pointed out, oppression is

the issue, and it is not limited to homosexuals.

I f she is forced into a relationship, it doesn't matter if it is a homosexual or a heterosexual one. The issue is the pressure. She will turn into a robot just as easily either way because she is gonna be forced into this lifestyle that she didn't like, and, she didn't want.

Social Imagination/Project

Only one student in the P.M. class chose to focus on Stein’s work for her final

project. While not addressing the issues of content brought out in “The Gentle Lena,’’

Marie did focus on Stein’s style. She used her own musical talent to compose “An Ode

to Gertrude Stein’’ a musical piece which she translated the repetitive rhythms in Stein’s

work into music.

She wrote the song in the key of G minor, because it, like Stein, is uncommon.

“It is rare in any band literature,” she said. “This suits Gertrude because she stood out,

away from the mainstream, anything but typical.” The ode is also unusual because it

employs only three notes; the song is forty measures long, with only the notes G, B, and

D used.

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3 ^ e ta • f^ a p o \eo ia

Figure 43 : Marie’s Ode to Gertrude Stein

Beginning with a simple one-octave arpeggio, it continues, like Stein, with many

variations. “I feel this represents Gertrude mostly in the way that she speaks in reading

her poetry and in writing her fiction,” said Marie. “When she says something she

doesn’t just say it once. She says it over and over in order to extract any and every

meaning from the words she chooses. Simply, I used the same principle only applied to

music.”

Reflections

While students in the first class were in general slightly more comfortable with

the subject of homosexuality, students in both classes had significant trouble

understanding Stein’s critique of enforced marriage and enforced

heterosexuality. My attempt to get them to get the class to consider its impact in

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contemporary society resulted in an argument between class members whose values on

sexuality clashed. There was evidence of a double standard, of a resistance to

alternative lifestyles, and of the problems involved when feminism and religious

ideology clash.

The most important developments to come out of the investigation of “The

Gentle Lena” were Sarah’s references to the society’s contradictory narratives regarding

gender. She pointed out that the message to “be yourself” but also to “follow the norm ”

is extremely confusing for young people right now. Her point opened the door for me

to begin a more intense concentration on students’ contradictions, conflicts and

ambivalence, a concentration that Harper (2000) and others suggested be a central focus

in the development o f pedagogy for the gender-conscious study of literature.

Although Sarah began the course as one conscious of gender inequities in

society, there was significant development in her ability to recognize gender issues in

literature during the course o f the study of “The Gentle Lena. ” This is particularly clear

when intial written responses are compared with later references to the allegorical

function o f the literary piece in discussions and dialogic textual negotiations that

followed. Sarah’s most dramatic progress was evidenced by the insights on Lena that

Sarah saw as a result of her writing of the story update and from the discussions and

improvisations which the focus group engaged while working on that update in the

improvisational workshop conducted with the focus group (See following section for

analysis o f this improvisational workshop).

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WRITING/IMPROVISATIONAL WORKSHOP The Gentle Lena

(Social Imagination Activity —The Focus Group)

Limited class time prevented our completion of an update of “Lena” in either

class. However, because I thought the activity would make the story more relevant to

students’ lives, and thereby enhance interaction and engagement (Beach and Hynds,

1991; Jauss, 1982; Rosenblatt, 1978; Soter, 1997), I decided to continue the discussion

in a workshop with the focus group participants.

1 called the group together for a writing/improvisational workshop in which the

students could further explore present day pressures for marriage and heterosexuality by

writing an updated screen adaptation of “The Gentle Lena.” My objective was to help

them to further identify, through the literature, the gender-related social pressures that

society exerted on them, using Stein as a model. I hoped that using the writing

workshop would help to replicate of the kind of critique that Stein had accomplished

with “The Gentle Lena.” She had analyzed taken-for-granted practices, and instead of

treating them as 'givens,’ showed that “they must be viewed within historical and social

relations that are produced or socially constructed “(Giroux 1984, p. 322). The question

was could we do the same for an increased understanding of today’s pressures and

thereby help reduce Soter’s (1997) “aesthetic resistance.”

The group met twice in an attempt to write the scenes for the film update o f the

story. Present in the group discussion were Sarah, Dale, Charles, Brenda, Hillary,

Howard, Ellen, and Alicia (a member of the class who enjoyed attending workshops).

Sarah and Dale developed as the leaders of the group and Sarah actually was the

primary writer of initial script following discussion with the rest of the group. The

difficulties the students experienced included identifying a situation comparable enough

to Stein’s early 20th century scenario to work in a contemporary movie. I believe part

of the difficulty in adapting this story into a screenplay was due as much to the

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allegorical nature of the original piece (which Howard had seen so clearly), as to the

dramatic social changes that had taken place over the years, with respect to marriage

and sexuality (upon which Sarah and Dale agreed).

The writing workshop was scheduled for two days. On ‘Day One,’ I gave

students the charter to come up with a plot and theme for the “Lena” adaptation, which

would appeal to a millennium movie audience. I directed them to come up with

character descriptions for Herman, Lena and the significant adults.

Sarah used Dale’s theme, which was ‘the internal pressure to be normal,’ and

wrote the plot line, which basically told the story of two college graduates who, upon

graduation and return home to Suburbia, USA, were successfully ‘fixed up’ by their

parents. The script took them from the initial return from college, through the marriage

and to the eventual demise of the relationship. The students got far enough to set a few

scenes, which would reveal the students’ disinterest but corresponding need to please

the parents and ‘be normal.’ The two writers, helped by Hillary, Brenda and Howard,

chose to depict a subtle suggestion of Lena and Herman’s confused sexual identities by

means of several scenes.

Some of the scenes served to suggest present day life and culture. For example,

they decided to have Herman hanging out in a suburban sports bar, where he escapes his

loveless and pointless marriage and meets a few guys whose company he prefers. Sarah

also had Lena experimenting with, and eventually becoming addicted to, mind-numbing

drugs to help her through an existence that for reasons unknown to her (because of her

desire to be normal) worked against the grain of her personality and needs.

The students decided that sex scenes should be shot of the couple, focusing

primarily on the disinterested look on their faces as they made love. They thought that

this would illustrate the idea that they have sex merely for purposes of procreation or

“just because they were supposed to do it.” Gazes from Herman directed at males on

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the TV in the background suggest to the audience that he might be more interested in

them. Also, subtle appreciative and desirous looks between Lena and some of the

women at the gym (where she goes to ostensibly keep in shape for Herman) would

define her as a latent lesbian.

On the second day o f the workshop, I played the disenchanted director,

questioning Sarah and Dale on the couple’s motivation for getting married. I had felt

that the pressures from the parents were important to the original story and not working

in the update. There wasn’t a strong enough motivation. “Why are they together?” I

asked. And, “how did they get pushed into this relationship in today’s world?” I felt

that the scenario wasn’t working to bring the students to the place where they could

actually experience emotions similar to those experienced by Lena and Herman, the

only way I thought they could break down the barriers between their culture and Stein’s

(Edmiston, 1999; Heathcote, 1984; Jauss, 1982; Johnson, 1993; Kohlberg, 1980;

O’Neill, 1995;) and asked the students if they had any other ideas for the scenes? What

other scenarios would work? I asked. “Are there any comparable pressures?

They considered several other options. They thought a Christian family might

work, thinking of pushing conservative religious principles as one possible reason for

such deferential children. They saw the pushing of ‘typical American values’ as

another possibility. In this case, the youngest sister in a family of popular girls could be

the ‘odd girl out’ in a family focused on dating and romance. The older sisters would

be blind to the idea that their youngest sibling (Lena) would not follow in their

successfully heterosexual footsteps vigorously searching for Mr. Right. They also

considered that the couple could be two members of a large gang of heterosexuals, such

as the TV Friends crowd. This type of group, insensitive to the couple’s lack of interest

in the opposite sex, could be developed to coerce them into the relationship due to the

couple’s strong need to be Tike the rest of the gang’ and ‘one of the crowd.’ I felt that

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any of the scenarios could work, but that they needed to choose the most believable one

for today.

It was Charles’ argument that he knew a lot of girls at the school like Lena,

however, that led others to admit an ability to relate with Lena. This steered the class

into another direction. Dale claimed to relate with her because he could understand how

one could not be sure about what one wants. Others agreed that they related with her on

varying points. I decided to engage them in some improvisational work in an effort to

bring these connections into sharper focus for an eventual revised scenario. I was

motivated by my own belief and the belief o f theorists and educators that in spite of

cultural changes, they were still victims of gender-related social pressures to follow the

prescribed path (Brown and Gilligan, 1992; Davies, 1992; Faludi, 1991; Harper, 2000;

Lewis, 1990, 1992; M artino, 1995; Obbink, 1992; Sadker and Sadker, 1994;

Walkerdine, 1984; and Wolf, 1991). They were beginning to ‘see’ Lena in their midst.

To move them forward, I asked for volunteers and directed them to improvise a

scene in the original story between Herman’s sister and Herman when he had run away

to her house in an attempt to avoid marriage. I chose this scene because I thought 1) it

would allow the students to experiment with both sides of the power struggle; and 2) it

would bring out an awareness of the pressures exerted by the society through the sister.

Alicia volunteered to play Herman’s sister; Dale volunteered to play Herman.

Improvisation #1:

Alicia: I t is your legacy. You have to get married and have some children.What else are you gonna do with your life? You can't just hang around thepub all day. You have to hove a marriage, and stu ff, and kids.

Dale: I don't want a marriage and I don't want stuff.

Alicia: What are you going to do with yourself? Who will take care o f you?

Dale: I will take care o f me.

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Alicia: You can't spend all o f your time with the guys. Why don't you want to get married? What is wrong with you?

Dale: I just don't really . . . I enjoy spending time with my boys, not with . . .Alicia: What are people going to say? What is wrong with you? Why don't you want to be normal? People grow up and get married. Why don't you want to do that with your life?

Dale: I might want to do it. Just not now.

Alicia: Why? Time is running out. She is a perfectly good girl. She is pretty. She is nice. She is submissive. You could control her.

Dale: I don't know. I just don't wont to be married.

It was my opinion that Alicia successfully drew on her society to utter just the

right words to exert the proper kind of pressure to ensure the desired compliance.

Firstly, she used the ‘legacy’ argument. Herman was, like Hillary and Brenda and

Ellen, bound to marry and have children. Secondly, she appealed to the “male who

can’t take care of him self narrative to remind him of his learned helplessness (Davies,

1992; Martino, 1995; Walkerdine, 1984). Thirdly, she used the “what people think ”

argument to convince him that he was coming across as ‘not normal’ by resisting her

perfectly logical arguments. Lastly, she chose the time is running out’ argument . . .

the same argument that was used on my friends and me in the mid sixties as we turned

the scary age of 21—the age of the old maid.

Alicia’s arguments came quickly and as though it were second nature for her to

speak these words. 1 realized that this argument wasn’t entirely outdated. And, the

students realized it too. Alicia claimed that she “was just talking like her grandma. ”

The students had a variety of responses. They recognized not only the words, but also

the power behind those words. Howard said that he felt very sorry for Herman as “the

sister had a much better argument because she had tradition and society backing her

arguments up.’’ Playing Herman, all Dale could say was “1 just don’t want to,” and

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Ellen pointed out that there was no solid argument for Dale. In describing the sister’s

personality, they all said she was aggressive and logical “almost to the point of

cynicism." Dale felt a familiar pressure coming at him from Alicia. “There are still

people who are pressuring other people to do things,” he said. They just don’t say, “no

it’s normal to get married. It’s more subtle.”

The argument given by Alicia reminded Ellen of kids who represent mainstream

society. “They are considered normal to most people,” she said. “Everything they do is

normal to them, and then they try to influence the rest of the people. This made Charles

realize that he personally knew one girl who fit Herman’s sister’s personality and style

to a tea. By improvising a scene in which he drew on the kinds of things that she would

say, he reworked the scene between Herman’s sister and Herman. This time he played

Herman’s sister and Dale played Herman again.

Improvisation #2

Dole (Herman): AAarriage is not that interesting to me in that sort of way.

Charles (sister): Well, what I think should happen is . . . if you are not seeing anyone, and she is not seeing anyone, I see no reason why you are not together!

Dale: I need some time for other people.

Charles: What other people? Who could be so important?

Dale: Like Eric and my friends who watch football with me.

Charles: That is so gay! I t makes so much more sense for you to get together. I t seems so righU

Dale: Why don't you get together with her if you like her so much?

Charles: I already have a boyfriend, and Lena is a good-looking girl. Like,what is wrong with Lena? She has nice Abercrombie clothes. I don't get it.Hey, you're not doing anything right now; she's not doing anything right now!Why don't you just go for it? Just keep yourself occupied! I t makes sense.

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This improvisation put students in closer touch with the dynamics between the

powerful sister and Herman. They all agreed with Ellen’s reaction about “how small

Dale seemed as in comparison with Charles, and how soft his voice sounded when his

desires met the society’s expectations.’’ Caroline saw him as ‘intimidated’ by the

sister, who is laying out all of these things that are good, with Dale just not knowing

what to do. And Howard expressed s keener awareness of how Charles belittled Dale.

“Eventually, he just resigns,” said Howard. “Ok, stop talking, I will go and get

married.” Hillary had the same reaction, saying, “yeah, he wants to avoid

confrontation. He doesn't want to fight. He wants to avoid that kind o f thing and say,

“oh well, ok, whatever you say!”

This improvisation also helped the students to relate to Herman through these

familiar characters and arguments. My reaction was that these students were very

familiar with these kinds of pressuring arguments, storylines and metanarratives

(Belsey, 1980; Davies, 1992; Flax, 1993; Foucault, 1980; Lather, 1991; Spivak, 1974;

Walkerdine, 1984) and I hoped if this activity was putting them in closer touch with

what they already knew. When I asked whether they had played a role similar to that of

Herman, Hillary. Alicia, Ellen and Dale agreed that they had. Dale explained it as

the feeling that you know what you want to do but you don't know why you want to do it and there are all these apparent good reasons why you should do what they want instead of what you want.

Alicia’s explanation for it was that you just don’t want to deal with the hassle, and you

feel more normal if you just do what they are saying. Ellen concurred with these

responses, explaining that “it suddenly doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore, so you

say, ‘I’m just going to do what everyone tells me!’” My reaction was that she and others

had illustrated the ways in which dominant cultural metanarratives enculturate and

constitute subjects’ behaviors and identities.

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This activity allowed them to experience the power in Charles’ position. Ellen

pointed out that people like that “seem to have some answer to life that I don’t have. ”

And, Charles explained that he felt like he was in a position to look down on someone

because you have society backing you up with what you say. At the same time, he felt

that Dale should have had all o f society backing him up, since one should be able to do

what one chooses. Charles said that while he was playing the part o f the sister, he

actually was mad at her for pushing Herman around, and mad at Herman for not

standing up for himself. Dale said he was busy thinking, “why don’t I want to be

normal? What the hell is wrong with me?” By the end of the workshop, the students

were enough in touch with some o f the pressures of their day to be able to attempt to

write the screenplay during subsequent focus group workshops.

The students' attempt to update “The Gentle Lena” engaged them in a process,

which forced them to consider the previously unconsidered ways in which

contemporary society enforces marriage or a heterosexual normativity (Britzman, 1994;

Davies, 1992; Lewis, 1992; Walkerdine, 1984). Dale’s point that it is hard to fix the

problem because we are in a difficult place, just beyond the problem but still aware of

the problem, proved to be true. We all found it difficult to identify a scenario that

would make a comparable point to Stein’s 1906 point. Howard suggested that we set

the story in a 19th century Russian village, because, after that, arranged marriage would

not work. And. as it turns out, he might have been right. But, in spite o f the difficulty,

we did come to some decisions. Dale was able to identify the theme; the internal

pressure to be normal; Sarah was able to develop the plot; and Charles contributed the

dialogue, which seemed to bridge the gap between Stein’s culture and ours.

The most interesting development to come out of the experience, and the value

of the workshop, I think, was the fact that through improvisation, most students realized

the pressures that were on them to marry and to do the ‘expected’ thing. By playing the

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oppressor and the oppressed in role, Alicia, Ellen, Charles and Dale came face to face

with the familiarity of the enforcement of normality. Hillary, Ellen and Brenda realized

the pressure on them to marry and have children, a pressure that the boys say that they

do not feel from their parents.

Conclusion

This chapter has covered students’ and my investigations of the various

perspectives on issues of marriage and the generations put forth by James in

Washington Square. Goldman in “Love and Marriage” and Stein in “The Gentle Lena.

In the following chapter, the focus is on Images of Romantic Relationships and

the literary works investigated are Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsbv. Hemingway’s A

Farewell To Arms, and Hurston’s Their Eves Were Watching God.

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CHAPTER 5

IMAGES OF ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;If you can bounce high, bounce for her too.Till she cry “Lover, gold hatted, high bouncing lover, I must have you. Thomas Parke DTnvilliers

From Fitzgerald, 1995/1925, title page.

We have such a fine time,” Catherine said. “I don’t take any interest in anything else any more. I’m so very happy married to you.

Hemingway, 1969/1939, p. 154

TeaCake looked like the love thoughts of women He could be a bee to a blossom—a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.

Hurston, 1998/1937, p. 106

Introduction

This chapter is comprised of the investigations of three works: Fitzgerald’s The

Great Gatsbv. Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and Hurston’s Their Eves Were

Watching God. While the first three stories raised issues of marriage and the

generations, these three stories stimulated investigation of images of romantic

relationships. Therefore, they are grouped together not only because they follow in

chronological order but also because they are connected by theme. Students revisited

this theme during the study of the three works and explored the theme in terms of the

various perspectives held by the three authors.

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THE GREAT GATSBY F. Scott Fitzgerald

ROMANCE OR MISOGYNY?

CHARLES AND MARIE

We have a duty to ourselves to articulate our differences with whatever others we encounter. Can we not say, indeed, that if there is no freedom of interpretation, no freedom to discuss whatever differences we seriously encounter, there is no political freedom either?

Booth, 1988, p. 415

Choice

This book was chosen because it is the most famous of Fitzgerald’s works, and the one most often chosen for high school American literature classes.

Synopsis

At the beginning of the novel, recent Yale graduate, Nick Carra way, acquires a job on Wall Street and a small a cottage on Long Island, across the bay from the home of his cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband, Tom. Nick, as narrator, exposes Tom’s habit of cheating on Daisy and his current affair with a lower class woman from “the ash heaps ” of the industrialized city who is married to George, the gas station mechanic who works on T om ’s car. Though Nick’s basic Midwestern values make him somewhat skeptical of the Buchanan’s values at first, he is also fascinated by lifestyle of the rich and powerful, becomes part of the crowd, and begins a relationship with Daisy’s friend, Jordan Baker.

Nick’s next door neighbor is Jay Gatsby, originally a poor man who, in his youth, had been engaged to Daisy Fay (Buchanan) until she threw him over for the richer, higher-statused Tom. From then on. Jay had basically been engaged in illegal rum running and related illegal activities in order to build a fortune and a mansion impressive enough to win back his tme love, Daisy.

He threw lavish weekly parties at his mansion to attract her to one of them, but the parties failed to bring Daisy. His discovery that Nick was Daisy’s cousin, however, prompts him to arrange a meeting with Daisy. Nick set this up, and the continuation of Daisy and Jay’s relationship commences. It reaches a fever pitch when, at the Plaza Hotel, where they all gather for an afternoon, Gatsby asks her to leaive Tom and marry him, insisting that she tell Tom she had never loved anyone but Gatsby. This brings Daisy to conflict and, an upset Daisy and a protective Gatsby leave the city in Gatsby’s car that Tom had driven there, and make their way back to Long Island. When Myrtle sees the car approaching the gas station where she and George live, she thinks Tom is driving, and runs out to hail him down. Daisy runs her down and continues driving. Neither she nor Gatsby suggests stopping for Myrtle. When Tom reaches the gas station. Myrtle is dead, and George is looking for the man he assumes to be her lover and driver of the car that killed her.

Tom and Daisy reconcile, plan their story, and when George reaches their house looking for Myrtle’s lover/killer and the car, Tom sends him to Gatsby’s house where

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the blood stained and damaged car is in the garage. George goes there and shoots Gatsby and then himself. Daisy and Tom escape to Europe until everything blows over, and Nick is left to organize Gatsby’s funeral with only himself and Jay’s father attending. Nick, revolted by the “rotten crowd,” breaks off his connection with his cheating, lying girlfriend, Jordan, and leaves New York for the saner values of the Midwest.

Mv Reading

Fetterley (1978) identified a central problem with The Great Gatsbv when she

wrote In The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction, that is that

Fitzgerald’s indictment of a lapsed dream of American success implicated women as the

embodiment of the corruption of the lost America. While Nick eventually redeemed

Gatsby, and Fitzgerald gave Nick the opportunity to redeem himself, there was not a

woman on the horizon who was drawn to counter Daisy’s ‘dark destroyer’ identity'

(Fielder, 1998 1960), and rise in triumph from the proverbial ashes. So, according to

Fetterley (1978), when Fitzgerald “got the modem age” (Miller, 1975) through a

dramatization of Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy, he also marked womanhood for generations

of readers, as the object of moral indignation (Fetterley, 1978, p. 72).

This implication of women might have been less of a problem in a novel of less

heroic and mythic proportions. But, The Great Gatsby works on a grand scale.

Fitzgerald responded to the horror of the modem life that he saw, and to the way that

Benjamin Franklin’s The Wav to Wealth had been transmuted into the American Dream

of the 1920's boom (Fetterley, 1978; Fiedler, 1998/1960). In what Fiedler (1998/1960)

calls the romantic fairy tale from hell, the penniless knight in the land of promise seeks

his fortune, finds it, and as a reward, wins the fair and wealthy damsel/redeemer. This

damsel, in the end, is not the redeemer at all, but the bitch goddess who is the evil

byproduct of the valley of ashes. And, everybody lives unhappily ever after because the

real horror of the modern age is that love has also been cormpted by an American

dream spun out of control to the point where love and people are bought, sold, and paid

for with dirty money and exploitation of others.

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But some are redeemed. Fitzgerald’s (1995/1925) juxtaposition of Gatsby’s

idealism with the narcissism implicit in the Buchanan’s value system has Gatsby

emerge a sympathetic character, in spite of some of his own questionable decisions, and

practices, including his involvement in M yrtle’s death. Furtherm ore, Nick,

sympathetically drawn by Fitzgerald, confirmed Gatsby’s status as victim rather than

villain, as one for whom the money was still more o f a means to an end that an end in

itself. There is also hope for Nick, who, though also silent about who killed Myrtle,

develops a moral awareness when, at thirty, he sees that he “is five years too old to lie

to himself and call it honor. ” He concludes that Jordan and the Buchanans are “a rotten

crowd,” and that Gatsby is “worth the whole damned bunch of them put together ”

(Fitzgerald, 1995, p. 162). Thus, the corruption of the dream is left at the foot of the

woman, with no corresponding female saviors to counter the evil.

The golden girl turned “rapist and aggressor” (Fiedler, 1998), and her husband

“smashed things and creatures up and then retreated back into their money and their

vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean

up the mess that they made” (Fitzgerald, 1995, pp .187-8). Fitzgerald, in spite of his

brilliant commentary on the materialism of his time and its impact on the dream, has left

something of a mess as well. By bequeathing us the most famous woman in American

literature as the villain who lives in our minds as the destroyer of the American dream,

Fitzgerald may have “gotten women” as well as the modem age.

CHARLES (AJVI.)

Charles is extremely invested in realizing a left wing political agenda. He

belongs to a young socialist organization, embraces an anti-western capitalist stance

with respect to issues of trade, does not believe in marriage, and is a self-described

atheist. His views also include a commitment to a feminist ideology that is based on his

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ideas that women are equal, should be paid equally, should be represented equally in

politics, and should not be considered appendages to males. He believes that ’’gender

stereotypes still exist in today’s society, preventing people from reaching their full

potential,” and that these stereotypes are ‘corrupt and short-sighted.’ He thinks it is still

a man’s world. “Just look at our government,” he says, “congress, in the vast majority,

is male; we have never had a female president; and the Equal Rights Amendment did

not get passed a couple of decades ago.”

Charles does not think many in his age group share his views. “1 see many high

school girls fulfilling typical female roles, ” he says. He cites a preoccupation with

shopping and make-up, and “an all around submissiveness” as examples of stereotypical

behavior. “Many girls my age don’t seem to be interested in breaking traditional female

stereotypes,” he says, “but rather support them, unwittingly or not.” One of the reasons

for this, he thinks, is that when a girl is attractive and successful with boys, she decides

that that is what is expected of her, and there is nothing else she has to (Lewis, 1992).

“She doesn’t choose to do things like get good grades or be aggressive or demand equal

rights because she has already been accepted on that one level.”

Charles holds women in higher regard than he holds men. He connects men

with violence and senseless competition. If he is guilty of any prejudice, he thinks it is

prejudice against male jock types. They promote the double standard, he says, “and it is

not right.” On the one hand, “I know a lot of guys who don’t like aggressive women,

and if a girl looks even slightly butch or aggressive, they call her a dyke.” On the other

hand, he says, “guys call girls ‘sluts’ all the time, but they totally ignore how many

people they have been with. To them, guys are just players, and pretty cool.” He agrees

with Sarah in thinking that an emphasis on competition has resulted in girls calling each

other ‘sluts’ too. He thinks that our sexist culture has developed over many generations

of men being in control. He believes that educating young children about gender

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stereotypes would be a good thing because the older you get, the more ingrained some

of these stereotypes are.

When you have girls growing up all through elementary school thinking a certain way a girl should act and what is feminine and what is masculine, it is a lot harder once you get to high school . . . or college . . . because they are cemented into their heads, and it is hard to get them out.

He himself suffers from what he calls ‘guilt by association,’ and, he has become

rebellious as a result. He does not play competitive sports, he is not physically

aggressive, and he tries to be respectful of girls and sensitive to others’ emotions.

Charles attributes his feminist attitudes to his mother, who, like his father, works full

time as a high school teacher. I really don’t have a model of the domesticated

woman,” he says. According to him, his mother is an assertive woman who works and

“is not just staying home cooking and cleaning; she is out winning bread for the

family. ” He claims that his mom and dad shared child-rearing responsibilities equally

when he was growing up.

Charles has a long-term girlfriend and a few close friends whom he assumes

think of him as somewhat complicated and multi-faceted. He thinks that the staff thinks

of him as mature and responsible, and, in fact, those are two of the qualities that the

staff mentioned when asked about Charles. They see him as sincere, hardworking,

smart, and having some leadership ability. They also see him as “busy being

rebellious” right now. Charles earns high grades, and has consistently done so

throughout his schooling in the school district.

Charles was a definite asset to the class I taught, and particularly to the

discussions. He was a consistent contributor to conversations and one who supported a

pro-feminist agenda, for the most part. He loves to read, particularly classics and

philosophy, and one of his favorite authors is Fitzgerald. It is no surprise, then, that he

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added much to the discussions of The Great Gatsbv. in which Nick Caraway and Jay

Gatsby were the characters with whom he reported making the strongest connections.

Written Responses

We began the investigation of Gatsby with the usual prompt for direct written

response in an effort to determine students’ responses to characters, gender

representations, author’s perspective and the story itself. The boys and girls in the

morning class related primarily to Gatsby and described the women as “sexual

temptresses,’’ as “striving for acquisition of money and status,” and as “passively sitting

around looking pretty and doing nothing.” Equal numbers of boys and girls as

described the men in the novel: “powerful,” “knowledgeable,” “financially secure,”

“bullies,” and “cheaters.” Students reported that, for the most part, the females were

attracted to the males because of money (with the exception of Daisy’s initial attraction

for Jay Gatsby). They also reported that the men were attracted to the women because

of physical appearance and sex, that men had financial power and women had sexual

power, and that there were definite double standards and expectations for female and

male behavior. The double standards were that men were in charge, had the money and

were expected to go out to work each day: women were dependent, had sexual power,

and were expected to stay home. For the most part, the students agreed that Fitzgerald

(1995) was contesting the moral bankruptcy of Tom and Daisy and Myrtle and the

party-goers who “conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated

with amusement parks” (p. 41).

The students did find that this story was realistic for its time, and even realistic

for contemporary times, although they were not initially certain of Fitzgerald’s point.

As an added introduction to this class, I adapted an activity from O ’Donnell-

Alien and Smagorinsky (1999), that was considered by students in both classes to be

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one of the favorite activities of the course. The activity engaged students in artistic

renderings of characters in The Great Gatsbv. Students worked in one of six groups to

draw life-size pictures of Daisy, Tom, Jay, Myrtle, Nick or Jordan on butcher paper, and

to identify characters’ virtues, vices,

objectives and changes. In addition,

students were asked to identify colors and

symbols associated with the characters,

the characters’ most significant qualities,

and the characters’ three most important

lines. The activity was a success because

it engaged students and also because it

Figure 5.1: Daisy as Trophy

directed students toward an investigation of the text for a clarification o f characters’

traits, perspectives and motivations. Charles’ group designed Daisy as a gold trophy,

surrounded by symbols including a ‘heart for sale,’ a dollar sign, burning sex symbols,

and Gatsby s grave. Other students engaged in familiarizing themselves with other

characters in the novel, and by the time they had finished with this activity, they had a

firm grasp on Fitzgerald’s characters and were ready for discussion.

Discussion

Initially, most of the students in the morning class thought that Nick was

insignificant to the story. Margaret Jones and I tried to suggest that he was the moral

barometer in the story, citing his decision that “they were a rotten crowd” at the end.

However, the group could not see Nick’s importance. Alicia asked the question many

of them had on their minds: “should we admire him because he just stood back and

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didn’t do anything?” This question was a good one in that it enlightened us all to the

ways in which Fitzgerald used his narrator. It also reminded me that in order to help

students to see the authorial perspective and the importance o f certain literary

characters, I needed to concentrate to some extent on the characters’ progression. In

this case, I need to spend some time discussing Nick’s development in the novel, as he

went from one who was an observer, to one who was an actor.

I considered Nick a good example of a character through which the idea of the

“homodiegetic narrator” (Phelan, 1996) could be explored with the students. I realized

the difficulty readers, and especially young ones, have with storytellers who are also

characters in the story, particularly when they develop and change throughout the

course of a narrative. I also thought that this conversation would be necessary for an

eventual appreciation of Frederic Henry in Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms, which

was the next novel to be studied. So, in our discussion of the book, I focused on Nick’s

unique situation in the story as narrator and character who is not the same at the

beginning of the story as he is in the end. This helped the students to see his role as

slightly more important to the story than they had originally thought, and to see the

moral implications of Daisy and Tom's behavior through the changing eyes of Nick.

Originally, many did not pick up on what I saw as Fitzgerald’s subtle damning of

Jordan, which made it all the more difficult for them to see the fact that Nick’s leaving

her and the gang represented a moral triumph for him. They did not think that her

transgressions were all that serious. However, some time spent on considering Nick’s

reliability as narrator made Dale and a few of the other boys and girls consider that

Nick’s eventual negative judgment of her lying and cheating was sanctioned by

Fitzgerald.

Charles, being a Fitzgerald fan, had read The Great Gatsbv before, and had also

read it in a class with me where we discussed the characters, the theme, the social

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commentary and ethical implications extensively. So, he came into this conversation

with a slight advantage over the other students, and his reflection on the book inspired a

more critical approach and deeper reflection by the others. He had had the time to do

the kind of reflection on his own responses that Bogdan (1992, 1997, 1999)

recommends. Charles, who had an ‘extremely high’ connection with Nick on the final

questionnaire (Appendix E), said that he actually connected with him because of his

dual role as narrator and character and even because of his questionable position on

things through most of the novel. He related to Nick, he said, because of “his hatred of

the shallowness while in the middle of it.”

While we did not discuss the representation o f the men and women in the class

previously taken by Charles, it was my central concern for this class. We continued our

discussion by encouraging a textual negotiation on the representations and the novel

with the answers to the students written responses.

Margaret Jackson and I asked about the implications of the stereotypical

representations of some of the men and women in this novel. We threw out questions

such as, “are these stereotypes accurate for the people at the time of the twenties? And,

“are they still reflective of reality today?” Most o f the students believed that the

representations were “realistic for their time,” but Charles asserted that Fitzgerald’s

characters were universal. “I can very much see those kinds of characters being read in

today’s literature,” he said. “There are still evil Toms, social-climbing Gatsbys, and

users like Daisy. ” Many students agreed that the novel still captured male and female

characteristics existing today, particularly for people in the upper classes. They also

agreed with the idea that men have the financial power and women have the sexual

power. And, they agreed that this is still true. The following discussion illustrated this.

Tina: There's still some bullying and there are still some women parading around saying, T have what you want and you can get it,' and so, there is a power trip on both sides.

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Noel: The men have what the women want—money and the women have what the men want—sex.

Charles: Women become the trophies. “Look how beautiful she is. I amsomebody now. I am powerful." A beautiful wife is one more status symbol, the ultimate trophy. And. society soys that if you are incredibly beautiful, that is all you have to be. The women in the story ore users. They are reduced to whores in the str ictest sense of the word.. . in th e strictest sense of the definition.

Alicia: Why do the women let that happen to them?

Charles: Because nothing else is expected of them in the society.

Alicia: But this is all high class, though?

Charles: I don't think so. They are in love with trophies. I t is like a footballplayer going out with a cheerleader. I t is the same thing.

I was very interested in the way that Charles and some others made connections

between the novel’s characters and situations, and contemporary pressures (Hines,

1997; Rogers, 1997). I also was pleased that he seemed to be awakening in others some

realization about women’s status in the literature, in life, and the way that society

constructs unequal roles, which seem to be accepted by everyone,-including the

apparent victims. In addition, I thought that Alicia’s question was the one question

centrally important to the stimulation of reflective thinking that might eventually

transform thinking about gender roles, and the roles themselves. All in all, this novel,

more than others, raised issues and stereotypes of both men and women.

In an attempt to capitalize on Charles’ connection of those stereotypes with the

students’ lives, and to use Alicia’s question to begin to break apart those stereotypes,

Margaret Jackson and I questioned them on what changes would have to take place for

things to be more equally balanced in terms of gender. “Would these gender disparities

remain if men and women were both allowed sexual freedom without recrimination?’’

we asked. “Should that be the case?’’ We also asked, “Why is/ isn’t it?” “Would these

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inequities remain if men and women had equal financial security and equal

opportunities for high paying work”? “Should that be the case?” And, “Is there

something biological about the basis for the establishment/ continuation of these sex

role stereotypes?”

While the students agreed that women do want sex, they also agreed that men

want it more. I had expected that one or more of the girls might have contested this

statement, but none did, leading me to judge their answers as culturally “produced” as

opposed to emanating from their experiences. The students also thought that, in this

society, aside from the fact that women had a hard time breaking through the glass

ceiling, men still had the financial power and security because women still chose and

were expected to choose to be the nurturers of the children (Lewis, 1992). And, men

were expected to have careers and make the money.

When girls were asked to imagine how they would conceivably combine

childcare with a career, the very few that reported being serious about careers said they

had considered not having children. Most girls had given the situation no thought,

however, but, when asked, said that that they would wait to go back to work until after

the kids were old enough to go to school. When asked if they thought men and women

could possibly share the responsibilities of home and career, they found it hard to

imagine a scenario that would work effectively within the system that is in place. One

girl said “I don't want to sacrifice a career for my children, so I couldn’t imagine that a

man would.” Alternative considerations, such as instituting workplace daycare centers,

had not occurred to them as yet. Because they hadn’t, most thought about the problem

in traditional ways. No girl or boy expected the husband/father to adjust any career

decisions because of children. Both expected women to do so, however.

Still attempting to stimulate a discontentment (Kohlberg, 1980) with what

seemed like socially determined, yet unequal roles, I tried to foster thinking about

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contemporary gender constructions through a consideration of students’ responses to the

characters in The Great Gatsbv. To help them to come to terms with their own feelings

about some of the aggressive or submissive behaviors of the men and women in the

novel, we gave them an assignment. The assignment (Appendix H) required that they

write a letter to one of the main characters in the novel in which they discuss their

reaction to their behavior. Charles’ letter addressed the gender politics of his time as

well as Tom’s:Tom,We have to talk. Your actions are those of an egotistical uncaring ape.The way you treat the women in your life is beyond reproach. Things have not changed that much in 1999. While women have made giant steps forward since your time in achieving equality to men in relationships, they are often still treated as inferiors. The fa c t that more women are entering the world of employment and earning their own money still does not matter to many men, and domineering males are still seen as the leaders, the money makers. Women are often regarded as the inferiors and their thoughts and opinions disregarded. Charles

Through this assignment, Charles and a few other students were able to address the

questionable behaviors of the male and female characters and strengthen their own

commitment to more equitable behaviors by means of their direct responses to the

literature (Bogdan, 1990, 1992, 1997).

Literarv Criticism

During the discussion, Charles went beyond references to stereotypes, issues of

male dominance, and female subjugation in the novel to make several references to the

fact that he believed that “ it was pretty clear that Fitzgerald was trying to make the

women out to be the destroyers of men.” I picked up on this comment as it provided a

great transition to the introduction of Fetterley’s (1978) feminist criticism of The Great

Gatsbv. which I had planned to introduce. Conveniently, the first of Fetterley’s points

had echoed Charles’ point. Her position was that the object of the novel’s hostility was

not dead Gatsby but surviving Daisy. Charles agreed. In the following discussion, he

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points out that ’’she gets blamed for the novel’s whole sordid ordeal and particularly for

Gatsby’s destruction.”

Margaret: Why was Daisy the villain?

Dale: (sarcastically) Well should he have made her a man? Would it be ok then?

Pat: Well, what is the theme o f the book? What do you think Fitzgerald is saying here?

Noel: It's about the level of corruption that exists in the so-called elite society

Pat: Did he have to make the villain a woman to get that point across?

Dale: No. I t wouldn't make much difference if it were a man or a woman.

Noel: I don't think it makes a difference at all.

Pat: Fetter ley is annoyed because she thinks it is a pattern in Americanliterature that the men are redeemed and the women are not.

Dale (sarcastically again): How do you feel about Tom?

M argaret: Do you guys hate Tom and Daisy equally? Do you view one as being worse than the other?

Charles: Daisy ended up destroying Gatsby. Fitzgerald made Daisy out to be not as directly evil as Tom, but in a very indirect way caused the destruction of a man, an innocent man. Tom was a bastard but he didn't really go to any extreme ends to destroy Gatsby.

The fact that Charles believed that Daisy was Fitzgerald’s villain, even in the

face of Dale’s challenge, further opened the door for Fetterley’s (1978) argument. But,

Fetterley’s (1978) point went even beyond Charles’ to make broader implications about

Fitzgerald’s attitude toward women. Margaret Jones and I provided another argument

from Fetterley (1978) to focus on her point:

The Great Gatsbv is based on the lie of a double standard that makes female characters in our ‘classic’ literature not persons but symbols and makes women’s experience no part of that literature’s concern (p. 97).While Gatsby pays for his imagination, Daisy pays more (p. 98).

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As Fetterley went beyond talking specifically about a particular woman to

suggest that “female characters in our classic literature are not persons but symbols,”

her argument demanded a new perspective from the students. It demanded that the

students not only identify stereotypes in the novel, but that they also remove themselves

from the story (Bogdan, 1992; Hines, 1997; Soter, 1997) to consider the impact of the

author’s and the reader’s culture on novel. In addition, her argument demanded that

students engage in deconstructing the text to “demonstrate how a text works against

itself . . . to consider questioningly, its beginning validity and principles” (Said, 1975,

335). The students found this operation difficult, and resisted it, as I expected they

would. Mainly, they resisted politicizing the literature (Bogdan, 1992; Davies; 1992;

Fetterley. 1978; Martino, 1995; Obbink, 1992; Scholes, 1995; Walkerdine, 1984) and

implicating ‘women’ because of a few characters.

I assumed that Charles would give Fetterley’s (1978) perspective some

consideration because he so often commented on the fact that “Fitzgerald’s work has

some of worst female stereotypes and gender issues in literature anywhere. However, I

was wrong. He clearly resisted Fetterley’s position on two counts. Firstly, like some of

the others, he did not believe that an author could be accused of making broad

statements about an entire sex through a portrayal o f the women in one book.

Secondly, he argued against using an ideological criticism, which violates the history,

and culture in which the literature was produced;

I think that you have to look at a piece of literature within th e terms and the cultures of the literature in which it was originally written because a lot of stu ff, if applied to today's standards, is extremely dated, and maybe not politically correct. People applying today's standards to a past situation . . . I really don't think you can logically do that because what is moral and right now cannot be applied to that other time.

Because of Charles’ feminist perspective and his violation of the older literature

by identifying the ‘gender’ stereotypes, I was surprised by his first response, and a bit

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confused. I disagreed with the idea that because something (like racism or sexism)

wasn’t considered wrong by a society at a previous time, that it wasn’t wrong even if

judged by higher standards than social ones. Therefore, I made four arguments to

Charles first point. Firstly, there were numerous Daisy replicas in Fitzgerald’s other

novels who were also victims of Fitzgerald’s scorn. Secondly, Fitzgerald critiqued the

lost American dream primarily through the actions of one woman. Thirdly, not one

admirable or redeemable woman appeared in Gatsbv. Lastly, although some of the men

were despicable and portrayed as stereotypes as well, Nick and Gatsby were treated

sympathetically, and allowed to change for the better, or be redeemed.

Charles agreed, of course, that Daisy was the villain. He just didn’t agree that

we should be making judgments on it that would implicate Fitzgerald in a misogynist

plot based on contemporary standards. So, I got nowhere with Charles on these points,

although my objective was geared more to engage him in process of thinking than it was

to actually force an agreement with Fetterley.

When I failed to convince him with my arguments to his first point, I addressed

the second point, which involved his resistance toward revisionism. I took this question

more seriously as my entire project was directed at keeping classic literature alive in

contemporary classrooms by helping students to challenge the stereotypes and address

the ideological differences between authors and readers (Bogdan, 1992, 1993; Obbink,

1992). My ethical investment in this project was based on a desire to promote gender

equality by increasing awareness of literary and life experiences which threaten that

equality—even when that meant taking a revisionist stance toward the literature.

I made use of Booth’s (1988) argument to posit that Charles’ “historical defense

scant [ed] my responsibility to myself and my living friends” (p. 411) who read the

literature today. “Surely,” I said, quoting Booth, “it is dishonest to pretend that all

broadly accepted practices of another time or place are beyond our criticism!” And, I

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questioned how current readers could continue to engage aesthetically or personally,

with literature that “reinforce[ed] the view that women are at best a delectation for the

life of man, and at worst a threat, a nuisance or a necessary' evil” (p. 409). This novel

certainly did perform the central act of injustice, "turning a woman into something

always threatening to fail him or maim him . . . " ( p . 391). I believed that while

Fitzgerald did critique Tom’s values and his blatant sexism, his choice to lay the

destruction of Gatsby at Daisy’s feet exposed either Fitzgerald’s own unconscious

entrenchment in a misogynist culture or a personal antagonism toward women. I

maintained that without a vehicle for critiquing either the open misogyny, covert sexism

or androcentrist perspectives that were comfortably accepted in authors’ times and

cultures, some of the classics would either continue to be politically offensive to some,

irrelevant to most, or reinforcing of the sexism of their time for many.

I did not think that engaging in a dialectic with a sexist or androcentric text was

mutually exclusive with students’ appreciation of the literature (Bogdan, 1990, 1992,

1997). As far as I was concerned, the suggestion that a sexist culture accounted for an

androcentric author and text was only a step beyond a reader suggesting that an author’s

antagonism toward his wife accounted for his antagonism for Daisy (which, as we shall

see, was acceptable to Charles). Both implied a contamination of pure art. Both of

these approaches admit that literature is impacted by history and culture (Fetterley,

1978, xi). My idea was that the reader should consider both the aesthetics and the

politics of the text for a full appreciation, especially when texts present political

problems. My goal was that the students merge a pre-critical aesthetic response with a

critical approach. This critical stance would, I thought, promote an awareness of as

many as possible of the conditions of the experience (Bogdan, 1992, 1997), including

both an awareness of the author’s cultural and political perspectives as well as the

readers.’ I was convinced that without this fusion of the personal with the political

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(Bogdan, 1992, 1997; Haroway, 1988: Soter, 1999), contemporary readers would lose

interest in older literature. I was worried that if they didn’t lose interest, they would

accept “the pretense that literature speaks universal truths through forms from which all

the merely personal . . . has been burned away . . .or transformed, through the medium

of art into the representative” (Fetterley, 1978, xi).

So I pushed for the ‘stereophonic vision’ which Bogdan insisted would

“integrate enjoyment and self consciousness of the relationship between the text and the

•reader (Bogdan, 1992. p. 191). But, I still had resistance from students who did not

want their classic literature politicized. Especially Charles.

Writing

Charles remained fascinated with Fitzgerald’s representation of women in his

texts, and although he resisted Fetterley (1978), he continued to explore her question of

why Fitzgerald made Daisy the villain. He explored the question in a paper, drawing

from his knowledge of four or five of Fitzgerald’s works. Allowing for an influence of

authorial politics, if not for readers’ politics, he hypothesized that Fitzgerald’s women

were based on his wife Zelda, and that the scenarios written were often a retelling of the

same story: poor boy falls for rich girl. In the paper, Charles argued that the bitterness

that Fitzgerald felt for his wife Zelda for having destroyed him and his work, “worked

its way into several, if not all of his writings, and in The Great Gatsbv. presented itself

in its most obvious form.” As part of his thesis, he stated that “Fitzgerald was actually

writing of himself when he penned his great statement about “The American Dream. ”

To prove his point, he told the story of the relationship between Scott, the poor

boy and Zelda, the rich girl who outclassed him. Initially, Zelda had turned him down

due to his lack of money and was not to marry him until he ‘proved his worth’ by

writing a successful novel. This Side o f Paradise. Charles makes the point that this

relationship worked its way into The Great Gatsby.

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This most definitely is the inspiration for th e relationship between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Fay. Like Fitzgerald, Gatsby was serving in the army when he met the woman of his dreams. Daisy, like Zelda, was beautiful, daring, and irresistible. They had a brief romance, but both knew that it could not last. Like Fitzgerald, Gatsby was an outsider with no means to support himself. The fictional relationship ended when Gatsby was sent overseas. When he returned, Daisy had fallen for another man, one with the material wealth that he himself did not have. Determined to win her back, Gatsby began his quest to attain greatness.

Charles continued to prove his point by demonstrating the ways in which

Fitzgerald explored the antagonism for the blond, beautiful, spoiled, rich girl we meet in

Gatsbv as well as in “The Offshore Pirate” and the Tender Is The Night. He also argued

that Fitzgerald found the wealthy lifestyle that he and Zelda lived to be morally empty.

“Everywhere he looked, he saw hypocrisy, lying, and back stabbing,” explained

Charles, who also argued that Fitzgerald’s split personality “manifested itself in the two

main characters of The Great Gatsbv. He said that Scott’s resentment for Zelda, whose

partying and self-destruction was destroying him and his career, “worked its way into

the writing of The Great Gatsbv.”

Daisy, as well as the rest of the women in the book, are treated harshly and represented as shallow and manipulative. Daisy was shown to be the corrupter of Gatsby; she was the reason he became rich, and she was the reason he was killed at the end of th e book.

He concluded his arguments by repeating the comparison between Fitzgerald and

Gatsby and his destruction by Zelda, and Gatsby’s destruction by Daisy. “A man’s

whole life was shaped and burned down to the ground because of Daisy,” he wrote .It

seemed to me that if Charles were adopting the argument that some of Fitzgerald’s

animosity toward Daisy was bom of his own animosity toward Zelda, that his argument

was not too far removed from Fetterley’s (1978) own connections between Fitzgerald’s

culture and his art. But, although he could accept the fact that Fitzgerald’s personal

animosity toward Zelda could be important to the depiction of Daisy, he could not

accept that a negative cultural perspective toward women in Fitzgerald’s time (judged245

against the present political scene) could impact the novel. For him, this somehow

smacked of judging an older novel by today’s standards. “Again,” he explained, “I

don’t put my morals on the novels I read. It is wrong to apply today’s standards to

yesterday’s literature.” He maintained this stance even though he had been the first one

to mention that Fitzgerald’s characters were stereotypes. I could only conclude that he

thought they were sexist stereotypes also for the twenties audience. Otherwise, I

surmised that accusing Fitzgerald of sexism would imply that he was applying current

standards to Fitzgerald’s work.

Social Imagination Activities.

One of my objectives was to have the students consider their own gender issues

as well as those of the characters. To do this, I engaged the students in one dramatic

activity directed toward that goal. In an attempt to get the students to draw comparisons

between gender issues in their world, and the 1920s characters,’ I created a scenario

wherein the students in groups of two, engaged in role-play. One student was directed

to play the role of either Tom, Daisy, Gatsby or Myrtle appearing in the film update of

The Great Gatsby; the other was directed to play an interviewing journalist from New

Relationship Magazine. The New Relationship Magazine’s readership was defined as

being interested in gender equality and in eradicating sexism in relationships in the

media as well as in life. The journalist was attempting to cover a story, which would

explore the actors’ reactions to playing roles, which are considered sexist by today’s

standards. The journalists’ role was to appeal to his/her readership.

Margaret met with those choosing to be ‘journalists’ and identified herself as the

editor in chief of New Relationship. She gave them the assignment and reminded them

that this story was important because there was a growing interest among feminists that

images of dominant males and passive females in film adaptations of classic literature

“could reinforce sexist behaviors in the contemporary culture.” She explained that

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recently there had been a public outcry from the National Organization for Women that

the glamorization of sexist relationships on the screen was a continuing threat to the

status of women, especially for impressionable teens seeing these movies and assuming

that these dynamics were normal. These activists had pointed out that in film

adaptations of period pieces, such as The Great Gatsby. where a responsibility to the

original text prohibited an ‘update’ in gender portrayals, representations of women and

girls were offensive by today’s standards. Margaret also explained that articles and

letters to the editor had been written to raise awareness about this issue and encourage a

public dialogue on cultural anachronisms involving gender. Women had not boycotted

The Great Gatsby update because they expressed an appreciation for the classic work,

and Fitzgerald’s critique of the immoral and amoral behavior of the characters.

However, they did want to stimulate a discussion about the possible effects of these

images on contemporary viewers because much of the sexism in the 1920s culture, in

which Fitzgerald wrote, went uncritiqued.

Margaret Jackson explained that many men and women believe that ‘life

imitates art,’ and are especially concerned with images of abusing male characters,

submissive and subjugated female characters, frivolous, unproductive women, and

unequal relationships, such as the ones in Gatsby. And, I wanted them to know that

while no one could expect that a classic would be updated to satisfy current demands for

politically correctness. New Relationship readers would be interested in knowing that

the subject was being addressed. Margaret explained to them that one way to address

the issue and begin the public dialogue was to conduct interviews with the actors

playing these parts. The interviews would be designed to elicit actors’ reactions to the

experience of playing men and women in unequal relationships, seventy-five years and

a woman’s movement after Fitzgerald.

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The journalists were told to get as much information as possible about reactions

to playing characters who are abusers or abused; dominant or submissive; users,

trophies, or manipulators. They were instructed to identify five questions that they

could ask the actors about their perceptions/reactions to their characters that would be

interesting to an audience committed to raising consciousness about the roles of men

and women in relationships.

While Margaret spoke to the ‘journalists’, I took the ‘actors’ aside and explained

to them that the studio was most interested in being politically correct and most

interested in avoiding any bad publicity. I encouraged the ‘actors’ to speak their minds

and to explore the differences between their own lives and those of the characters they

portrayed in the film. I also encouraged them to explore the differences between the

thoughts and reactions they (as human beings playing the parts) had to the actions and

behaviors of these men and women whose gender identities were constructed in an

earlier time. 1 suggested that the public would be interested in making a distinction

between them as actors and them as characters, and that this was particularly important

with characters in a book as well known as The Great Gatsbv. If these people were

going to see the movie, they would want to know that there was a dialogue taking place

about the effects of such images of men, women and relationships on viewers of today.

And, the dialogue might further interest the readers in seeing the movie.

I was convinced that this exercise would force both the journalists’ and the

‘actors’ to think through the differences between standards for relationships in

Fitzgerald’s time vs. those of the present; and that it would address the students’ own

standards in terms of the feminist perspectives promoted by New Relationship

Magazine. I hoped that by acting in role the students would see more clearly the

problems with the unequal relationships represented in the novel, and those real

relationships familiar to them in their own lives. I had hoped to bring about a revelation

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similar to the one experienced by John Paul Sartre. He stated that “it is on the day that

we can conceive of a different state of affairs that a new light fails on our troubles and

our suffering, and that we decide that these things are unbearable.” (Sartre in Greene,

1955, p. 5).

In my mind, this activity was founded on the idea that developing morally is

equated with an ability to be able to imagine oneself in the place of another (Dewey,

1922; Heathcote, 1986; Gilligan, 1982; Johnson, 1993; Kohlberg, 1976, 1980, 1985;

Noddings. 1984; O ’Neill, 1995). The activity, requiring them to take on the position of

the expert (actor or journalist) was designed to “catch [the students] in a moment of

authenticity of real choice and real concern. In this moment of authenticity, they could

think from within a dilemma rather than just discussing the dilemma; and think from

within the framework of choices rather than talking cooly about the framework of

choices” (Heathcote, 1984, p. 119).

Much to my dismay and disappointment, the activity was almost a complete

failure. The students enjoyed participating, so, in general, it was a pleasurable activity

for them. And, the ‘journalists’ did a good job of asking the questions that would bring

about the ‘actors’ awareness of the tensions involved in playing the parts. However, the

‘actors’ had a very difficult time getting out of the character’ role and into the role of

the actor.’ They found it difficult to deliberate on performing their roles, so 1 was

unable to engage them in the kind of resistance to the sexist stereotypes in The Great

Gatsbv that 1 hoped to bring about. They could speak as ‘actors,’ and discuss their

roles, but they resisted considering any political implications involved with playing

these roles, and any relationship between their lives versus the lives of the men and

women of the twenties. They either resisted on the basis of the fact “they were actors

and not moralists” or because they were not able to exist in the bifurcated state that was

being required to comment on themselves as they played the actor’ roles.

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I had assumed that by employing what Heathcote referred to as “the mantle of

the expert” (Heathcote, 1984), I could allow students to develop the stance of experts

( ‘journalists' and ‘actors,’) to increase their power, authority and responsibility in

acknowledging how particular feminist audiences would react to their work. According

to Edmiston (1999), when students view the world with an expert perspective, they are

enhanced with ability to deal professionally with a problem. And, O ’Neill (1995) has

pointed out that employing “the mantle of the expert “give[s] students the experience of

becoming part of a group that cooperates, takes responsibility, sets standards for

achievement, and engages in a committed endeavor” (O ’Neill, 1995, p. 170). The

Relationship Magazine activity did not bring about the consideration of the gender

issues that I had hoped it would. I concluded that it failed due to the fact that I was

asking them to deal with themselves simultaneously as actors and as characters, which

might have been too difficult or confusing. Charles had been absent for the activity, so

I do not know how he might have engaged.

Final Project

While some students chose to do their final projects on The Great Gatsbv.

Charles did not. I refer here to the project that Charles did involving Ernest

Hemingway's short story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” because o f its relevance to

Charles’ work with The Great Gatsbv and our argument about Fetterley’s judgment of

the novel by current standards for female readers of our time.

“Hills like White Elephants” is a story about an unmarried couple who, after

discovering the woman’s pregnancy, discusses the possible effects o f abortion on their

relationship. In this story, Hemingway (1987) deals with the typical standpoints held by

men and women and exposes not only gender differences, but a subtle criticism of the

male’s somewhat insensitive position. The man in the story is pushing the woman to

have an abortion. He insists that the procedure is “simple” and “safe” and “all perfectly

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natural” (p. 212). He has “known lots of people who have done it,” and attempts to

convince the woman that “things will be fine afterward. Just like we were before” (p.

213). The woman, on the other hand, is portrayed as the one worrying that this will ruin

their relationship. She makes subtle suggestions that marriage would be all right with

her, and that she feels rejected by his seeming lack of interest in marrying her. “Doesn’t

it mean anything to you? We could get along?” she says (1987, p. 214).

Charles, very interested in the story, rewrote it as a play and performed it for the

school community with Ellen, a focus group member from his class, who played Jig.

For his final project however, he rewrote the story, adding sensitivity to the male and

practicality to the female, essentially reversing the gender roles for the update.

-"Does it have to be this way. Jig," the boy said-The girl said nothing.-"I mean, th is is serious, really serious. We could have regrets afterward. Weprobably will. We should think about this some more."-The girl sighed. "We already talked about this."-"What if something goes wrong? You could be hurt."-"It's perfectly simple. I know that," said Jig.

This revision of a text went against Charles’ earlier stated opinions about

applying present day morals or politics to older texts. He had argued against people

applying today’s standards to a past situation. “I really don’t think you can logically do

that because what is moral and right now cannot be applied to that other time,” he had

argued. And, now, he was engaged in doing just that.

I pondered the reasons for this sudden desire to “tamper with a piece of cultural

history.” Maybe this story had caused him to experience what Bogdan (1992) calls a

‘misrecognition scene’ between himself and the male protagonist, especially because he

reported a high connection with the girl in the original story and only a moderate

connection with the man. I also mused that perhaps in picking up on Hemingway’s

feminist perspective, he became aware of his and Hemingway’s shared ideological

stance, and assumed that Hemingway would have approved of his rewrite. My more251

cynical self made me wonder if perhaps he had less trouble rewriting sexist

representations when he found the male’s role in the original to be questionable, and

one with which he had trouble relating.

In a follow-up interview, I continued with Harper’s (2000) emphasis on

contradictions, and presented this contradiction to him, along with his resistance to

revisionism and corresponding claim that Fitzgerald uses sexist stereotypes. He

admitted that he had been “caught in a paradox.” He seemed genuinely surprised that

he had contradicted himself, and surprised that he had engaged in an activity to which

he was philosophically opposed. He was particularly surprised that the “Hills Like

White Elephants” update compromised his values because he had enjoyed the process

of rewriting the play so much and had thought that the revision reflected contemporary

reality. I asked him if he thought that his failure to relate with the man in the story

might have influenced his desire to rewrite the piece. He said that he wasn’t sure, but

that that was a possibility, as he had failed to relate with the insensitivity of the male.

I suspected that his acceptance of his own rewrite of a character that he

considered insensitive, might eventually build toward an increased understanding o f

women who might be interested in ‘violating’ literature which is deemed by them to be

sexist, but I don’t know. Whatever the case, I was quite pleased about the effort and

whatever gender awareness of literary representation had been brought into his

awareness through this activity.

Reflections

The students looked generally at the male and female characters in The Great

Gatsbv. and considered whether the representations were realistic for their time and for

today. From their first responses, they believed the representations to be realistic.

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My introduction of Fetterley’s (1978) ideas about androcentrism to the class

proved to be problematic for most o f the students, including Charles, who resisted a

revisionist literary criticism. Although he could accept the effect of Zelda and their

personal life on Fitzgerald’s work, he could not admit to a cultural influence that could

be critiqued by current standards. Charles’s rewrite of “Hills like White Elephants,”

however, forced him and the class to reconsider a dialectical approach to literature that

could combine an aesthetic and a political approach.

The one admitted feminist in the A M . class, Charles, had an important influence

on that class during the discussions, as he helped the others to make connections

between the stereotypical behavior of men and women in The Great Gatsbv and

corresponding high school girls and boys today. He also argued against great odds for

them to see the unequal status of the men and women in the novel and the inequities

between men and women today.

MARIE (PM .)

Resistance became a word for the fear, dislike, hesitance most people have about turning their entire lives upside down and watching everything they have ever learned disin tegrate into lies. “Empowerment” may be liberating, but it is also a lot of hard work and new responsibility to sort through one’s life and rebuild according to one’s own values and choices. Kathy Kea, in Lather, 1991 p. 142

They resist even when the traditional ways have worked to subordinate them because they have internalized the meanings of the dominant worldview (i.e. men are suited for leadership) making alternative meanings sound outlandish and unrealistic. Henry Giroux, 1981

Marie is an engaging, cheerful, attractive, and popular senior who is praised by

many staff members for her sense o f responsibility, and her commitment to community

service at the school. Her parents were divorced when she was two. As of this year,

she lives with her mother, as she did for the first nine years o f her life. But, between the

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fifth grade and the end of her junior year, she lived with her father and stepmother, her

sister and her two stepsisters. Her background was instrumental in developing an

admirable independence in Marie, and most of her friends mention this quality and her

strength of will and commitment when asked about her. Marie is musically talented,

having won awards and acclaim for her flute playing. In addition, she is very involved

in the theater, and has consistently participated in theatrical productions during her four

years in high school. Marie says that she is a devoted Christian, and that her religion is

centrally important to her life. She combined her love of theater and desire for religious

fellowship by choosing a Christian Theater group for her senior internship.

Marie is outspoken, has definite ideas about most things, and was a serious

resistor to my agenda, as we have seen and will see in other discussions. On the subject

of gender issues pertaining to masculinity and femininity, she claims that she doesn’t

think they exist anymore. “When I think o f feminine, I think of southern ladies sitting

on the porch in frilly dresses, fanning themselves,” she said. “People aren’t like that

anymore.” She also doesn’t think that the adjectives ‘masculine’ and feminine’ have

negative connotations any more. “It is not a negative thing to say that a man is feminine

or a woman is masculine,” she says, “unless it is overdone. ” She believes that gender

issues are mostly socially constructed. “At the very most basic levels, it is biological,”

she admits. “Women are more emotional.”

Her beliefs about gender are, however, strongly influenced by her conservative

Christian belief system. For example, she lives by the biblical message that says that

women should submit to their husbands, saying, “in a household, when the husband and

wife disagree about something, “it is the husband’s final call.” She bases this belief on

the bible and on her view that in the heat of things, “a man will have a better head on his

shoulders.” She believes that they are more rational. “Personally,” she says, “in the

moment when I have to make a decision, I am likely to go with how I feel, where in the

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general sense, men are more likely to go with the smart, rational thing.” My statistics

about the numbers of men involved in spousal battering vs. the number of women

involved, didn't have an effect on her apparent belief that anger was not an emotion.

However, it would be a mistake to suggest that Marie condoned men acting like

tyrants or engaging in spousal abuse. In fact, she expressed strong intolerance for any

of the physical abuse in other stories. In particular, where other students attempted to

justify TeaCake’s hitting Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God, she rejected him and

the relationship because of it. She believes that in healthy relationships, there are not

that many irresolvable disagreements. She also pointed out that “Women submit to

your husbands,” is followed by the clause, “Men love your wives.” She believes that if

a man is hitting his wife, there is something very wrong. “Men should only prevail in

those rare instances where you can’t resolve a disagreement.”

On the subject of feminism, Marie said that she believes that we have

overcompensated with the quotas that businesses and colleges have put into effect.

I appreciate the fight because it enables me to wear what I want, and go to school where I want, and work where I want, but I don't think it is fair that if I am competing for a job where my competitor is a better qualified man . . . or, that I should get it because I am a woman. But, if I am better than the man, then I should have it.

My explanation about ‘leveling the playing field’ sounded like communism to

her, she said. “You can’t go backward” by overcompensating now for what has been

done in the past,” she said. She claimed not to have encountered any evidence of

gender inequalities or limitations in her life. She does not think that the fact that women

are so poorly represented in our government suggests that men and women are not equal

but, rather, that the American people at large believe that men are more capable at this

point of running our country. “That really speaks more to the way that people feel than

any gender issue,” she said. She resisted my theory that women might think they are

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less capable because they haven’t had many models. She argued that “the simple fact is

that women don’t run as much.’’ And, again, she resisted my idea that women had few

models for even running. She claimed that she wouldn’t want to run because it would

cause too much stress. She thinks other women may feel the same way, and that “we

shouldn’t force them to do what they don’t want to do.” I assured her that forcing

women to run was not my goal, but that helping them to see possibilities was. I was

amazed at how closely her arguments resembled those of the pre-women’s movement

days of the 1950s.

As a student, Marie is hardworking and responsible. She consistently came to

class having read the literature and was always prepared to give her strong opinions.

Her presence in her afternoon class and her open expression of ideas, played a large part

in defining that class and the discussions, particularly as her views contrasted with those

of the other students. We have witnessed her input in “The Gentle Lena ” discussion.

Interestingly, although she claimed to reject feminism, Marie had trouble with

most of the portrayals of the women in the novels and stories we read. Marie thought

many of the female characters were ‘ditzy’ and passive and submissive, with the

exception of Catherine Sloper at the end of Washington Square. Marie also had trouble

with many of the relationships in the novels and stories that we read. She thought that

all of the relationships in Their Eves Were Watching God were terrible, including the

one between TeaCake and Janie, because although “the book made it look all cute and

harmless, he hit her, and that is unacceptable.” Marie also considered Catherine and

Frederic’s relationship in A Farewell to Arms a horrible relationship. She said, “I

wouldn’t want a relationship like that at all. Not at all. The relationship is all about

sex.” Marie had a similar response to Sherwood Anderson’s “The Untold Lie, ” saying

that Nell, Hal’s pregnant girlfriend, and Minnie, Hal’s wife, “should have thought about

how it would turn out before having sex.” She also felt that the sexual activity in The

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Great Gatsbv was a bit extreme. She says, “one of the reasons that I read the bible so

continuously is that its heroes and its villains have stood the ultimate test of time.”

Written Responses

The written responses given by the students in this class were similar to the

initial responses in the morning class. For the women, they listed descriptors such as,

dependent,' 'fickle,' 'flaky,’ and ‘jobless’ and difficult to relate with. They also

categorized them as beautiful second class citizens who act dumb,’ ‘need financial

support’ and 'sit around looking pretty’ all day. Tlie list of adjectives selected for the

men were: powerful,’ 'financially secure’, ‘deceptive,’ ’‘abusive o f women’,’

bullying.’ and short tempered.’ Just the adjectives alone had students beginning to

question whether these characteristics were realistic for their time, and for now.

The entire class was sensitive to the double standard apparent for men and

women in the book. However, interestingly, the reasons given by the girls were

different from those given by the boys, which lends the same credence to the research

done on differences between male and female response (Bleich, 1986; Flynn, 1986;

Schweickart, 1986). The boys were split in their reasons, citing men as elite, having

more business smarts and being more proper (vs. flirtatious). The majority of the girls

in this class cited the fact that women stayed at home while the men went out to work,

as the main double standard. The boys seemed to focus on what the men had

accomplished, whereas the girls focused on what the women lacked. Sarah said, “men

in the novel are the protectors and providers, while the women are for show.” And, she

thought this was a traditional depiction of women.

All but one of the boys thought the women were independent and assertive.

Sarah, whose issues are more about independence, stated that the women depicted in

this novel could not be assertive or independent, and most of the girls agreed with her.

Their responses indicate that:

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“Women should look nice and be shown for their beauty"

"Men see women as precious creatures."

“Women are dependent, where men were independent heads of the house."

"Women seemed to be independent but remained under the thumbs of their men."

“Men were the knowledgeable ones,"

"The women were all submissive; they went along with what the men wanted."

"The men were masculine and bullies; they were the strong ones with th e power."

"The men seem to think they can't get anywhere in life unless they have money."

"Men have affairs and everyone looks th e other way."

Although most of the students were amazed by the double standards, Marie

insisted that '‘the book made no suggestions about how men and women should behave.

It merely describes how specific women and men behave for a specific amount of time,”

she said. Like Charles, she resisted the generalization.

By far the most interesting phenomenon, however, was the difference in the

ways in which the boys and the girls reacted to the characters. While Marie and most of

the girls said that they couldn’t relate to any of the characters, most of the boys related

positively to Jay Gatsby. Howard, Maynard, and one other male in the class identified

strongly with Gatsby as a role model. They could imagine themselves in his situation,

felt sympathy for him, and found his relationship with Daisy the easiest of all

relationships to relate with in all of the literature. They seemed to engage more

intensely with the story as a romance while most of the girls did not. One boy stated

that he could relate to Gatsby wanting to be at the center of attention and that his actions

and intentions modeled is own. He also understood that Jay Gatsby “saw some sort of

perfection in Daisy” and he related to that romantic sentiment. He also said that like

Gatsby, he longed “to wear the gold hat and jump as high as she wants you to.”

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Maynard also saw Gatsby as a romantic figure. He thought that Gatsby “was

good and pure and had true feelings” and said that he “could imagine himself being in a

situation like Gatsby.” Gatsby was realistic for his own and for all time. Howard said,

“Gatsby was a good guy who was the easiest character to relate with.” They all said

they related to his sensitivity and positive combination of masculinity and sensitivity.

I was very interested in the romantic connection that so many of the boys had

made with Gatsby, especially in consideration o f the way that most o f the girls felt

about him and about the unrealistic way in which they felt Daisy and other women were

represented. I hoped that the discussion would elucidate the reason for the different

gender responses, and I wondered if Fitzgerald’s stereotyping and implication of Daisy

at the center of the lost American dream, impeded the girls’ ability to relate with any of

the characters.Introductorv Character Studv Activity

In the afternoon class, before the discussion, we repeated the art activity wherein

the students made the drawings of the Gatsby characters. Marie’s group worked on Nick

(Appendix E). Marie said that all in all, this activity helped her to visualize the

characters more strongly, and therefore, helped her to interpret them and their actions.

She also felt that the activity helped with later discussions and the writing of the paper.

“The drawing of the pictures revealed character traits and ideas previously

unconsidered,” she said. In her case, the drawing also helped the students to see the

changes in Nick that they had not seen earlier. And, their selection of some of Nick’s

lines forced a realization of the difference between the Nick who was mesmerized by

the group, and the Nick who rejected them and the East in the end.

Discussion

As in the morning class, the drawing activity and written responses stimulated a

discussion about the differences in the male and female characteristics. While the boys

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opened the discussion arguing for Gatsby as the romantic hero, some girls resisted.

Sarah said that she thought that Gatsby was the hardest of all the characters to relate

with because of his obsessive qualities. “He is a freak,” she said, “cause he lusted after

Daisy for all those years, and did everything in the world to get her back. That is

weird.” Her view, as opposed to the boys’ resulted in some interesting arguments. I

also engaged in the argument as I found it difficult to bestow the honor of the novel’s

hero onto Gatsby. I followed Nussbaum’s (1990) suggestion to bring students to an

increasingly sophisticated level of ethical consideration of texts by asking “certain large

scale . . . questions . . . about the role of the hero or heroine, and the nature of the

reader’s identification” (p. 35). To carry this out, I reminded asked the class about how

they felt about a hero who had abandoned his name (and family) and rejected his poor

beginnings in favor of a monied, yet empty lifestyle, just to win the love of a morally

bankrupt woman. I also asked them whether Gatsby’s role as an accomplice to Myrtle’s

hit and run affected his qualifications a hero? In challenging their respect for Gatsby, I

wanted them to investigate the ethics of leaving the scene of the "accident’ to protect his

‘love,’ Daisy, whom he had valued over all life and all others. I was surprised and very

disappointed to find that my arguments did not sway many away from admiring Gatsby

for his purity of love. The boys, in particular, valued him highly for his devotion to

Daisy, which they considered the greatest of all virtues.

Part of the reason why the boys related so strongly with Gatsby was that they

sympathized with him in relation to the women, whom they saw as aggressive and

independent. One boy summed it up by saying that

There are some women who use men for whatever reason. They want to put men to the te s t to see if they would really kiss the ground they walk on.There are some women who have no real feelings for men and they just take these g ifts from the men. I am bothered by the fact that this kind of relationship still exists with women still stomping over men's hearts.

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Since the boys and girls differed so in their reactions to the representation of the

women, I took this opportunity to engage in a conversation about Fitzgerald’s choices in

terms of gender representation. I specifically asked the students how realistically they

thought Fitzgerald had represented the men and women. I addressed the characteristics

they had listed for the men and women in the novel. I made particular reference to the

fact that it was of prime interest that the characterizations had rung true for the boys and

not for the girls. I suspected that the reason why the boys could relate was because the

male characters were more realistically drawn, and that particularly Gatsby, was drawn

in opposition to Daisy, the villain. One girl didn’t think the females were realistic and

suggested that Fitzgerald might have had difficulty portraying the women realistically.

The students had identified the general characteristics of males and females in

the book but, I thought that it was important to explore Fitzgerald’s portrayals to see if

they applied to all the men and women, or just particular characters. If there were many

common characteristics, implicating all women as flakes, or ditzes, we could conclude

that it was no wonder that the girls couldn’t relate to the women in the novel.

Marie began by strongly resisting the idea that we could possibly make any

generalizations on the basis of so few characters.

There are three women in the story. I can't be offended by the fact that this author portrays three women this way. This doesn't mean that he thinks all women are this way. To me, that means absolutely nothing. He is being an author, and I can't be offended by that.

Richard disagreed, however, arguing that it is possible to see an author’s opinion

on gender through one character’s portrayal. Marie responded by questioning whether

this could be seen as a pattern. “Just because these women are fickle and ditzy, does

that mean all women like that? Does it mean he thinks all women are like that? If

every woman who he ever writes about is like this, maybe, but these are just three.’’

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Margaret and I considered this to be a great question, and decided to take it up

by engaging in a more intense textual negotiation. We agreed that Richard also had an

important point, but we could understand Marie’s resistance and the danger implicit in

trying to make generalizations based on a few characters without being accountable to

the text. We realized that an attempt to see into an author’s attitudes about women

demanded more than just a list of characteristics that the students could notice from

among the male and female characters in the novel. Firstly, it demanded some

consideration of Fitzgerald's other work, so we gave them some information about

Fitzgerald’s other heroes and heroines to shed some light on his writing style and

characterizations. Secondly, it demanded a close investigation of the of mimetic

function (Phelan, 1986, p. 218) and the synthetic function (an artificial construct,

Phelan, 1986, p. 220) of the characters in Gatsby, and what we and others thought was

Fitzgerald’s purpose in using them to tell the story. We talked to the students about the

fact that to some degree, Fitzgerald’s characters were drawn from his desire to expose a

corrupt society, so that indeed, he was choosing to create some characters who

embodied the materialistic, egotistical qualities as well as traits of the victims of such

behavior. In that way. the book reads like a fairy tale or myth. Lastly, In order to

investigate whether Fitzgerald had represented women unfairly, we were challenged to

look more carefully at the common traits of all of the women, and all of the men, and

the diversity in the characterizations of the men as opposed to the women.

Before getting into that investigation, however, we thought that a brief history of

feminist literary criticism was necessary for these students. Marie’s resistance was an

indicator that she and others lacked some background in the feminist literary tradition

that would help her and the others to understand where we were coming from. Even if

she and others did not agree, we thought it important to at least attempt to provide a

context for the discussion. Therefore, I provided a brief history o f feminist literary

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criticism, noting the effort of feminists to add female authors to the canon of literature

read in high schools and colleges out of a concern about the lack of focus on women’s

lives, desires or actions.

Following that introduction, we returned to the project at hand and identified

commonalities shared by the female and male characters to address what we could o f

Fitzgerald’s portrayal of women in this novel. We decided to look at the portrayals of

the men and women in the novel, and identify patterns and common characteristics that

the class members thought applied to all or most of the women and men. To begin the

discussion, Margaret Johnson addressed Marie’s specific resistance to our attempt to

determine Fitzgerald’s attitude toward women. Margaret said.

Even though there are only three women in the book. Myrtle, Daisy and Jordan, if we thought that Fitzgerald was depicting them all in a similar way, we might be able to draw conclusions about what he might be saying . .. because, even if there were only three women, it is the three women that he has chosen to depict in this book and it is the only three women he has chosen to depict. So, if you saw some trends that applied to all three, it could be decided that maybe he is thinking this, or maybe he is showing that about women, because in some books you see many different types of women and in some you don't see many types.

We attempted to see which characteristics, if any, applied to all of the women or

the men. Marie started the conversation by saying that

All the women are very unstable. No one is happy. They are all jumping around saying, "Oh, I need this guy. Oh, I need that guy. That is somewhat extreme. Few people are like that. Just like . . . married to someone and having an almost marriage relationship with someone else.Like Myrtle and Tom are married to other people and have an apartment together. That is extreme.

In this class, students were more specific and delved more deeply than the

students had in the A. M. class. Some students said that the men shared some of these

characteristics, so the students were forced to struggle on with the identification of those

characteristics that applied to all the women or all the men, if possible. The students

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found it challenging to identify the common traits. They struggled and we struggled

with them to attempt to distance ourselves enough from the story to examine these

women and men as cultural anthropologists might so that we would not draw

conclusions based on one character. Eventually, we identified some commonalities.

The students said that aU the women were static characters, who, unlike Nick,

did not change. They also said they were all primarily motivated by money, material

possessions, and/or status. They also said that they were focused predominantly on

beauty and sex, (Wolf, 1991), were engaged in some type of deceptive practices, were

insensitive to the needs of those around them, had little or nothing to do most of the

time, and had little power in the world. The wives (Myrtle and Daisy) were seen as

financially dependent, but Jordan, the one single woman, was a golf pro, albeit a lying,

cheating pro. The other prominent woman was the nurse who did have a job, and the

responsibility for taking care of Daisy’s daughter, which neither o f the two upper class

parents seemed to care or remember to do. A few students pointed out also that

although many women were now working, that many of these characteristics still

defined women.

As far as the men were concerned, the students said that some of the m en’s traits

were similar but not quite as uniform. They noticed that the men had financial

independence, were busy, had some power in the world and were concerned with sex

but not with their looks. Some pointed out that this had not changed. They said that,

like the women, Tom, Nick and Gatsby were involved in deceptive activities, and that

Tom and Gatsby were involved in illicit sexual affairs, but that Nick and George were

not. They also realized through their discussion that unlike any of the women and the

rest of the men, Nick changed over the course of the story from one who was

mesmerized by the lifestyle of the rich and famous, to one who prioritized his values

differently. Lastly, they thought that while money and material possessions and/or

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status motivated all of the women, it was not a primary concern for Nick, George and

Jay. In addition, most of the class finally agreed that Nick did not share many of the

materialistic tendencies that were shared by Gatsby and Tom. They said that the main

reason was that he developed from one kind of person to another in the story was that he

eventually judged the behaviors of the others against a higher ethical standard. In the

end, their main determination was that while the men and women shared some similar

characteristics, there was a little more variance and diversity in the representation of the

men than there was in the representation of the women. All of the principle women

were suspect. Not all of the principle men were. Tom, for example, was in a class by

himself. None of the other males were as racist or as sexist as he was.

We attempted to determine the reasons why the men and women were depicted

the way they were, and to determine the implications of those representations on the

readers of the twenties and today. Some students thought that to some degree, the men

and women depicted were representative of the real men and women then, especially for

those among the wealthier classes. Others thought that Fitzgerald was exaggerating the

characteristics of the men and the women for effect, so that he could make a point about

the way that these immoral rich people lived. Still others stated that some of the men’s

characteristics, such as male dominance and financial independence, were realistic for

the time when the book was written and also realistic for today. They also thought

specific women’s characteristics were appropriate for the twenties, i.e., women’s

submissiveness, financial dependence, and having the leisure time to lie around the

house. Everyone realized in the end, that some o f the men had redeeming qualities,

whereas none of the women did. Not everyone wanted to make generalized conclusions

based on this discovery. Marie , in particular, did not.

I asked the students how they responded when they read across cultures (Hines,

1997; Jauss, 1982; Rogers, 1997; Soter, 1997) from their time period and

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socioeconomic group, about women who could lie around without anything to do.

Three or four of the girls expressed difficulty in imagining having nothing to do. One

said she would die if she had to stay in the house all of the time. I suggested that all the

students consider what implications ‘women lying around the house doing nothing’

would have on women’s power in the society. “Who drives this society?” I asked. “Do

the women drive it because they are lying around thinking about all the ways in which

they are going organize it, or contribute to it? Or, is this totally a male-determined

world we are seeing because the women are just lying around and the men are out

working and running business and government? Sarah suggested that the problem

wasn’t that the women were lying around as much as it was that they were considered

insignificant. She said.

I t doesn't have as much to do with the women lying around as much as whether or not the men would pay attention to them if they had gotten up and said anything. I don't think they would. I don't think anyone would have cared.

I thought this was an interesting point which not only spoke to the fact that the

women were not driving the society, but implied that the men would not have

considered their ideas worth while. Maynard agreed with Sarah, saying that they

probably wouldn’t have cared and that “ it was a male-dominated world.” Hillary

echoed Sarah, saying that women didn’t speak because no one talked to them. Marie

and a few others were disturbed by the fact that Daisy, who, as a mother, did have

something to do and something to contribute, but was choosing to hire someone else to

do that work. “She has a child, of course she has something better to do,” said Marie. “I

would say, spend a little more time with your daughter.”

The fact that the there was more diversity among the male characters than there

was among the female characters was something that no one thought was representative

of any time period, then or now. And, this fact confirmed for many of the students that

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Fitzgerald’s view of women was a distorted one. It seemed that the girls just couldn’t

find enough characteristics among the women to find them either palatable or

believable.Literary Criticism

This agreement led me into exploring some of Fetterley’s (1978) ideas that not

only were the representation of the women unrealistic and potentially damaging, but

that Fitzgerald’s saddling of the failed American dream on women was problematic.

We had engaged in a discussion in the morning class that I was hoping to pick up with

the afternoon class. Therefore, I distributed the readings from The Resisting Reader

(1978) and we first addressed some of the points we had addressed in the morning.

Not dead Gatsby but surviving Daisy is the object of the novel’s hostility. ” (p. 72)

It is hardly irrelevant that the Caraway/Fitzgerald vision of the lost America is so clearly linked to Gatsby s vision of Daisy. Both the sense of wonder and the sense of loss are associated with women, and women are the objects of the novel’s moral indignation just as they are the objects of romanticism (p. 73).

The Great Gatsby is based on the lie of a double standard that makes female characters in our ‘classic’ literature not persons but symbols and makes women’s experience no part of that literature’s concern, (p. 97).While Gatsby pays for his imagination. Daisy pays more. (p. 98)

The disparity between Nick’s judgment of Daisy and his judgment of Gatsby is of prime importance, for behind this disparity is a radical, if common, form of the pervasive cultural double standard. Gatsby s crimes are excused as part of Fitzgerald’s great design, yet Daisy is utterly damned as a careless driver. Gatsby’s investment in Daisy is seen as a tragic error, the fault, however not of himself, but of that bitch America (p. 95).

Margaret explained that in the end, we all like Gatsby and hate Daisy. “She is

the scapegoat,’’ read Margaret. “Gatsby is defined so that we feel sympathy for him. He

is more of a victim of the society. She is the society. The social ills of the twentieth

century rests with women ” (Fetterley, 1978, p. 89).

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I do not exaggerate or fantasize when I report that the first comment by one of

the boys in the afternoon discussion of Fetterley was that “All the women in The Great

Gatsby are sluts.” This remark, clearly irrelevant to the conversation, confirmed

Sarah’s earlier point and justified her complaint about the prevalence of these slurs and

the easy classifications into which complicated issues can be resolved. It also

confirmed the arguments of theorists (Brown and Gilligan, 1992; Faludi, 1991; Lewis,

1992; Pipher, 1994) which point to a continuation of the double standard among

contemporary teens. Luckily, the rest of the class ignored this student and went on to

attempt to deal more straightforwardly with Fetterley’s comments. It was an interesting

response, all things considered.

There was much evidence of the problem that had existed in the earlier class

with respect to the students’ penchant for reading only on the narrative level. As Sarah

said, “trying to figure out what the author is thinking can be a difficult thing to do.

Some of it has to do with your own personal interpretation, what your values and things

are.” To prove her point, she alluded to Hemingway’s (1987) short story, “Hills like

White Elephants,” saying that “If you wrote “Hills” you could be thinking that the male

protagonist is a really nice guy not to push or pressure his girlfriend. Jig. Or, you could

think that instead of that, he is a jerk for pressuring her so subtly but clearly.”

What I took as her difficulty in considering the tone of the piece to at least

attempt to determine Hemingway’s perspective was a difficulty that was shared by

others in this and the morning class. For this group, time would not permit a helpful

lesson or introduction on narrative theory until the study of A Farewell to Arms.

Therefore, we had to do the best we could to address Fetterley (1978) without benefit of

narrative theory to promote reading as a member of the authorial audience. But, even

without the narrative theory, some students admitted an appreciation of some of the

things Fetterley (1978) had to say. Marie, however, was not one of them. She resisted,

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saying, “Daisy happens to be a character. It is ridiculous to accuse the author o f being

anti women. She comes out looking like the bad guy because her character makes bad

decisions.” Marie was, as yet, unable to see the hand of the author at work in the

portrayal.

Marie continued on to argue that Daisy wasn’t the villain, and that “Gatsby

wasn’t redeemed as he died in the end.” Some others agreed with her, arguing that it

wasn’t a problem that the women were the villains because “the women were the ones

who did the crazy stuff in the book,” and that “the men didn’t do anything wrong. ” One

student remarked that “ the men were redeemed because they were the innocent ones. ”

Others argued along with Marie that “Daisy was just a character in a book” or that

Daisy should have been the villain because she was “a much worse person than

Gatsby.” 1 was challenged to help them see that the characters were constructs, not real.

Others felt that Fetterley (1978) was “way too radical ” and “ a feminist reaching

out for any answer to defend the fact that a woman was the bad guy.” A few of the girls

thought that it was a welcomed relief to have a woman as the villain for a change. A

number of the girls, however, seemed to think that Fetterley had something to say. “I

think it is partly true,” said one girl. “I agree with her to a certain extent,” said another.

A third girl said, “I believe it partly because it seems to me that Daisy was turning out to

be the bad guy in the end, but really Tom was the evil one. ” A fourth girl said, “I agree

with her idea because the women did do some things that were as bad as the men and

they were the bad guys and the men were not. ”

Howard pointed out that Fetterley (1978) made him begin to think beyond the

story line to an author’s point o f view and even an author’s sexist perspectives. He

attempted to make a study of each of the characters in light of Fetterley’s words. He did

think that Daisy was the villain, and, he did think that Nick was an innocent figure in

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the novel from the start. Therefore, he had no trouble with Nick’s redemption in the

end. However, he added.

The fact that Gatsby was redeemed, and Tom was not considered the villain that Daisy was, seems to suggest that despite all th e advances by the opposite sex, men with wealth literally got away with murder. I t is a troubling concept but who is to say that it is still not the case in 1999 with O.J. Simpson, for example. The tables turned on everyone and Gatsby ended up the good guy even in spite o f some o f his obsessions and wrongdoings.

I suggested that Gatsby may have emerged as the one who was “worth the whole

damned bunch of them” because Fitzgerald deliberately made him the victim of a

society gone awry, in order to critique that society and comment on its victims as well

as its villains. Some students were intrigued. I was pleased that we had investigated

Fetterley’s (1978) claims, and that some of the students engaged in the mental exercise

of considering her points. A few saw that with perhaps the best of intentions, Fitzgerald

had let Gatsby off the hook as a victim of the corruption, while assigning the role of

chief corruptor to Daisy, the accountable villain. I considered it important for them to

leam of how some women react to the portrayals of women in older literature, and to

consider the effects of those portrayals on past and present readers.

Social Imagination Activities.

Once again, the Journalist/Actor’ activity was almost a complete failure.

Again, the students enjoyed participating, so, as in the morning class, it was a

pleasurable activity for them. As in the morning class, the ‘journalists’ in the afternoon

class also did a good job of asking the questions that would bring about the ‘actors’

awareness of the tensions involved in playing the parts. However, the actors’ again

had a difficult time getting out of the ‘character’ role and into the role of an actor

deliberating on performing his/her role.

For example, one journalist,’ interviewing the actor that played Myrtle, asked,

“Did you have any problems doing scenes when Myrtle allowed herself to be mistreated

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by Tom?” The student answered, “No, I was just acting.” The same ‘journalist’ asked,

“What is your reaction to the feminist reactions to the film?” And the ‘actor’ replied,

’They need to get a life. Gender in movies is a common theme then and now.”

Another ‘journalist’ received an ‘it was realistic for the time’ answer to his question of

whether in his role as actor he was aware of the horrible representations of gender issues

in The Great Gatsby. As a follow-up question, the ‘journalist’ asked, “Did you object to

any of the issues portrayed in The Great Gatsby? The male ‘actor replied, “Not really,

the issues don’t bother me. I don’t give a dam about issues. I want to be an actor.”

Marie was one of the ‘actors’ who focused on her character’ of Jordan throughout the

interview. She had selected Jordan because Jordan was her favorite o f the female

characters. She was her favorite because “she wasn’t a whore like the rest of them.”

She was unable to reflect on the moral implications of Jordan’s behavior because of the

nebulous nature of Jordan’s character, and the fact that Marie did not see the

questionable nature of her character. My reminders about Jordan’s lying, cheating

behavior met with students’ charges that I was being too hard on Jordan. For Marie, sin

was predominantly defined in sexual terms.

In interviewing the students about the effects of this activity, most o f them said

that they enjoyed the activity but very few claimed that the activity made them either

more aware of the gender issues in The Great Gatsbv or the gender issues in their lives.

Most said that they concentrated on the ‘actors’. Sarah said that she had realized most

of the gender representations on her own and that “the activity didn’t accomplish a

whole lot because it focused on the actors and not the actual characters in the book or

the remake.” Marie said it “made her more aware of the character she was playing

(Jordan) but did not make her more aware of gender issues.” Many agreed that it let

them put themselves in the characters’ shoes (Heathcote, 1984; Johnson, 1993;

Kohlberg, 1980; O’Neill, 1995) but didn’t do much more.

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Interestingly, after the fact, a few girls did report that the activity did make an

impact. One girl thought that while the activity did not make her more aware, it

reinforced her idea that “women were very limited in the society.” Sarah said that it

made the characters have more meaning like the woman who always seem to need a

man to make them feel secure because without their man, they become no one and lose

their identity.” One boy actually reported that this activity was his favorite, and that it

had caused him to become more aware of the gender representations in the book. He

said that in playing ‘Tom,’ he was required to justify the actions of his own sex, and that

proved challenging but interesting. “Now I feel that women who portray characters

such as Daisy and Myrtle take on more of a responsibility to their own gender. This is

opposed to men portraying Tom or Jay because men don’t care how they are being

represented or portrayed.” He was the only student who had this positive a reaction.

More interestingly, however, although the students did not say at the time or in

interviews that the activity had caused any awareness about gender inequities, a few of

the girls did report that the activity made them think about gender stereotypes in their

own life or with those around them:

I learned that some people see women in a lesser light.

I t made me more aware because I compare relationships now with those then. I learned that women naturally fight stereotypes more than men do.I t made me aware that men are in charge of relationships.

I t made me see that women think they are inferior to men and have trouble taking control of situations because they think that the men can do a better job.

The rest of the students said that the activity did not make them think about

gender stereotypes in their own lives. Marie’s response was the most forceful of this

type.I t did not make me think of that. Let's be realistic, there were only a small handful of characters and to me, it speaks nothing of gender limitations.And, I don't feel that there are limitations on me as an individual.

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Even with the few success stories, I realized that this activity had failed to bring

about the awareness that I was hoping it would inspire. Some students said that they

thought it was a good idea that might have worked better in a different class with a

different set of students. Others disagreed, saying that it only made them focus on the

acting and not on playing the part, which was what I had wanted them to address.

Writing

The writing of the paper on The Great Gatsbv also did not move Marie toward an

awareness of inequities among the men and women and in their relationships in the

novel. It did, however, serve to change her opinion of Gatsby himself, moving her

closer to the boys. Where originally she had reported that she did not connect with any

characters in the book, she admitted to connecting with Gatsby in an interview

following the writing of the paper. When I asked then if she related to anyone, she said,

“Gatsby.” When I asked why, she replied that

He is really romantic in my mind, I guess. He was a good guy. He wasn't a bimbo like all the other guys or wishy washy like most o f the girls. He was also loving purely. I guess he had sort of a healthy view of things . . . and he wasn't just out to get what he could get. He is not your typical rich guy.He was nice to people. He was considerate. He wasn't stingy or greedy.

Her changed opinion had developed through the writing of her critical paper in

which she argued that Gatsby is the novel’s hero. I asked her why she thought that

Gatsby didn’t move on from what she had thought earlier was his “obsessive” stalking

of Daisy and how she came to change her mind about him. She explained that she did

not judge him harshly as he loved Daisy so much. She, like many boys, focused on the

romantic aspect of the novel.Final Proiects

While Marie did not do her project on The Great Gatsby, having composed the

ode for flute in Stein’s style, many students did address gender-related topics in The

Great Gatsbv for their final projects. Two students created a video production in which

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they dealt with some of the stereotypes and gender interactions with all of the characters

in the novel. Maynard and Sarah worked up a series o f popular songs that depicted the

stereotypical relationship between Gatsby and Daisy and between Myrtle and Tom.

One student wrote his own song for each of the characters. Also, Alicia and a male

student developed and responded to a battery of psychological tests emphasizing the

stereotypical gender identities of Gatsby and Daisy. They responded to the tests as they

thought Gatsby and Daisy would have responded. Their presentation emphasized

Daisy’s lack of seriousness, inability to concentrate, and her focus on her looks and

femininity at the expense of her character or the development of her brain. Alicia

reported that this activity really brought Daisy’s character to life for them and made

them more aware of double standards and the way she was trapped by her privileging of

’femininity’ over intelligence.

Another student created a Gatsbv comic book, and two girls kept Daisy’s diary

throughout her relationships with Gatsby, Tom, and Gatsby again. Two students

painted pictures in which they attempted to address the gender issues in The Great

Gatsby. One painted Gatsby’s heart; another represented Daisy and her relationships.

And another student created a photographic show that served as a Gatsbv Timeline. In

each of these cases, the students demonstrated and reported that they had seriously

considered and addressed the double standards, stereotypes and androcentric

perspectives that we had addressed. Since the project came at the end of the course, the

students’ responses to the gender issues in Gatsby were informed by all of the following

discussions on all of the subsequent stories.

Reflections

The students in the P.M. class raised some interesting questions about The Great

Gatsby that proved interesting to my project. While they were in general, much more

sensitive to the existence of stereotypes in the literature and the characters’ double

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standards than those in the A M . class, the boys and girls in this class reacted differently

to the characters and to the double standards. By and large, the boys saw the story as

much more romantic, while the girls saw the stereotypes in the novel. The boys saw the

women in the novel as independent and aggressive, while the girls saw them as 'ditzy'

and weak and trapped. Many boys made strong connections with Gatsby, while most of

the girls made no strong connections with anyone in the novel. And, the boys focused

on the double standards that emphasized the male characters’ accomplishments, while

the girls saw double standards, which were represented by losses. “The men were the

protectors and the providers,” said Sarah. “The women were for show.”

To explore the reasons behind this dichotom y, we investigated the

commonalities in the male and female characters, concluding that there was much more

variance in the depictions of men than in the portrayals of women. None of the women

had redeeming qualities, whereas Nick and Gatsby did. This convinced many about the

reasons why the boys could see the story as more of a romance, and relate with the male

characters. The men were strong and drove the society. Nick and Gatsby were less

materialistic than were Daisy and Myrtle and Jordan, who had nothing to do, and, as the

girls pointed out, would not have been listened to even if they had tried to influence the

men on important matters.

While the earlier class had resisted Fetterley (1978), for the most part Howard,

and Sarah and two other girls in the P.M.group found her argument intriguing, and gave

it some consideration, although most of the students had trouble understanding her

point. Marie resisted Fetterley on two counts: she resisted drawing conclusions on

Fitzgerald’s ideas about women in general on the basis of a few; and she resisted the

politicizing of the literature.

Marie and many others, however, loved the drawing of the Gatsbv characters

which, she said, “revealed character traits and ideas previously unconsidered.” She also

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benefited by the writing of the paper, which actually resulted in a greater appreciation of

Jay Gatsby, though not an analysis of his moral standards. Individual students reported

high involvement with the projects that they did on Gatsby at the end of the class, and

many found them to increase their awareness of the gender issues in the novel's

relationships. Personally, I learned most from my disappointment at the results of my

“journalist’ activity and realized the value of the activity discarded. Though some liked

it very much, and others learned from it, I realized that a simpler approach would have

had better results.

In spite of the failure o f the social imagination activity, and my difficulty in

engaging the students in a productive ethical investigation of Jay Gatsby as hero, I was

encouraged by the students’ developing sensitivity to gender stereotypes and double

standards in written responses. I was also encouraged by the progress made in the close

investigation of Fitzgerald’s representation o f the male and female characters in the

novel.

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A FAREWELL TO ARMS Ernest Hemingway

CHALLENGES TO MALE REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN

ELLEN AND HOWARD

Those rare women who are shown in fiction as both powerful and in some cases admirable, are such because their power is based, if not on beauty, then at least on sexuality.

Edwards, 1972, p. 226

Choice

This novel was chosen because of Hemingway’s popularity in high school literature classes, and because of this particular novel is the one usually taught in American literature classes.

Synopsis

In the beginning of the novel, Frederic Henry, the protagonist and narrator, is an American serving in the Italian army as an ambulance driver in World War I. At this point in his development, he has a limited view of life and a simplistic and naive approach to war and reality. He is in the Italian army because he speaks Italian, and not out of any belief or cause. As the story progresses, Frederic becomes restless and in search of a consistent set of values to which he can adhere. Struggling with a growing disenchantment yet stubborn adherence to a world of certainty and conventionalism, he attempts to lose himself in alcohol and prostitution, believing that he might find some kind of truth through a multiplicity of sensations.

He meets Catherine Barkely, a nurse in a Milan hospital, when he is injured in a bombing. This relationship transforms him into a more conscious human being, finally aware of the brutal fact that life is horrific and death is final but that love brings the only kind of peace and redemption that is possible in a world “which is inevitably wantonly destructive” (Phelan, 1989, p. 172). Catherine, having lost a fiance in the war, is able to lead Frederic toward a deeper comprehension of the realities of the world and toward a possibility for determining better ways to live. After realizing the corruption of the Italian army, he deserts, finds Catherine, who is now pregnant with his child, and they escape to Switzerland, where they leave the war and the horrors of the world behind. He and she live in the mountains while they await the birth of the child, establishing a gentle and tender union, emphasizing the stark opposition to the war experience and of Frederic’s initial resistance to mature love. Catherine’s baby dies; she also dies in childbirth, providing a logical conclusion to the novel and reinforcing Hemingway’s view of the world as malevolent.

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Mv reading

As a woman commenting on A Farewell to Arms in terms of romantic love, I am

forced to be in two places at once. On the one hand, I understand that Catherine

Barkley, Hemingway’s (1969/1929) female protagonist and perfect female lover

fantasy, is the kind of female representation that feminists have fought against —the

sweet, blond, beautiful, self sacrificing, self-effacing, self-erasing subservient, who

exists only to serve and service her man and bring him happiness. “I want what you

want,” she says. “There isn’t any me anymore. Just want you w an t” p. 106). An

example of Fetterley’s (1978) ‘sacrificial lamb.’

On the other hand, I am aware that the strength and clarity with which Catherine

meets her world and lives her life brings about a transformation in Frederic. She is

almost singularly responsible for leading him from a naive and unreflective boy in

denial about the nature of war and the fragility of life, into a sensitive, giving, whole

person who faces life and its realities straight on. 1 am also aware of the effect that

Catherine’s love and its peace has had on Frederic through their relationship. As a

female reader, then, I must approach this novel with a bifurcated consciousness, reading

a female protagonist whom I alternately resist and applaud, as she plays her part in an

affair which is the center of an important American novel that I wanted to embrace but

found difficult to abide.

The female reader is forced to observe one of the very few positive love stories

in American literature seriously endangered by the presence of an insipid, clinging

female protagonist who replaces religion with the adoration of her love, and sacrifices

her own desires to those of her beloved.

While I usually expect a gap that I must bridge when reading of another time

and culture, I was seriously affronted by Catherine’s style as a woman and a lover, and

it was a struggle to pull opposing sides of myself together for an endorsement of an

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otherwise praiseworthy novel. Hopefully, the attempt to unify m yself as a reader,

reading against the grain, will result in my being “stronger at the broken places.”

ELLEN (AJM.)

Ellen is a beautiful girl with bright smiling eyes and an easy laugh that is

contagious. Her friendliness and nonchalance have won her many boyfriends and

girlfriends. She says she has three close friends and many casual relationships.

According to her, they would describe her as “happy most of the time.” Her charisma

and self-confidence have afforded her a leadership role in the school community and

she is admired and respected by both students and staff. The staff members describe her

as a leader, “a good kid who is able to convince others.” The staff also sees her as a

hard worker who sets academic goals for herself and is motivated as a learner. They

also see her as a strong leader in terms of community service. She describes herself as

“not very successful” as a student, but she does see herself as ‘an ok artist.’ When she

is not at school or at her 20 hour per week job, she spends her time seeing friends and

being artistic. She is considering architecture as a career, following in the footsteps of

both of her parents.

She has been enrolled in the suburban school district for the past nine years,

since her parents immigrated to the United States in 1991 when she was six. She

describes her relationship with her parents as ‘form al,’ and attributes her strict

upbringing to their Eastern Orthodox religious beliefs and Middle Eastern culture. She

has one older, married brother.

Ellen was one of the two or three girls in the morning class who were regular

contributors to the discussions. She came to the class with clear ideas about feminism

and gender issues, explaining that she didn’t think that gender stereotypes were an issue

for people in society, did not really think about them, and felt no need to change the

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status quo in this respect. “There is really no problem,” she says, “and there is no

reason to rebel.” She believes that feminism is a worthy cause, but not one that she

would ever be fighting. “I don’t think I can be a feminist,” she says, explaining that she

doesn’t think women should be because, like Maynard, she believes that “the two

genders are so different that it is impossible to have equality.” But, in spite of the fact

that she thinks equality is impossible between the sexes, she has no worry that she

would ever fall into being treated badly by a male. “I refuse to be controlled,” she

•admits. She does not agree that inequality between the sexes is a moral issue we should

be concerned with unless there is abuse. She believes that men and women get what

they want. She has recently become aware that “there are many high powered

professional women out there,” and is convinced that all is well in the workplace. “I

think it was wonderful to see this and I am reassured,” she says.

Her ultimate goal is to be married. She has positive ideas about the institution,

and would like to commit to someone for life, and she wants to raise her own children.

“I think that is the right way.“ she says. She wants to have a lot of children, and thinks

that she will raise them and return to work after they are raised. “I think I am different

in that way,” she says. She explains that she still has it in her background that the

woman raises the child. She doesn’t think that she could ever put her children into

daycare, and she questions how effectively a man would fare as the primary caregiver.

However, she does realize that she is not speaking for her contemporaries. She also

realizes that she is not speaking for her contemporaries when she says, “women are the

keepers of the morality. ” She does not see men as solely responsible for sex crimes and

rapes. For example, she believes that women have a responsibility not to leave

themselves open to such assaults by drinking too much at parties or with people they do

not know very well. During our discussion, in which I tried to suggest that a crime is a

crime, and that we would not be .as easy on a murderer or a batterer (even if there was

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verbal provocation), she drew a distinction between sex crimes and other crimes. She

doesn’t think anyone deserves such violation, but she thinks that one has the

responsibility to not leave oneself open to it.

In Ellen’s perfect relationship, she says that she would have her way. “I just

want someone who will understand why I am looking at things they way I am, because I

don’t seem to look at things like anyone else,” she said. She explained that she does not

want to be controlled. She says that control is a big issue for her. She wants it.

I don't want to be controlled myself. I just recently figured out that being in control is much better. I t is so great. Being controlled is horrible. Controlling myself is good. AAe controlling other people, now that is excellent.

Ellen read her favorite book, A Farewell to Arms, three times and even did her

final project on it. The first time she read it, she found it extremely boring. She found it

more interesting on the second reading. By the third reading, she loved it. ’Tt is so

good. It is a love story. It was real.”

Written Responses

Seventy-percent of students in the A.M. class reported that the main characters

were not portrayed realistically for either the time of the novel or contemporary times.

Reasons given were that neither Frederic nor Catherine seemed ‘normal’ or ‘realistic.’

Most reported having difficulty relating with either of the main characters in the novel.

In responding to the connection with the characters, many of the male students focused

on Frederic, and stated their responses to his character. They used words such as

“cool, ” “confusing,” unemotional and “disconnected” to explain their difficulty in

connecting with him. The girls, for the most part, focused on Catherine in written

responses, and expressed their trouble with her character in terms of what they saw as a

sexist portrayal. They used words such as “crazy,” “pathetic,” “submissive,”

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“dependent,” “self-effacing” and “self-sacrificing” to describe her. Interestingly, these

were words that students had used to describe Fitzgerald’s female characters also.

In spite of the fact that the majority had trouble connecting to either of the two

main characters, half of the students in the A.M. class claimed to like the novel. They

appreciated Hemingway’s focus on the war, and, although they didn’t completely relate

to the characters, found that the story engaged them. Most thought that the story could

take place today, although the girls were particularly aware that Catherine’s character

would have to be brought up to date for a more egalitarian depiction of the relationship.

The initial responses provided an entry into the class discussion.

Discussion

The class began with a reiteration of students’ remarks about Catherine’s

portrayal. However, though many people in this class loudly objected to Catherine’s

submissiveness and loss of self to Frederic, Ellen claimed to like her because of her

strength. In fact, Ellen’s favorite character was Catherine Barkely. She did not find her

weak. She said that she thought she had the kind of subtle control over Frederic that she

would like to have with a husband. She admitted that the first time she read it, she too

thought Catherine was pathetic, but after a number of readings, she began to see

something else. She ended up thinking that Catherine was a very strong woman. She

pointed out that “In this very sweet way, she got him to do what she wanted.” Ellen

said.

She was the coolest thing. I don't remember how she got away with being really sweet, but I think she was such a great lady. She just got him to do what she wanted. She was in control but it didn't look that way to anyone else. And, she may not even have known it. But, she was in control. I really admire her. In a relationship, I think I could fall into something like she did and get in control, but then really fall for the person.

Interestingly, Ellen had one supporter in her morning class. While Candy

related to Catherine because like her, she initially “had a lot of baggage toward guys in

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general, and toward relationships,” she also realized that Catherine had changed

Frederic into a better man. Therefore, she even saw Hemingway as having a feminist

perspective in this story, as well as in “Hills like White Elephants.” Others disagreed.

Dale, for example, resisted the idea that Hemingway was a conscious feminist either in

this story or in “Hills like White Elephants.” And Charles and most of the girls in the

class saw Catherine as ‘a typical Hemingway heroine,’ too self sacrificing and

submissive.’ Charles said that one way for Catherine to have had a more equal

relationship with Frederic was not to have appeared in a Hemingway piece of literature

in the first place. He had already explained, while studying Fitzgerald that he thought

that some o f the worst gender stereotyping in American literature had been done by

Fitzgerald and Hemingway, although he loves both of them.

While Ellen related with Catherine because she felt she was a person who could

control her emotions and was strong, and only looked like a wimpy little thing, Charles

found Catherine and Frederic’s relationship the hardest o f all the relationships to relate

with. He thought “Catherine was ridiculously selfless to the point where she would give

up anything.” The class was at this impasse about Hemingway’s failure or success at

representing women realistically or ethically, when a professor from the university

visited the class to offer narrative theory and help work through the quandary.

Literarv Criticism

By reading through different passages of the novel with the students, the visiting

university professor helped the students to distinguish between Hemingway and

Frederic by tracing the latter’s growth from the beginning to the end of the novel.

Because we were focusing on relationships, and Hemingway’s representation of

Catherine, he emphasized Catherine’s influence on Frederic’s development and raised

questions, which invited the class to think beyond either simplistic sexist resolutions or

even typically feminist ones. He did not deny Hemingway’s sexism. In fact, he had

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argued previously that Catherine was “endlessly self- effacing, tirelessly available and

continually sacrificing” human being. But, he did ask the class to look at Catherine as a

character whose submissiveness emanated not from a place of weakness, but from a

place of strength. He suggested that Catherine, after much loss, had prioritized love and

devotion to her lover over all else, in the face of war and a malevolent world. He

suggested that what looked like a sexist portrayal, might be the portrayal of a woman

having reached an evolved state of consciousness that allowed her to transcend

reductive sex role stereotypes.

Charles thought that the professor “was giving Hemingway too much credit” and

explained that he saw Catherine more as a subservient than as a ‘Super woman’ evolved

into ideal womanhood. He argued that her portrayal more likely reflected Hemingway’s

fantasy about how a woman should be. Dale agreed. Ellen, however, agreed with the

professor and resisted the idea that Catherine was weak. She went to the text to explain

that Catherine showed her strength in the beginning when she called a halt to their

mutual game which substituted either fantasy or need for love, and insisted he not lie to

her. She also pointed out that Catherine influenced Frederic more than Frederic

influenced her.

Like the professor and Charles, Ellen also challenged Fetterley’s (1978) idea

that A Farewell to Arms is one more example of a male-authored classic that uses the

deaths of women to tell men’s stories. While Charles argued again that Fetterley’s

(1978) approach applied today’s standards to yesterday’s literature, Ellen argued against

Fetterley’s (1978) position that “the investment of this love story, like so many others,

is not in the life of the beloved but in her death, and in the emotional rewards the hero

gets from that death” (p. 48). Reacting similarly to the way in which Marie had reacted

to Fetterley’s (1978) critique of The Great Gatsbv. Ellen said:

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I really can't stand the feminist point, I think it is silly. The author is telling a story about a guy. I f he needs something t o . . . another person to describe this guy. then, that is what he is going to do. I think it is insane that Fetterley is saying she is being used. Of course she is being used.This is about Fred. I mean. Renaldi was used to describe Fred, and so was the priest. So. I think it is silly. But. I can understand what she is saying.I can.

When asked why she could understand, she said that

I just think it is insane first o f all that she is throwing th a t out. just because she is trying to find a feminist issue with the book. But. I can understand, yes. she is being used to describe Frederic.

My immediate response to Ellen was to assume that she and many of the

students did not understand Fetterley’s (1978) critiques of Gatsby and A Farewell to

Arms in terms of the feminist tradition of which her work was but an example. They

were unaware of the feminist project begun by women such as Ellmann (1968),

Kblodny (1977), Millett (1969), Rich (1979), and Showaiter (1977) to enlighten men

and women about the limitations of male-authored representations of women in

literature. These early feminists reacted to the realization that “neither those women nor

any women whose acquaintance [they] had made in fiction, had much to do with the life

[they] led or wanted to lead” (Edwards, 1972 p. xxii). They wanted to look back and

engage in a textual revision (Rich, 1979) and re-enter old texts from a critical direction.

They wanted to “wrench the reader from the vantage point he has long occupied, and

force him to look at life and letters from a new coign” (Heilbrun in Fetterley, p. xviii).

Because the students were not familiar with this history, my thought was that

they did not have Fetterley in the proper context. I agreed with Ellen that writers

always used’ both men and women to tell their stories. But, I wanted the students to

know that Fetterley was simply part of a long line of women who rebelled against the

fact that women had, more often than not, been mere facilitators for, or barriers to,

men’s desires in literature. She was also part of a tradition of women who rebelled

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against the fact that as readers women had been “taught to think as men, to identify with

a male point of view, and to accept as normal and legitimate a male system of values,

one of whose central principles is misogyny” (Fetterley, 1978, p. xx). More than

wanting Ellen to agree with Fetterley or accept her or my version of reality or regime of

truth (Lather, 1991), I wanted her and the other students to reflect on the problem that

these female critics were addressing. So, I helped to put Fetterley into a context, by

giving them some background on the feminist literary tradition of which she was a part.

In addition, I wanted them to consider the danger I saw in the professor’s ideas

for them at this time. While I saw his ideas as an intriguing invitation for a

transcendence of constricting definitions of masculinity and femininity (Butler, 1991;

Moi, 1988), I saw problems there too, for young high school students unfamiliar with

even the basics of feminist thought. On the one hand, I do believe in the limitations of

sex role stereotypes, whether on one side of the argument or the other, and I do think

that the ultimate call is to transcend these limiting roles on both sides. However, that

cannot be an argument used to dismiss real and legitimate evidence of sexism and

androcentrism in literature or in life. The fact that Catherine is strong does not mean

that Hemingway hasn't represented yet another woman whose deference to her man is

annoying to most women readers. And, without enough experience recognizing some

of the androcentrism, I was concerned that his perspective would simply justify

students’ resistance, and cause them to dismiss the ways in which women have been and

continue to be subjugated in and out of literature. I was afraid that this would be one

more reason for most of them to mistrust their own instincts that Catherine was

submissive and not strong, and mistrust the validity of their own misrecognition scenes

(Bogdan, 1992; Brown and Gilligan, 1992). Transcendence would come later, after their

consciousnesses had been raised to see the stereotypes and sexist representations.

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In attempting to work through Ellen’s resistance to Fetterley (1978) and to

address my own efforts to liberate her and others from the traditional ways, laws,

discourses, narratives and literary representations subordinating them, I came face to

face with Foucault’s (1977) warning of “the violence of a position that sides against

those who are happy in their ignorance, against the effective illusions by which

humanity protects itself” (p. 162). Not only was Ellen happy with her position, but she

was also not at all conscious o f any problem with it. Furthermore, her strength of

personality and character, not to mention her desire for and ability to control, seemed to

ensure that she would not be an easy victim of either an abusive man or o f life in

general. In addition, those friends and family members who share her philosophical,

religious and cultural base backed up her ideas. I asked myself, “Why did I have a

problem if she didn’t? What right did I have to disrupt her paradigm?”

After some examination of my own motives, I concluded that there was some

good reason to disrupt her paradigm. I was troubled by what I saw as a too easy

categorization of women as the ‘keepers of morality,’ which let men off the hook by

means of the myth that men are less responsible for and less capable of sexual control

than are women. I was also concerned by her resistance to laws such as the Family

Leave Act, which opens the door for men and women to care for children and families

simply because in her mind, childrearing is a woman’s job. Finally, I was concerned

about her assumption’ that women should be the sole caretakers of the kids, and about

her acceptance of the continuation of a sexist division of labor because of the inherent

implication that men are not responsible for the domestic realm. This sort o f belief

system is what allows a movie like Step Mom to work in contemporary America.

In addition, I was worried that the existence of some professional women in the

workplace cancelled out any concern about the current wage gap, the glass ceiling, the

absence of women in government, the emphasis on girls’ beauty and weight in our

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culture, and the staggering statistics on eating disorders, rape, and spousal abuse. I was

also troubled by her equating of feminine strength of character with traditional notions

of feminine wiles, long practiced by subordinates who, like Catherine, manipulated

mates into behaving as they wished “In this very sweet way.” I resisted her desire to

control without seeming to control. I saw it as a revelation that her gender identity is

being constituted by Walkerdine's (1984) “some day my prince will come” storyline

promoting a continuation of a tradition that promotes inequality between the sexes. I

saw it as a revelation that she may only be comfortable with an indirect kind of power

for women at this time, the kind of power that must look like it is not power to be ok,

the kind of power that pretends to be weakness to be acceptable, and is masked by a

sweet facade. I was troubled because this kind masking of power also masks an

underlying need to bolster male egos by ‘playing’ a subservient role when one may or

may not feel or actually be subservient.

As I struggled to construct just the right conversation, provide just the right tale

of personal subordination, or make just the right pedagogical decision to successfully

lead Ellen and others out what seemed to me to be a cave of darkness, and into the light

of consciousness of gender inequality, I was also troubled. I suddenly remembered my

own initial experience with feminism. I remembered my experience resisting what

Harding (1986) has called the “master’s position of formulating a totalizing discourse”

(p. 193), which essentially set out to reproduce the conceptual map of the teacher in the

mind of the student. This substitution of feminist reifications for those of the dominant

culture had struck me then as an example of what Freire (1973) had termed the

“banking concept of education” where authoritarian talk shuts down communication,

even if it is done in the name of liberation (Lather, 1991). When 1 was a student, this

recipe approach to knowledge had effectively demonstrated my ignorance and

dismissed my legitimate ideas and experience as “false consciousnesses.” 1 did not

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want to repeat this treatment with my own students. I was aware of Acker, Barry and

Essevold’s (1983) warning that “an emancipatory intent is no guarantee of an

emancipatory outcome” (p. 431).

My experience with Ellen heightened the tension that I had experienced at a

lower level all along, as I attempted to balance my desire to value individual

empowerment of students and my goal to work toward the transformation of society. I

wanted to construct classroom relations that would engender fresh confrontation with

values and meaning. I wanted a pedagogical approach that would allow us to analyze

the discourses available to us. I did not want a pedagogy that would become a site for

the working through of more effective transmission strategies “but, for helping us learn

to analyze the discourses available to us, which ones we are invested in, [and] how we

are inscribed by the dominant” (Lather, 1991, p. 143). I struggled with questions such

as “How can I avoid imposing my beliefs but still ‘problematize’ areas of consensus

belief grounded in the habitual thinking of the past”; “How can I foster an exploration

of issues in a setting free of slogans and predetermined answers, and still lead students

toward a consciousness of their situations in the world”; “How can I respect students’

points of view and still lead them to correct the distortion and the invisibility of female

experience in ways relevant to ending women’s unequal social position?” (p. 71- 72).

Specifically, I had a respect for Ellen as a person and as a representative of her culture.

But, I had a corresponding desire to keep her and others from deceiving themselves into

thinking that hiding one’s power is a good thing for women or for men.

To provide some answer to my dilemma, I attempted to draw from Dewey’s

transactionalism, which posits that “the consideration of conflicting claims and views is

not only right but personally and collectively enriching” (Dewey in Rosenblatt, 1978). I

also drew from resistance theorists like Giroux, who argue against dismissing student

resistances as false consciousnesses and who promote an exploration of what the

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resistances have to teach us about impositionial tendencies. According to resistance

theory, “without conscious and active engagement with the content of young people's

resistance, teaching is bound to reproduce more than it transforms” (Lister, 1986, p. 31).

In an attempt, then, to “maximize a dialogic, dialectically educative encounter

between researcher and researched” (Lather, 1991, p. 70), I engaged Ellen and the

others in a dialogue through which I tried to encourage a reflexivity and critique on both

our parts to investigate not only their responses to Fetterley and me, but also their

responses to the university professor about Catherine. I decided to put my

indoctrinative teaching on hold, and entertain a “Bakhtinian dialogic carnival”

(Scheurich, 1996) and “call forth a loud clamor of polyphonic, open, tumultuous

conversation . . . “ (p. 10). I reminded myself that my goal was to facilitate the

exploration of issues, and not to insist on a regurgitation of my ideas. I also reminded

myself that I was hoping to develop a pedagogy which, as Harper (2000) recommended,

would be suitable “for the interrogation demanded by feminist emancipatory work” (p.

166). I wanted an approach, which would emphasize investigation of and negotiation

with the literature, not indoctrination. To further increase my opportunity for a deeper

probing and reciprocally educative encounter, I followed Lather’s (1991) advice. I

continued our classroom conversations in sequential individual and group interviews

"conducted in the interactive, dialogic manner that entails self disclosure on the part of

the researcher to foster a sense of collaboration” (p. 84). This approach also followed

the recommendations of Cherland (1994), who observed that a pedagogy that had

minimized the occurrences of gendered response was one that involved collaboration.

She argued that because collaborative investigations o f texts require close textual

reading, they provide a forum for multiple readings of texts and an opportunity for

students to think critically about texts.

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Following this open approach, I also encouraged Ellen in the writing of her

paper, to explore her ideas as they had been informed by the professor and Fetterley.

Writing

Ellen did not change her ideas through the writing of the paper, and, she did not

adopt any o f Fetterley's (1978) ideas. She was, however, able to use the text to

investigate some of the professor’s ideas to support her own ideas about Catherine’s

strength, the ways in which she served as a vehicle for Frederic’s growth, and the deep

love that Frederic came to have for her in the end. In her paper, she showed how

Frederic grew from a man initially resistant to a love commitment, through the denial of

his growing attachment to Catherine, and to an acceptance of his deep love for her. She

used the early discussion that the professor had read to the class to illustrate Catherine’s

strength when she called Frederic on the game they were playing.

After having attempted to recapture her intimacy with her dead lover through

Frederic, and realizing that he was using her to avoid the whorehouse, she called a halt

to their pretense that they were in love.

“This is a rotten game we play isn’t it?”

“What game?”

“Don’t be dull.”

“I’m not, on purpose.”

“You’re a nice boy,” she said. “And you play it as well as you know how, but it’s a rotten game.”

“Do you always know what people think? ”

“Not always but I do with you. You don’t have to pretend you love me.That’s over for the evening.” (Hemingway, 1929, 30-31)

She saw this scene as indicative of Catherine’s strength, ending her fantasy of replacing

her dead fiancé with Frederic. Ellen pointed out in her paper that here in this segment,

Hemingway (1969/1929) has established Catherine as the more powerful one. She also

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used a later passage to support her point that Catherine led Frederic beyond an inability

to engage intimately, through his denial of his growing attachment to Catherine, beyond

his dreadful night loneliness and fear and to a mature love with Catherine. She quoted

Hemingway (1969/1929):

Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous o f that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. It has only happened to me like that once. I have been alone while I was with many girls and that is the way that you can be most lonely. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together. I know that the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things o f the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started. But, with Catherine there was almost no difference in the night except that it was an even better time (p. 249).

She also used Catherine’s dying words to support her thesis that Catherine, seemingly

taking her situation in stride, was actually very strong.

H

Social Imagination Final Project

Because Ellen “understands visuals

better than anything verbal or

written,” for her final project, she

continued her exploration of this

novel by creating a road map of A

Farewell to Arms. She chose to

incorporate certain aspects of the

book: People that Frederic met, the

places that he

Figure 52: Ellen’s Road Map

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traveled to or through, events that made the story, and quotes that retold the story in the

map.

Originally planned as a children’s activity rug, the road map complete with stop

signs, locations, and intersections from the story, symbolized Frederic’s life the people

and places that were a part of it. The main street represented Frederic on his own; the

left side of the map was reserved for Frederic’s army life; the right side was reserved for

Catherine.

By releasing her imagination (Greene, 1995) and converting the book into a

visual, Ellen was able to “break open a dimension inaccessible to other experience . . .

[to] make perceptible, visible, and audible that which is . . . not yet perceived, said, and

heard in everyday life (Marcuse in Greene, p. 72). This visual display allowed her to

become more conscious of the logistical and symbolic divide between the ‘life as

horrific' war backdrop and the idyllic ‘love as retreat’ alternative which Catherine

invited him to choose. The life that she established, based on the values of gentleness,

tenderness and union with another human being emphasized the stark opposition to the

war experience and to Frederic’s initial resistance to mature love. Ellen’s map allowed

her to visually represent the opportunities for peace and love that Catherine’s strength

offered Frederic. The circuit that the roads formed, however, also illustrated Frederic’s

ability, for a while, to move back and forth between these lives. Through the map, she

illustrated Phelan’s (1989) idea that “to move, as Frederic does to life with Catherine, to

life on the front, is to move from a world of tenderness and gentleness to a world of

impersonal violence and destruction’’ (p. 177) and eventually back again to Catherine.

At the end of the class, I had not made a feminist of Ellen. She confessed that

while she became aware of gender issues in my class, her consciousness disappeared as

soon as the class was over. She continued to engage enthusiastically, however, in our

investigations of the literature to come, and offered much to the focus group’s

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understanding of particular characters and stories, as we shall see later in the chapter.

One final drama activity, however, engaged students in playing a role reversal of

Frederic and Catherine in two significant scenes which students had thought portrayed

Catherine as extraordinarily submissive. I engaged the focus group in this activity to

see if when Frederic spoke Catherine’s lines, students would become more aware of

Hemingway’s questionable portrayal of women and the roles that we have grown

comfortable with them playing

Scene I

Catherine: What’s the matter, darling?

Frederic: I’ve never felt like a whore before.

Catherine: You’re not a whore.

Frederic: I know it darling, but it isn’t nice to feel like one.

Catherine: This was the best hotel we could get in. (Thinking). Oh, hell, do we have to argue now?

Frederic: (the flatness out of his voice) Come over here please. I ’m a good boy again.

Narrator: She looked over at the bed. He was smiling.

Scene 2

Frederic: I will. I’ll say just what you wish and I’ll do what you wish and then you will never want any other boys, will you? I’ll do what you want and say what you wish and then you will never want any other boys, will you? I’ll do what you want and say what you want and then I’ll be a great success, won’t I?

Catherine: Yes.

Frederic: What would you like me to do now that you’re all ready?

Catherine: Come to the bed again.

Frederic: All right. I’ll come

Catherine: Oh darling, darling, darling.

Frederic: You see. I’ll do anything you want.

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Catherine: You’re so handsome.

Frederic: I’m afraid I’m not very good at it yet.

Catherine: You’re great looking.

Frederic: I want what you want. There isn’t any me anymore. Just what you want.

Catherine: You’re sweet

Frederic: I’m good, aren't’ I? You don't want any other boys, do you?

Catherine: No.

Frederic: You see. I’m good. I do what you want

Catherine: Yes

Frederic: We have such a fine time. I don’t take any interest in anything else anymore. I am so happy married to you.

The students roared laughing at these role reversals, and many of them were very

conscious after they were acted out, that Catherine’s submissive behavior was more

submissive than they thought it was before they had watched and heard a man behaving

in this manner. Ellen's response revealed that she rejected such behavior in a man, but

her remark that “when Catherine was submissive, it worked,” seemed to reveal that she

was still comfortable with Catherine 'pl^yirig the submissive role.

The gender reversal was way too strange. I t was funny, but, in th e book, when Catherine was submissive, it worked much better. I guess I'm just not used to having/hearing a man be so submissive. It's definitely something that I can stand, but it's strange. In secrecy, a man like that wouldn't stand, but a woman could.

Reflections

With Ellen, I was faced with the kind of resistance to my feminist approach that

I found most challenging, and most difficult to address: a resistance based not only in an

ideology of another culture, but a resistance based in a contentment with the status quo.

To complicate matters, her view of women’s place in the world was supported by her

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ability to see Catherine, not as the weak, deferential female so many readers saw, but as

a strong heroine. The question then, which is raised by Hemingway and Fitzgerald,

about the male’s ability to realistically or appropriately represent the female, becomes a

moot point for Ellen.

Though we presented her class with a background explaining how women had

been essentially relegated to secondary or synthetic roles, which allowed the male story

to be told, she resisted Fetterley’s argument that Catherine was used to demonstrate

Frederic's development. Instead, she adopted the university professor’s idea that what

looked like her weakness, was really her ability to prioritize, and she rejected the

feminist position.

The experience with Ellen was educative for me in that I came face to face with

a troublesome element of a critical theorist approach, and that was to remember the

importance of respecting the student’s position and resistance.

HOWARD (PJVI.)

Whereas Ellen reported that her second and third readings of A Farewell to

Arms convinced her more and more o f Catherine’s strength, rather than the weakness

she had initially seen, Howard claimed that his second reading had just the opposite

effect. It made him see Catherine, not as stronger, but as more and more subservient.

In the beginning, he hadn’t noticed that “she was a ditz’’ because he felt that she dealt

well with her boyfriend’s death, and he was always surprised by how much other

classmates hated her. After his second reading however, he realized how submissive

she really was. “She needed to be a lot more independent to be equal,” he said. “She

needed to respect not just Frederic but herself.” As the study of A Farewell To Arms

went on. he saw her as more and more submissive and pathetic, and he began to make

connections between Catherine and Maria in For Whom The Bell Tolls, which he was

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reading at the time. For his final project, he constructed a three-way radio conversation

between himself, Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, wherein they discuss, among

other things, the women’s groups that are protesting Catherine’s subservience and loss

of self to Frederic.

Howard is definitely a young man who is conscious of gender stereotyping in

our culture and the ways in which the media have contributed to the creation of and the

reproduction of those stereotypes. As a young man in our culture, he is sensitive to the

ways in which the male stereotype has been drawn, and, as he says, “it is not something

I want to attain as a goal.’’ He does not, at this point, feel comfortable with the gender

role that he believes the society has constructed for him to play. He says

'AAen' is almost a derogatory term nowadays. I often hear, “Oh, he's just a man," “ or "men suck," or “'men' seem to be egotistical, unfriendly jerks in movies and TV and magazines." The magazine AAaxim says at the top, SEX, MOVIES, SPORTS, BEER, etc. This is all men' are concerned with.

In general, he feels that he is rebellious about the role he feels that he is

conditioned to play. He feels that to change the way men are viewed, he needs to do all

that he can to change it by rebelling against the status quo. He acts the rebellion’ out

by being nice and caring and concerned with people and not being focused on SEX,

BEER, MOVIES, etc. Luckily he finds that a guy not acting like a ‘man’ pleasantly

surprises people. Consequently, he has many female friends. In general, he likes the

way he has turned out, especially when he looks at some ‘men’ and thinks about how he

could have turned out.

Actually, Howard has many friends of both sexes. And, he gets along with

adults as well as with kids his own age. He is extremely well-liked by students, and, he

is respected and liked by the staff who say that he is diligent and smart,’ ‘well

respected’ and mature.’ Others say he has wide interests, and “is able to get along with

all kinds of kids.” He is very successful at school, is active in scouts and camping,

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enjoys film and reading, and is an extremely talented oboe player. For his senior

internship he worked with the conductor of the metropolitan symphony orchestra.

Howard has lived in the town for twelve years and has attended district schools

since kindergarten. He is Jewish and describes himself as religious, with a belief

system that is typical o f his religion. He lives with his mom, who is a nurse, and his

dad, a professor, and his younger brother who is also a student at the school. Howard,

who describes himself as heterosexual, has a girlfriend, and came and left the class with

positive ideas about feminism and marriage. He would like to have a family of his own

when he is older and settled. He remembers his parents both integrating the cooking

and other household chores with child rearing and a professional work life. In fact,

because of their equal commitment to the family and their careers, there might have

been sacrifices made with respect to careers. There were many opportunities for

advancement that were turned down in order to stay in the town for the sake of the

family. He says that he has inherited leadership qualities and an interest in education,

but he does not know what career he would like to pursue at this point. He will attend

college in the fall of 2000.

While Howard was usually quiet in class, he was very affected by everything

that went on. Often his reactions to the literature and the class discussions were written

and not verbal reactions. He is a very talented writer whose papers were always

carefully constructed with a great deal of thought, effort, and insight. In addition, he

claims to have been affected by much of the philosophy that came through many of the

novels, short stories and essays we read. He is involved in a relationship with a girl

right now and says, “ it was interesting to compare the literary views of relationship and

love and dating and marriage to his own relationship.” He had reached the point that

Hines (1997) and Rogers (1997 had been working toward in their studies in having

adapted some of the ideas that came through the literature to his own life. He takes his

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books very seriously. He was the student who, in the earlier discussion of Washington

Square was recommending the book to his female friends who seemed to be too

dependent on their boyfriends.

He finds himself and his contemporaries at an interesting place in history with

regard to gender issues, with the challenge to be politically correct having a huge

influence on people attempting to balance masculine and feminine traits. He thinks that

having a balanced personality “means being able to recognize when to use the

traditional masculine characteristics and the traditional feminine characteristics . . . not

being one hundred percent in one or the other direction, but trying to achieve a happy

medium.” He is uncertain about how nurture and nature factor into all of this. He

thinks that hormones do play a part, but that much of it is enculturated because he thinks

that at this point in time, teenagers have done a good job at reaching a happy medium.

He expressed some discouragement that leadership positions are still going to men even

though women's roles and stereotypes have been changed for this generation because of

the women’s movement. People were saying when Elizabeth Dole ran that “maybe we

were ready,’ he said. But we weren’t. “Things are still limited, “ he says. “I mean, look

how long it took to get women on the Supreme Court . . . a long time.” He seems to

have found the model for masculinity, which Martino (1995) had striven to bring about

in his own classroom of boys. To challenge hegemonic positions and dismantle the

patriarchal disposition that construct the world in binary terms, he selected texts that

was critical of the workings of hegemonic positions of masculinity (Martino, 1995).

Like every other student surveyed in these two classes, Howard had not had any

educational experience learning about gender issues in literature or life, or stereotypes

in the media. Even without a formal education, however, Howard has learned to pick

up on the stereotyping that is done in ads and on sitcoms such as “Friends.” He says

that it is subtle, though, and easily missed when you simply see some of these things as

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part of the plot. For example, in Friends, “you see a plot twist instead of seeing a

representation of a typical or not typical male characteristic. And, he says that he thinks

they use the stereotypical gender qualities to further the plot and develop the characters.

“You don’t really see deep emotional characters on either end, especially in sitcoms,

because those kinds of characters are not funny.”

Howard’s favorite characters of the semester were Gatsby and Nick, He also

liked Janie Crawford in Their Eves Were Watching God, which was his favorite book.

He liked Nick because, while he was a bystander, he was extremely important because

he was the glue. “He connected everything,” he said. “If it were not for Nick, there

wouldn’t have been a story. He attributes this not only to the fact that he was the

narrator, but also to the fact that he brought Gatsby and Daisy together. “His role and

the dynamics of the story was what I found really cool. He was an interesting person in

himself.”

Howard was also fascinated with “The Gentle Lena.” He was the only one in

either of the two classes who shared my view that “the story was a metaphor. ” He

described the writing as a deliberate attempt on Stein’s part to create stereotypes in

order to prevent them. He said that reading A Farewell to Arms after “The Gentle

Lena ” also alerted him to the ultra femininity of Catherine and masculinity of Frederic.

He thinks that Catherine Barkley shared some of the undesirable traits of Catherine

Sloper that made her dependent on men. Janie Crawford was, in his opinion, the only

female character who didn’t have ^Catherine Sloperitis.'

Written Responses

The initial written reactions from girls were focused on Catherine. She was

’’very dippy,” a ditz,’ ’strange and eccentric,’ ‘flaky and distant,’ ‘very unrealistic’ and

messed up in the head.’ Only one girl in the class initially attributed her craziness to

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her pain resulting from the loss of her lover. Another responded at length to the way

Catherine erased herself in deference to Frederic, saying:

She didn't let her real opinions be known to Fredric, so he didn't really know her real personality, so he couldn't have loved the real Catherine. Catherine herself seemed to lose any dignity she ever had by letting all of her decisions be made by another human being, especially her 'husband.' Whatever he wanted was what she wanted. Instead of the two becoming a couple, she just became Frederic's appendage.

Interestingly, the boys’ initial reactions were very different from the girls.’

Most boys in the class reacted to her as ‘nice and sincere,’ ’interesting,’ and ‘confused,’

and one boy thought she was ”an unrealistic girl who would be very hard to relate to.”

Despite the negative response to the female protagoaist, however, all of the students

liked the novel immensely and found it a welcomed relief from the works of James,

Stein, and even Fitzgerald. At the time of its reading, it was the favorite of all of the

books they had read up until then.Discussion

The discussion erupted with reactions to Catherine. The students were generally

appalled by Catherine’s personality. Marie was the first to speak up, with no prompting

from either Margaret or me. This was the first time in either class that any student had

complained about the subservience and submissiveness of a female character without

any help or any prodding from us. It began a conversation, which illustrated the girls’

struggle to relate to Catherine.

Marie: Why do you pick all of these books where the women are all so strange?

Pot: The reason I picked all the books is because I thought they were the most famous authors of the time between 1900 and 1940, and they all had a relationship at the center of the story.

Marie: Well, like Hemingway has written so many things, and are all the women . . . all o f his books incoherent?

Pot: That is a great question. What does that mean?

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Marie: None of the women are normal. These are not normal women they are writing about. The men are fairly normal. You actually might find men like this. But the women are extrem e and they are silly and they are all weird.

The other girls then erupted in agreement. Brenda said Catherine was ‘weird,'

and that she started out normal enough but they got really strange. She claimed that in

the beginning, she actually had some views. She knew what the war was about, and she

was “kinda still there.” She claimed that she turned weird after she and Frederic got

together. “She falls. She does whatever he wants. Maybe she is just trying to get away

from reality, but she turns weird.” When I asked her to get more specific, she cited

passages from the text where Catherine repeatedly calls Frederic ‘darling’ and becomes

ditzy and day dreamy. Brenda pointed out that when Catherine first met Frederic she

had a handle on reality, but then after they were together, “she just cares about nothing

except what she and he do together. . . she is willing to block out the rest of the world.”

Pat: Marie, was that what you were talking about when you said the women were weird and not like women now?

Marie: I am saying th at th e women ore just abstract and far-fetched and unbelievable. There are not really people who are like that.

Pat: In what way?

Hillary: Well, when they were in th e hotel and she was upset because he was about to go back to the front. She is upset and he asks her what is wrong and she says 'no, no, no no.' And then she says, 'I'm a good girl now. I'm good now." Like what in the world? And. she keeps doing this dramatic thing and then falls into this willingness to agree with anything he thinks or feels or says or anything.

Pat: Is that what you are seeing too, Kelley?

Kelley: That's exactly what I picked up. That "I'm a good girl" just about drove me crazy Always saying darling' and I'm a good girl now.' She wanted him to love her so much she didn't care if she sounded like a babbling idiot. As long as he was happy, she acted happy.

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Marie: It's kind of blatant. I mean, from the way that she sounds, I think she is seriously mentally unstable.

Pat: What is this about?

Kelley: I have no idea, but she was just so air headed.

In spite of it all, the students liked the book, and reiterated that sentiment in the

discussion. Richard particularly loved the book because of his interest in the war and

because “it made him want to keep reading.” He liked everything: the characters, the

relationships and the subject matter o f war. Hillary liked the book because it was “easy

to read” as compared with the difficulty that James’ style in Washington Square had

presented for her. She claimed that “When 1 read A Farewell To Arms. 1 was more

connected to the characters because I could understand them better and the writing was

more simple.” Kelley agreed that she could hardly wait to finish the book. Humorously

comparing the novel to Gertrude Stein’s work, she said, “yeah, it is a good book. It

goes fast, and it has a plot and a beginning and an end and it moves on. It is not

continuously the same thing being restated and restated over and over again.”

Discussion/Literarv Criticism

My challenge was to further develop the ability that 1 saw in Howard and the

others, to see the literature’s capacity for negative influence and, at the same time,

maintain an ability to sustain an engaged response. 1 thought that by inviting the

university professor into their class to introduce them to his analysis of Hemingway’s

narrative structure, and to Fetterley’s (1978) criticism of the novel, that 1 might be able

to lead the students in this class toward a more unified appreciation of the novel. 1

hoped that this would fuse their pre-critical engagement, with an awareness of both the

processes and the political implications involved with Hemingway’s production and

their reception of the novel. 1 hoped

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As was the case in the other class, the professor introduced the students to a

narrative approach to the novel, and focused on Hemingway’s portrayal of Frederic as a

narrator who develops over the course of the work. He argued that he develops from an

insensitive young man to a mature man who is able to come to grips with love, as well

as some of the harsher realities of life. He felt that investigation of the progression of

the novel would, most likely, result in a clearer understanding of Hemingway’s point.

His introduction was followed by a lively discussion, similar to the one in the morning

class, about whether Catherine was submissive, or quietly strong, moving Frederic

along in his bildungsroman.

Following the professor’s class, I shared Fetterley’s (1978) critique on A

Farewell to Arms with the students to stimulate the dialogic negotiation o f the text.

Interestingly, while Ellen had resisted Fetterley’s perspective so strongly in the morning

class, Howard had the opposite reaction. He found Fetterley’s feminist literary criticism

the most educational of the pedagogical approaches used throughout the entire course,

saying that “the discussion of Fetterley’s (1978) criticism gave [him] a new way of

thinking about how women had frequently been portrayed in literature.” Initially, when

studying The Great Gatsbv. though he had seen her point, and had been interested, but

he had not been able to grasp it completely. But, after considering it further during the

study of A Farewell to Arms, he admitted that Fetterley’s essays on Hemingway and

Fitzgerald literally shed a new light on a perspective that he had never thought about

before. It took him a while to get there, he said, because he had always thought about

characters and plot when he read stories and saw characters as real, living beings.

It was the professor’s focus on the authorial point of view and structural

decisions that seemed to pave the way for Howard’s eventual comprehension and final

embrace of Fetterley’s ideas. Until the workshop, he had not focused quite as closely

on an author’s part in the process of creating a novel, and the distinctions between

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author, narrator and characters. He was still involved in reading primarily for the plot.

He had appreciated Fetterley’s views on The Great Gatsbv. but was convinced of them

after our work on the narrative structure of A Farewell To Arms. After the professor

invited him to work through Hemingway’s character and plot structure, it was made

clear in a new way to Howard that “these characters came from one person’s mind,’ and

that an author had created all of their thoughts/actions. “I guess I was naive to think

otherwise,” he said. “I suppose I always knew on some level, of course, that literature

was written by someone, but I never thought of it that way.”

When he read Fetterley’s (1978) critique on A Farewell to Arms, the transition

from addressing Hemingway’s character development, to seeing the implications of

ideology on that development, was an easy step for Howard to make. He had initially

been hesitant to accept Fetterley’s points during the study of The Great Gatsbv because

at that point, he was still only aware of himself as a part of a narrative audience. And,

even though we had previously introduced Rabinowitz’ (1987) theories, played with

James's artistry in Washington Square, and had discussed Fitzgerald’s project with The

Great Gatsby. he had still not been able to fully see narrators and characters as

constructs. He had also reacted against Fetterley (1978), at first, because looking at a

book the way that she did, represented for him, in some way, the end of his reading

innocence. “Fetterley’s point seems to take some of the imagination and fun out of

reading the books,” he said.

When he was finally able to participate in an authorial reading, and then step

from there into the resisting audience that Fetterley occupied and recommended, he was

able to see Hemingway as a writer, limited by his own and his culture’s understanding

of women. He was also able to see Catherine as a possible result o f that enculturation.

He was also able to bring some of the ‘fun’ back into the study of the literature by

means of the narrative approach. He no longer had to sacrifice a full response to the

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novel to address its sexism. Before the class with the professor, he felt that a feminist

criticism demanded that he “break the contract designed by an intending author who

invites his or her audience to adopt certain paradigms for understanding reality” (Foley,

1986 in Rabinowitz, 1987, p.23). After help with the narrative approach, it was easier

for him to appreciate a critical perspective. For, as Rabinowitz (1987) pointed out, a

critical reading without an understanding of the authorial audience is often incomplete

(p. 32). It results in the need to either claim Fetterley’s feminine universal truth over a

masculine one, or the need to put ideology on hold for aesthetic enjoyment (Kolodny,

1985). In either event, without narrative theory, Howard would only have been able to

experience what Bogdan (1990, 1992) has called ‘a partial response’ that seeks

separation from not and not eventual reunion with the literary object.

By integrating an authorial reading with the critical feminist one, however,

Howard was no longer able to see Catherine as ‘a real person.’ He could only see her as

Hemingway’s unconscious sexist portrayal of a synthetic character (Phelan, 1989)

whose life and behavior were constructed to provide a learning experience for Frederic

about the ways of the world and the ways of love. Howard was now able to explore the

contradiction between the authorial audience and the critic (Rabinowitz, 1987). He was

able to “make a distinction between what [Hemingway] wanted to see and what he

really did see” (p. 31), and engage in the fun’ of “know [ing] the text as it cannot know

itself’ (Eagleton, in Rabinowitz, 1987, p. 44). By bringing these things together,

Howard was beginning to be able to “close the metaphysical, epistemological,

psychological, and pedagogical gap between critical analysis and literary experience”

(Bogdan, 1992, p. 191). By focusing on the work as an artist’s construct as well as a

story, he avoided a split response to the literature by mediating the political critique and

a direct emotional response with an appreciation of Hemingway’s artistry within a

particular cultural paradigm.

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Furthermore, his ability to analyze the structure of a work and see it as a cultural

construct, would enable him to distinguish between a writer unconsciously imbedded in

the sexism or androcentrism of his time, and one (James) whose work “demonstrates

that somehow the sexist injustice done “is effectively criticized by the work itself’

(Booth, 1988, p. 390).

In my opinion, Howard was on his way toward being able to resolve the

‘misrecognition scene’ with Catherine by means of an ability to approach the work from

a critical distance that combined direct response with narrative theory and feminist

criticism. In the end, Howard read as a simultaneous member of a narrative audience,

which treats the fictional action as real (Phelan, 1996); he read as a member of an

authorial audience, which treats the text as the author wished (Booth, 1988); and he read

as a member of a critical feminist audience, which treats the text with a consciousness

of any offending ideologies. He was participating with the literature as a piece of art

and as a political force.

Writing

Writing the papers allowed Howard and some other students to articulate the

judgments they made about Hemingway’s representation of Catherine and the other

women in the text. This showed me that my attempt to bring their attention to a

feminist pedagogy was enriched by including writing and composition as a vehicle for

transformative education (Harper, 2000, p .164). The girls’ responses indicated the

change of emphasis from their early responses, which focused on the characters, to

these later ones, which addressed Hemingway’s portrayal of the characters:

What I do not understand is the way Hemingway portrays Catherine. He made Catherine a ditzy girl who was just crazy about a guy from the first time she meets him and he made her sound like a fool.

A Farewell to Arms is a great American novel and I really enjoyed it on many levels. I am not sure why Hemingway chose to view women as he did here?

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Hemingway’s treatment of women throughout this book is a very sex ist and chauvinistic portrayal of women. He suggests that they will make you sick and are only good for pleasuring a man. When they show any sign of authority, he puts them down as frustrated women who cannot get a man.There is an underlying contempt for women. Soldiers view women as sex objects and resent women who are not presented as love objects. He blows th e head nurse o ff os on old frustrated maiden who denies everyone else their pleasures because she has none.

One of the boys in the class shared some of the girls’ attitudes. He stated that

the “the overall attitude, shown through various scenes and dialogue, included a genuine

hostility toward women. He claimed that the Italian doctors repeatedly treated the

British nurses as sex objects, and that Catherine was presented from the beginning as

'inconsistent' and ‘a little crazy.’ He gave other examples of the hostility. He cited the

soldiers’ hostile joking about the 'price of the meat’ of the whores; the negative, sexist

treatment of women in authority; Frederic’s patronizing attitude toward the night nurse;

Rinaldi’s focus on Catherine’s sexual prowess; and Hemingway’s focus on Frederic’s

pain and not Catherine’s at her own death. Howard’s responses brought his authorial,

narrative and critical feminist readings together for a unified reading of the novel which

included a textual analysis of Hemingway’s craft informed by his consideration of

Fetterley’s claims. He began with an interpretation of Hemingway’s depiction of

Frederic’s growth and development from an emotionally handicapped, insensitive

young man, to a mature one who comes to terms with the awesome realities of war and

death and love.

Howard’s critical paper illustrated the realizations he had made about how the

narrative had been constructed, and used some segments of the novel that the university

professor had worked through to demonstrate Frederic’s transformation at the hands of

Hemingway and his heroine, Catherine. By juxtaposing Frederic’s earlier narrations

and conversations with later ones, Howard made distinctions between Hemingway’s

creation of the earlier Frederic the more evolved Frederic who grieves for Catherine. At

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the same time, he was able to apply the critical distance he acquired to study

Hemingway's craft to question his portrayal of Catherine and some of the other women

as the other students had done. However, because Howard had been highly attuned to

Hemingway’s development of Frederic, he had been able to distinguish between

Hemingway's treatment of some of the women, and Frederic’s treatment of them at less

developed periods of his life.

In the end, he was also able to apply his critical distancing skills to critique

Hemingway’s portrayals, and to investigate the implications of his structural choices.

Where his initial reaction was that Frederic’s growth was not done at Catherine’s

expense, and that “her death was an accident and that his development resulted in his

loving her, ” in the end he felt differently. He said that he could see that Catherine was

sacrificed for Frederic’s growth and that this had political implications for today’s

readers.

Reflections

While Ellen found Catherine Barkely to be stronger each time she read A

Farewell to Arms. Howard became more and more convinced of the character's

weakness and dependency each time he read the novel. Where Ellen thought Catherine

was a model of personal strength, Howard believed her to be a very unrealistic figment

of Hemingway’s imagination—his ideal, yet unrealistic fantasy lover. The contrasting

arguments were fuel for discussion in both classes. Not having understood that either of

these students was in the process of rereading the novel, I failed to engage them in

Bogdan’s (1997) “self subversive self-reflection” (p. 84). This term is one she borrows

from Felman (1987) to help students understand their responses by reading and re­

reading the literature and continually re-reading their own responses to the novel until

they begin to understand the subconscious nature of their engagements and resistances.

Unfortunately, I was unaware that rereadings were going on, and had planned to attempt

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to use that strategy with “The Untold Lie,” a short story which we would be reading

next. I had thought that attempting to have students reread one of the novels was an

unrealistic expectation. Not knowing they were indeed engaged in rereading, I missed

the opportunity to have them "read their own readings,’ which may have shed a light on

both of their readings.

The girls in Howard’s afternoon class completely agreed with his position. They

spent much time trying to decide why a woman of such competence and conviction,

would be so deferential to Frederic. Most boys in the class found Catherine nice and

sincere, where most o f the girls in the afternoon class called her “flaky,” “weird,”

“ditzy” “strange, ’’eccentric” and “day dreamy,” and said that she was “farfetched and

unbelievable.” “There are not really people like that, ” said Marie.

As different as Ellen and Howard’s responses were to Catherine, their reactions

to Fetterley (1978) were even more diametrically opposed. Where Ellen rejected

Fetterley’s feminism, Howard was inspired by her views. They provided him with a

new way of thinking about how women had frequently been portrayed in literature.

Howard said in the final questionnaire, that the criticisms of Fetterley “were the most

educative of the pedagogies used in the entire class.”

A combination of Fetterley’s (1978) writings and the professor’s theory allowed

him to see the importance of the writer as creator. The combination of narrative theory

and feminist criticism helped Howard, Joe and many o f the girls to focus on

Hemingway’s representation of women in their final papers.

All the students, however, seemed to be able to "see’ the writer’s hand and the

stereotypical portrayals more clearly than they had in earlier discussions.

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THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD By Zora Neale Hurston:

WOMEN WTHTING WOMEN BRENDA AND HILLARY (PJVI.)

ChoiceI chose this novel because, in the last few years, as a result of attention to

women authors and multicultural literature, it is being used more and more in high school and college American literature classrooms. I also wanted to explore the issues involved with women authors representing men and women in the early twentieth century literature.

SynopsisThe story, which covers forty years of Janie Crawford’s life, is framed by an

evening visit where Janie tells that story to her friend Pheoby Watson. The story covers Janie’s life from her childhood years with her grandmother and through marriages with three men: Logan Killicks, Joe (Jody) Starks, and TeaCake Woods. The first marriage with Logan, the potato farmer, was arranged by Janie’s grandma, who wanted to protect Janie from "getting into trouble’ by marrying her off when she had discovered Janie had come of age. When the love that grandma had promised didn’t come, Janie went off with Jody Starks, who promised her a finer life. She acquired financial security and an enviable position as the mayor’s wife during her twenty-year marriage to Jody in Eaton ville. Florida. She also became the victim of his domination and intimidation in this marriage. When Jody died, Janie met TeaCake and started the relationship that would bring her happiness and the love that she had dreamed about. Janie went with TeaCake to work in the Everglades and to enjoy her first equal relationship. She returned to the home that Jody had left her in Eatonville once TeaCake died, the victim of a rabid dog bite. At the end, Janie is content, her quest for sincere love having been fulfilled by TeaCake.

Mv Reading

As Henry Louis Gates (1998) has pointed out, this boldly feminist novel charted

a woman’s Journey from object to subject as she came to consciousness through her

project of “finding voice, with language as an instrument of inquiry and salvation, of

selfhood and empowerment . . .’’(p. 197). Hurston charts this growth by drawing a stark

contrast between Janie’s marriage to Joe and her marriage to TeaCake. This contrast

confirms Hurston’s belief in the superiority of the equal relationship between Janie and

TeaCake and the kind of reciprocal life they share. In ways similar to James, Hurston

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contests the concept of seeking of protection/ ‘security’ or ‘respectability’ through

marriage that promoted Janie’s earlier marriages to Logan Killicks and Jody Starks.

As Jody’s wife, Janie was not allowed to participate in the discussions on the

store porch in Eatonville. However, the arguments among the folks working in the

Everglades, where she lived with TeaCake, were like the ones on the store porch “[o]nly

here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself if she wanted to” (Hurston,

1998, p. 134). Whereas with Joe, she was ordered to work in the store, expected to cook

dinner for him, and abused when the dinner didn’t live up to his expectations. She was

invited to work with TeaCake because he missed her when they were separated all day.

And, once she started working with him, he began sharing the work of preparing the

dinners. Janie’s relationship with TeaCake was a joint operation and effort. They

shared the income from work; they shared love; and they shared housework.

However, while Richard Wright and other contemporary black writers criticized

this novel for not speaking to the local, particularized politics of its time, I must point

out how this book presents problems for my particular politics today. While Hurston

critiques patriarchal marriage through her creation of this equal relationship with

TeaCake, she has not completely extricated herself from within a patriarchal paradigm.

She allows TeaCake to hit Janie and has Janie accepting that treatment as typical

behavior through which men show ownership of women. Teaching this novel

necessitates an exploration of Hurston’s possible motivations for this behavior, and a

contemporary reader’s possible reaction. A literary relationship this attractive, which

sanctions physical abuse of women to any extent, is dangerous for contemporary

readers. As Booth (1988) has pointed out, “it is dishonest to pretend that all broadly

accepted practices of another time or place are beyond our criticism” (p, 415). While

this attempt by a woman to redefine relationships for men and women does much to

advance equality in marriage, it is still based in traditions that value men as dominant.

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BRENDA (PM .)

"He was so mean to her. I just think there was a physical attraction. How can you be friends with someone who beats you?" Brenda

Brenda is a sophomore who describes herself as having a lot of friends. She

thinks she is fun, open-minded, and easy to talk to. In her spare time she watches

movies, listens to sixties music, plays softball and talks on the phone. She loves her

school and, according to the staff, works hard to maintain a 3.5 cumulative average.

She has lived in town all her life with her mother and father and older sister, with whom

she has good relationships. Her parents work as professionals in town and are well-

respected members of the community, and her sister is away at college. Brenda is a

Catholic and considers herself religious, although she hopes to be more so in the future.

She describes herself as heterosexual, but as of yet, has not had a steady boyfriend.

With the exception of men being portrayed as ‘the lords of the house’ in the

movies, she sees no gender problems in her world. Actually, she says, “lots of those

female gender roles are things she enjoys.” She does, however, think that it would be

good if we had more women running the government, and she is quick to say “if people

treat her as a second class citizen, she gets very mad.” She also says that although she

sees many people reinforcing sexist stereotypes, she is not afraid to resist them in her

life. She explains that “I will challenge a guy if he is out of line.” She has a positive

attitude about feminists, seeing them as women “who won’t take crap from anyone who

treats them as less than human.” That attitude grew stronger as the class progressed.

She still values traditional marriage, though, and views it as a wonderful thing. She

says, “How great to spend your life with someone you love and have kids and a house

of your own.”

Although she thinks that the staff would describe her as ‘talkative,’ and that her

friends consider her ‘funny,’ Brenda started out in the class as very quiet, letting some

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of the other girls dominate the conversations. That all changed when we began the

discussion of Stein’s The Gentle Lena. Her violent reaction to what she saw as Stein’s

deplorable’ style brought her out of her shell, where she stayed throughout the rest of

the class. By the time we got to Their Eves Were Watching God, she was leading the

class discussions. It was her favorite book, and she had much to say about it. In the

end, she did her final project on it by keeping Janie Crawford’s diary for the duration of

the marriage to the three men. Like all of the other students in her class, she especially

liked this book because “the characters seemed real.” The protagonists, Janie and

TeaCake, were her favorite couple of all the couples in any of the novels and short

stories. She said theirs was the only relationship that was equal and not characterized

by double standards.

As far as I am concerned, Brenda’s interview with me was the one activity that

served as a turning point for her, confirming Fontana and Frey’s (1994) position that

“the interview is both the tool and the object” (p. 361). By the end of my interview with

her, Brenda had also confirmed Rosenblatt’s (1978) theory that a text is but a

continuous opportunity for readers to conduct new negotiations and make new personal

discoveries on the basis of a transaction between the text and whatever past life

experiences or present personality the reader brings to the reading of the text. The

interview allowed Brenda to take the first steps in an investigation of her own romantic

vulnerabilities through a connection with Janie Crawford. This allowed her to see

herself through the lens of Janie’s decisions, and relationships with two of her husbands.

More importantly, the interview helped her to see a connection between Janie’s

susceptibility to male domination and her own vulnerability to the same, though

seventy-five years had passed between the setting which included Janie and the time in

which she herself lived.

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Brenda’s discovery began when I asked her a specific question about the entire

corpus of literature read by the class. Basing my question on Rosenblatt’s (1978,

1995/1938) reader response theory, I asked whether she had been able to make any

connections to her own life through the reading of any of the novels and short stories

covered in the class. By asking this question, I was hoping to bring not only Rosenblatt

to bear on the interview but also the political theories of Scholes (1985), who insists that

“we must open the way between the literary or verbal text and the social text in which

we live’’(p. 34). I wanted to know how Brenda’s personal consciousness had been

raised by the study of some of this literature.

Brenda immediately answered that she had connected most with Their Eves

Were Watching God. She attributed her connection with the novel to her easy

connection with Janie Crawford, the main character in the book. Through Janie and her

male love interests Brenda was able to think through her ideas and draw some

conclusions about what kind of standards she was constructing for her own personal

relationships. She also was able to think through the kind of mate that she deemed

inappropriate or appropriate for her. Thus she was bringing her own personal life to bear

on her interpretation of the literature and allowing the literature to inform her own life

(Bleich, 1986; Bogdan, 1992; Hines, 1997; Iser, 1978; Rogers, 1997; Rosenblatt, 1978).

Before long she was expressing opinions about the kind of relationship she would like

to have by comparing herself with Janie, and comparing her imagined future partners

with Janie’s men (Bogdan, 1992; Iser, 1978; Rosenblatt, 1978).

Initially, however, though strongly relating to Janie and loving the book, Brenda

clearly distanced herself from Janie and stressed her immunity to problems like the ones

Janie had with men. She said that she could not envision herself in a marriage with a

man who might abuse or even dominate her. At this point, she was in Flynn’s (1986)

words, dominating the text. Seeing herself as a careful person, who, unlike Janie, would

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get to know a potential husband well enough before marrying him, she denied that she

would be in relationship with someone like Joe Starks. She resisted being with anyone

who would insist that her place was in the home, or that she should look at behave in a

certain way. Being with anyone who would tell her how to wear her hair, force her to

work in a certain place, or hit her when the dinner wasn’t right, was something she

could not imagine.

Somewhere in the middle of the interview, however, Janie suddenly sat up,

• tensely folded her arms across her chest and said, “I would not want to marry someone

like Jody.” It was as if she had suddenly realized the potential for such a ‘mistake.’

“With Logan,” it was just about what Grandma wanted,” said Brenda. But, with Jody,

.he acted like he was great and then when he got what he wanted, he put her into the

kitchen and told her what to do.” I suspected a realization of her own susceptibility to a

man like Jody. In an effort to help her to make connections with her own life (Hines,

1997; Jauss, 1882; Rogers; 1997; Rosenblatt, 1978; Soter, 1997; Taylor, 1993;

Walkerdine, 1984), I asked her a question; “Do you think it would be hard to marry a

guy like Jody and deal with him today?”

It was clear to me that it would eventually be necessary for Brenda to disrupt her

fantasy that one is in complete control of things in life (especially love). However, I

was keenly aware of the awesome responsibility involved in bursting the bubble of

idealism that supported her idea that if you are careful in your selection of a mate, you

will not end up with a person like Jody. But, I proceeded (albeit carefully) because I do

believe that denial never prevented anyone from escaping eventual pain and suffering.

She continued to repeat that she didn’t want a boss as a romantic partner. And,

when I asked if men like Jody still existed today, she expressed the view that although

the character of Jody was created in the mid 1930s, he had real, present day counterparts

who could serve as threats to her own power and agency in future romantic

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relationships. “There are a lot of guys out there like that,” she explained. “They didn’t

just exist in the past.”

This awareness led to another, and Brenda expressed her fears about getting

involved in a non-equal relationship. She claimed that as certain as she was about not

wanting a man like this, she was also becoming aware of the complexities involved with

selecting a mate. In addition, she was conscious of the religious and social pressures to

even stay with such a man, in spite of her determination not to be oppressed in an

unequal romantic relationship. “What would prevent me from being deceived by a

suave boyfriend like Jody?” she asked herself and me. She mused that during the early

days of a relationship, when it might be difficult to see how a romantic partner like Jody

could evolve into a bossy chauvinist, she could be lured in. “I know that sometimes you

can love a person but that sometimes love goes bad in the end like Janie and Jody’s

relationship.”

As the interview went on, I posed more and more questions to Brenda about how

she might deal with a man such as Jody. She began to show signs that it was beginning

to dawn on her that the refusal to allow herself to be controlled in a romantic

relationship might fall on her shoulders. “All I can say,” she said, “ is, my marriage

better not be like that, and if I am stupid enough to marry a guy who is controlling and

abusive like that, let me be smart enough to get out of it.”

As we explored the novel’s relationships further, Brenda demonstrated a more

and more sophisticated understanding of her awareness o f the difficulties involved in

bringing about equality in romantic relationships now as well as then. While she did

consider the possibility of breaking up if things got bad enough, she also understood the

implications of break-up on family and children and she talked about that. She echoed

words that Sarah had spoken earlier about the difficulties of breaking up a family. The

fact that Janie stayed with Jody for fourteen years after she stopped loving him because

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he was her “meal ticket” (Hattenhaurer, 1994, p. 47) brought Brenda to an awareness of

the further economic complications brought on by leaving a husband who is supporting

you. The lines “ [mjaybe Jody ain’t nothin’, but he is something in my mouth”

(Hurston, 1998, p. 118) resulted in Brenda’s realization that divorcing even an abusive

husband is difficult even today unless a wife has an income of her own, a challenge for

mothers when children are small.

In addition, she demonstrated an understanding of the characteristics of her own

personality, which might cause her to compromise rather than stand up for herself to

insist upon the equality she claimed she desired. She expressed her own tendency to

cave in and silence some of her objections for the sake of peace. “It would be hard if

the guy was that strong,” she said, “I could see myself having trouble. Knowing me, I

would probably let some of it go, kind of like Janie did,” she said. She also pointed out

that Janie thought she loved Jody, but in the end TeaCake turned out to be the better

relationship for her. He, in fact, was the one who “come long and made somethin’ outa

[her]” (Hurston, 1998, p. 167). For her, TeaCake was “a bee to a blossom ” (1998, p.

106), the one that brought her close to her dream, the one that allowed Janie to “find the

jewel down inside of herself’ (1998, p. 87). This relationship was no means to an end,

no business proposition and no race after property and titles. “Dis [was] de love game”

(1998, p. 114), as Janie said.

TeaCake was the closest thing to Brenda’s ideal man. But, that also posed a

problem for her. Her own romantic dreams were tainted by the reality that even in this

ideal’ relationship, there was unequal power, as TeaCake had used physical force on

Janie in order to show that he was boss. Initially, Brenda had resisted condemning

TeaCake “because it only happened once,” and because “it showed that he cared,” and

because a few of the students had said “nobody’s perfect.” And, she struggled to accept

it due to the time period in which the novel was set, and because she liked this

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relationship and didn’t want to resolve her conflict by rejecting it. However, as the

interview went on, Brenda expressed her repulsion toward this anomaly in Janie and

TeaCake’s relationship more and more strongly, and eventually claimed to be unable to

justify the hitting with her admiration for TeaCake and her approval of his relationship

with Janie. “I don’t want to think about the hitting,” she said over and over again. “I

can’t deal with that. I don’t understand it.”

In the end, Brenda was still left with some unresolved conflicts about Jtuiie and

TeaCake’s relationship. But, she was thinking. And, such thought suggested to me that

she would continue to reflect on ways to handle powerful others without becoming

cynical and jaded, or being overpowered. Her journey had been one that had revealed

to her fears about being controlled in relationship that had been lurking beneath the

surface.

HILLARY (PM.)

The other student who dominated the conversation in the afternoon class on

Their Eves Were Watching God was Hillary. Hillary comes from a family of four, all

of whom are totally dedicated to each other’s welfare and the welfare of the family as a

whole. They are Seventh Day Adventists who are devoted to their religion and to its

Christian principles. Hillary is a gentle girl who tries to practice acts of kindness and

respect with those with whom she comes into contact. Staff members and students alike

speak of her caring nature, her sense of responsibility, her strong values and her ability

to hold on to those values while remaining open to others’ ideas. When asked about

her, one by one, the staff remarked on her hard work and her dedication to overcoming

some learning disabilities such as memory problems, reading problems and dyslexia.

“She has a great attitude,” said one staff member. “She is always happy. If you give

her a lemon, she makes lemonade.”

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Because of her reading disability, Hillary listened to many of the assigned books

on tape. Because she reads slowly and, as she says, is “not a very good reader,” her dad

read some of the other books aloud to Hillary and the family as part of a Friday night

family reading ritual. Right now, her older brother is away at college, so she and her

mom and dad constitute the family. Her father is a respected doctor in the town; her

mother works as a housewife. With time left over after cooking the meals and being

there for Hillary and her brother and her dad, her mom leads bible study groups.

Hillary has great respect for her traditional family. The thing she has noticed

about her parents' marriage is that they tend to work together. “I have never seen my

parents make a decision without each other,” she says, and “I cannot imagine my

mother without my father or my father without my mother.” She thinks it is really

important to gain a partnership like that. Speaking of her mother, she says, “I come

home and she is there. It is nice to have somebody there. I can’t imagine what it is like

for some people coming home and not having anyone there.” Although Hillary wants to

go to college, travel, and have a career, she hopes to put the career off until after her

kids are raised because she thinks she would be missing out on something if she weren’t

there for her kids. Hillary is also a traditionalist when it comes to marriage. She, like

Brenda, plans to be very careful about the man she marries because she plans to be with

him for a lifetime.

Hillary sometimes feels like society is pressuring women to be more out in the

workplace, to stand up for themselves, and “all that independence stuff which is

something that is great but I don’t necessarily agree with it all.” She says, “now it is all

‘go out and be your own person.’ “ She does not want to be independent. She would

like to have children and says “it sure will make it a whole lot easier if you have a child

and you have someone there to help you. ” Hillary does not see herself as a feminist and

has not had any education on women’s issues. “I went to a Christian school,” she said,

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“And we didn’t talk about any of those things.” When I suggested that women’s issues

were moral concerns, she reminded me that some women’s issues are in direct

opposition to Christian family values, which honor the man’s place at the head of the

family. While she doesn’t support women’s oppression, she is aware that some feminist

ideals compromise some of her religious beliefs.

Throughout the class, while I did not hold back on my opinions or on my efforts

to shed light on contradictions, anomalies and evidences of gender inequalities, I did not

want to directly challenge Hillary’s specific positions as they represented religious and

family beliefs. Margaret Jackson and I attempted to lead her to think her paradigms

through and to reflect on her assumptions, as we did with the rest of the students, each

other and ourselves. However, the kind of willingness to consider others’ ideas that

Hillary showed, was everything I could have asked for in the students. That openness,

added to my desire to refrain from either indoctrinating or showing disrespect for

family, cultural, or religious beliefs, prompted me to attempt to raise questions without

insisting that I had the correct answers for everyone (Bakhtin, 1981). Whether I

succeeded or failed, Hillary considered the various perspectives, and eventually drew

her own conclusions about the gender issues in her life and those involving the fictional

characters. My main objective was to instigate conversations and explorations.

One of her favorite characters from the readings in the class was Catherine from

Washington Square. She connected with Catherine because like Catherine, she was

“really shy” when she was younger. She also said she herself has never dated, and so

she connected with Catherine because no men until Morris showed an interest in her.

She felt sorry for Catherine, and was happy that Morris was finally appreciating her,

until he rejected her. Her connection with Catherine worried her a bit, however.I could see myself getting involved with somebody who was good to me. Icould see myself falling for him if I thought that he was falling for me.

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Yes, that worries me because I don’t want to get involved with someone who is not truly involved with me.

While she didn’t see James as having taken a feminist position in the story at all, his

story did bring some things to light for her involving gender issues. She realized

through the reading and the discussion of it that there were some double standards in

James’ society.

I f you were a guy and you were unattractive, you could still moke it. And, if you were smart, with a job, you could make it all right by yourself. But if you were a woman and you were unattractive, and you were not exactly the sharpest spoon in the drawer, you would not make it.

What worries her most is that, according to Hillary, this still applies with some guys

today.

Throughout the duration of the class, in response to some of our interviews and

to some of the readings, Hillary came to some realizations which made her more

cognizant of previously unnoticed gender inequities in the literature and in her life. For

example, discussions about the treatment of Catherine Sloper in Washington Square and

about the silencing of the female characters in “The Untold Lie ” raised her

consciousness about the ways in which she believes some of the men on her church

board have treated her because she is a girl. Hesitant to make a fuss, and struggling to

get the words out, she did finally voice her complaint. She began tentatively, but as she

continued on with her story and became more certain of her feelings, her voice became

even stronger:

I am a youth rep on my church board. When I go, I s it there and I listen.When they talk about s tu ff about the youth or s tu ff affecting the youth,I will try to say something and a lot of times people cut me off. They talk down to me. And, that really bothers me because they asked me to be on this board and they are not giving me a chance to express my opinion. And, that bothers me. My brother was on the church board before me, and um,I guess . . . I think that . . .. Billy is more aggressive than I am. And, I think people will listen to him because he is more forceful with his opinion.I am not, so you must really listen to me. I f it is something that I feel

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really strongly about, I will speak up more strongly. But, if it is somethingI just want to say, they just interrupt me.

Later in the course, she revisited this topic, having drawn the conclusion that it

was not only she who was dismissed by the church board, but that some o f the other

women in the church group were slighted as well. She began to realize that “a lot of the

women on the board don’t talk anymore,” and, she concluded that they might have

stopped contributing after years of being silenced. She also began to realize that there

were some double standards operating there. She saw that at her church functions, that

the men rarely contribute to the potlucks, and that it is predominantly the girls and

women and the younger boys who seem to be helping in the kitchen.

She reported that experiences with some of the literature also resulted in her

realizing some things about gender inequities on the home front. She said that the

discussion of the stereotypes and double standards in The Great Gatsbv raised her

awareness of a division of labor and some double standards operating there as well.

With some reluctance to appear disloyal, Hillary confessed that she realized through

some of the readings and activities in the class, that sometimes her mother reinforces

sexist stereotypes. She also confessed that she “is kind of sad about that.” She referred

then to the fact that her dad and her brother are not expected to work in the kitchen at

home, but she and her mother are expected to work the kitchen detail. She said that she

attributes her mother’s failure to get on after her brother as much as she gets after her to

work in the kitchen, to her own upbringing. She concluded that she thinks that her

brother may be carrying on this reinforcement of sexism with his own girlfriends, which

worries her.

Hillary also made some realizations about the ways in which traditional

lifestyles are reinforced. She pointed out that discussions and focus group

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improvisations on “The Gentle Lena” awakened Hillary to the subtle yet strong

expectations on her to marry.

Like I really didn't think that there was that pressure on me, but I think there is because that has always been there ever since I was born that you are gonna get married.' And, I have said to my mother, if I don't get married, what would I do, and she would always say, “Oh Hillary, you are gonna get married."

More importantly, she realized that implicit in this conversation with her mother

was an absence of any stated alternatives to marriage, and an absence of as much

importance being placed on any other accomplishments besides marriage. One could

imagine many answers to the question, “What would I do if I don’t get married,”

besides, “You are going to get married.” One such response might have included some

ideas about how life would look for a non-married person. This kind of expectation for

marriage, unfortunately, communicates the idea that “it’s better to have somebody than

nobody” (McRobbie, 1991, p .150), or that it if a girl didn’t get married, she would be

failing in a significant way ( Lewis, 1992).

I had deliberately chosen Stein’s “The Gentle Lena” as a story to be read in this

class, because I wanted to challenge the dominant versions of masculinity, femininity

and traditional romantic narratives. In such narratives, girls more than boys, grow up

being coerced by an ideology which validates girls predominantly for acquiring a

boyfriend, an eventual husband, and bearing children. I selected Stein’s piece because I

thought that the students needed to be able to experience the devastating implications of

enforced marriage demonstrated in “The Gentle Lena.” The story and the ways in

which we investigated it, caused the students to reflect on their own pressures.

In terms of the enforcement of the traditional love, marriage, childrearing and

‘happily ever after’ narratives, Brenda made the same realization as Hillary, saying that

she feels that it is her primary legacy to marry and have kids. “That is what I was put

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on earth for as far as my parents are concerned.” Ellen also said that, as far as her

family is concerned, “it is my mission to have children. That is the most important

thing.” She is aware, she said, that if she were not going to do that, it would affect her

parents. “They would have something to say about it,” she said. Alicia agreed that the

pressure was also there for her to carry on these traditions.

Interestingly, in a discussion held with the focus group participants, Charles

volunteered that this showed that “even in today’s society it is different for men and

women. He said, “I have felt absolutely no pressure from my parents that someday I am

supposed to get married. It has never even been talked about,” he said. “I don’t know if

they just assume that I am going to, or that they just let me make my own decisions, but

that pressure isn’t there.” He said that the ‘of course you are getting married some day’

message just doesn’t exist in his world. And, Dale agreed that he too has felt no

pressure to marry. Hillary added that her parents have addressed this issue differently

with her brother and she and the others discussed why parents would be more concerned

about girls getting married than boys getting married at this age. They all concluded

that this must be a gender issue, but didn’t know why. I volunteered that it may have

something to do with the fact that ‘success’ for women is still more connected to

‘getting married to a successful man,’ while ‘success’ for men still has to do with

achievement and salar)\ I said that even now, parents might be more concerned with

boys’ future careers than their future wives. I did point out the implications of this was

that women could continue to be evaluated in terms of beauty as long as their success

was measured in this way.

While Hillary, like so many others, enjoyed the conversations that we had in

class, and particularly the exercise drawing the pictures o f the The Great Gatsbv

characters, she didn’t relate to the characters in most of the books. In fact, aside from

Catherine in Washington Square, with whom she reported a moderate connection, she

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related strongly to only one character: Janie, from Their Eves Were Watching God.

Like Brenda, however, she had some concerns about the multiple marriages and the fact

that even in her marriage to TeaCake, there was spousal abuse. TeaCake’s hitting of

Janie challenged Hillary’s paradigm that good people do not hit their wives, as it had for

Brenda. TeaCake was good . . . and y e t . . . there was TeaCake hitting Janie and forcing

Hillary to question her assumptions.

In early discussions and interviews, Hillary had been able to resist the idea that

battering was a women’s issue. She chose to think of it in isolated terms, as an act

carried out by someone emotionally disturbed. She had been able to put enough

distance between herself and the possibility of being abused, that it didn’t seem to be

something that she, or women in general, needed to become activists about. It didn’t

seem to be something that emanated from the status (or lack thereof) offered women by

the society. “Spousal abuse is always going to be there,” she had said. “You can’t get

rid of all the people in the world who think it is ok to beat their wives. There is always

going to be that. ” However, Hurston’s portrayal the story’s hero hitting his wife, Janie,

brought the problem closer to home for Hillary for two reasons. Firstly, she liked and

related to Janie and TeaCake’s relationship. Secondly, this book seemed to be

attempting to introduce readers to a model of a more equal relationships not offered by

male authored books we had read. This act by TeaCake appeared to be an anomaly in

Hurston’s ideology. Therefore, with Their Eves Were Watching G od, the subject of

spousal abuse became a topic that she and the others took up during discussion of the

book with two visiting professors from the neighboring university.

Social Imagination Activities

Brenda and Hillary focused on Janie’s relationship with TeaCake through some

activities organized by the two professors who had come to do educational drama work

with the class. They helped the students to interpret and process the novel by engaging

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both classes in some imaginative work and some educational drama. They followed the

philosophies of educational moralists such as Johnson (1993) and Kohlberg (1986) and

educational drama experts such as Edmiston (1999), Heathcote (1984) and O ’Neill

(1995). All of these moral educators stress the fact that the ability for students to ‘put

themselves into the others’ shoes’ is essential to the development of empathy and

ethical reasoning skills.

In the male-dominated morning class, in which the students generally did not

like the novel, the majority ranked it between a minus 8 and a minus 3 grade. There,

Dale and some other students were invited to get inside the text’ by taking on

characters' roles to play out consecutive scenes in Janie and TeaCake’s relationship.

The two visiting professors led the students through the events of Janie and TeaCake’s

relationship, using drama to bring the students to an awareness of all facets and

dynamics of the relationship. They portrayed Janie and TeaCake’s first meeting, their

first fight over the money, and the scene where TeaCake hit Janie. Because the drama

put them in touch with the characters’ feelings, the students reported in surveys (larger

group) and questionnaires (focus group) that this activity stimulated a more intense

connection with the characters’ gender issues, and an increased interest in the book.

Discussion

In Hillary and Brenda’s afternoon class, one professor began the discussion of

Their Eves Were Watching God by having the students look at the first and last

paragraphs of the novel (Rabinowitz, 1987) to identify theme. By asking the eventual

question, “What is Janie willing to do to act on her dreams?” one of the professors

organized them toward a discussion of the book that encouraged them to visualize Janie

at the end of her story in terms of her dreams. To get them started, he read the closing

lines of the novel, a tactic that Rabinowitz (1987) listed as one of the rules of notice for

understanding literature.

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She pulled in her horizon like a great fish net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its message. She called in her soul to come and see (Hurston, 1998/1937,193).

To visualize Janie and eventually design a painting that would serve as a front

cover for the book, the students had to look at Janie’s life in its entirety, in terms of her

home life, her marriages, her joys, sorrows, regrets and transformations. Having done

that, they could choose the colors and the mood for the final painting. Brenda and

Hillary, still conflicted about the issue of TeaCake hitting Janie, got stuck on whether

Janie would have had any regrets about TeaCake, in view of the fact that he had hit her

and she had allowed it. They attempted once again to explore that anomaly, with

particular consideration of the fact that the story was written by a woman. After all of

the work that they had done investigating male writers’ representation of women at my

hands, they were very troubled by the idea that Hurston had marred Janie’s final and

best relationship by allowing him the power to strike her in a jealous rage.

While all o f the students in this and in the other class were troubled by

TeaCake’s violent outburst, Brenda and Hillary seemed to be the most disturbed

because TeaCake was the male character who came closest to their notions about the

ideal mate. They considered the questions: What did this say about their abilities to

make good choices? What did this say about what they could expect from perfectly nice

guys in their lives? What did it say about what society sanctioned? And, what did it

say about Hurston, who was trying to show the development of a woman from a

possession to an equal in her relationship with men? Answers to their own questions

came by way of further questions and a good deal of concern. Regarding Hurston’s

portrayal of TeaCake, we decided that in spite of the author’s dream of a new paradigm

for literary and real relationships, Hurston too, like the male writers of her time, was

imbedded in a culture that could not envision life completely beyond a patriarchal

model. Culturally imbedded ideologies affect both men and women.

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In her effort to make TeaCake ‘human,’ or to make him recognizable in her

time, Hurston and her female protagonist sanctioned his violence toward Janie. As

Tina from the A M . class concluded, “Janie took it as part of the process of being in a

relationship that to make himself feel better TeaCake would slap her around a little .

She accepted it because he feels bad and has the right to feel this way, so it is all right.’’

My response to this combined activity and discussion was that the classmates’

general condemnation of Jody and TeaCake’s violence toward Janie convinced the

students better than any of my previous arguments of the need to challenge such

misogynistic behavior. At the very least, this group saw the need to call attention to it.

My question was, without such a challenge, how would boys and girls today judge such

behavior in heroes and heroines? In real men and women? Against what standard?

And so we engaged with the professors in a diaogic investigation with the text

and with each other that asked questions that brought the students’ present day

reactions to spousal abuse to the table. We asked whether we thought that in Janie’s

final scene, there should be only contentment, or whether there should be any indication

that she had any regrets about putting up with Jody’s abuse to safeguard security or

TeaCake’s abuse to safeguard love. While the students thought that she would have no

regrets because, as Brenda said, “it was accepted in that time period, ” they were

convinced that they would have plenty of regrets had they personally been silent or

accepting of such behavior. They made that distinction quite clear. Given the chance

to talk to Janie, Hillary said that she would like to ask her why she let it happen. She

would like Janie to enlighten her about it, because she did not understand.

This particular discussion illustrated the level of awareness that most of the

students in this class had reached with regard to the issue of violence against women as

a social concern. In addition, the desire to ask Janie why it happened indicated their

need to investigate this issue further through an imaginative encounter with the text.

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Following an introduction to a psychoanalytic critique, which I hoped would help

students to rethink romantic relationship fantasies, Hillary and Brenda did collaborate

on creating Janie’s diary in order to continue to investigate this issue.

Literary Criticism

While Walkerdine (1984) did not speak to this specific novel or the issue of

spousal abuse, I realized that Their Eyes Were Watching God focuses on a heroine

whose victim status and fantasy resolution closely parallels the rescued heroines of

Walkerdine's (1984) comic books. Seeing this connection helped me to understand the

origin of the strong appeal that the novel held for the girls in the class, and the deep

disappointment experienced by the girls when the ‘prince’ emerged as flawed.

Their Eves Were Watching God worked in the same way that Walkerdine

(1984) argued the comics worked, like fairy tales, engaging the readers at a level of

wish fulfillment (Freud, 1908) and fantasy (Lacan 1977). Walkerdine (1984) argued

that textual devices, similar to those in fairy tales, had permitted an engagement with

the heroine and the working out and potential resolution of certain conflicts and wishes

already present in their lives.

Like the heroines in the fairy tales and stories, Janie starts out as a “hapless

victim of circumstance, scorned, and badly treated (Walkerdine, 1984, p. 165), with

parents displaced by adoptive ones [in this case the grandmother]. The grandmother

has, like the adoptive parents in the fairy tales, taken possession of the girl in question

(in this case Janie), oppressing her with a forced marriage to an ogre-like suitor. Janie,

the classic fairy tale heroine, suffers Logan Killick (the ogre), and even her marriage to

Jody Starks in relative silence, displaying what Walkerdine (1984) refers to as the fairy

tale virtue of patience. Patiently, Janie engages in obedient helpfulness, accepting her

fate in a selfless manner. Selflessness, then, becomes for Janie, as for the comic/fairy

tale heroines, a virtue.

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Janie's trials, like the heroines in the comics, served to “prepare for and proffer a

^happy ever after’ situation in which the finding of the prince comes to seem like a

solution to a set of overwhelming desires and problems” (Walkerdine, 1984, p. 163).

Janie, like the hapless comic book heroines, was rewarded for her virtue with a prince.

TeaCake was that reward—that prince. The parallel formula in Their Eves Were

Watching God, then, resolves by means of the familiar ‘happy ever after’ telos “with the

insertion of the girl into the longed for ideal family, the lost dream” (p. 163).

Hurston, although attempting to liberate her female readers from traditional

patriarchal relationships, still used the fairy tale formula to lead the heroine to the prince

(albeit a flawed prince). This begs the question of whether the flawed prince was a

conscious attempt by Hurston to dismantle the traditional “happy ever after” fantasy, or

whether she was so enculturated by society’s tolerance of spousal abuse, that she simply

portrayed TeaCake as an imperfect and believable, albeit loving husband for Janie. I

suspect it was the latter. However, whatever the case, the girls reading the story were

coerced by the someday my prince will come’ storyline and the happy ever after’

fantasy for which they had been so long prepared (Walkerdine, 1984), and for which

this novel had continued to prepare them—until the slap. After the slap, the girls did

not know how to view a “happy ever after” relationship which included husbands

hitting wives.

To deal with the girls’ disillusionment, I drew from Walkerdine and other

psychoanalytic feminists who argue for students to examine and question their

investments in the fantasies and dominant subject positions created in literary texts

(Davies, 1993; Flax, 1990; Harper, 2000; Walkerdine, 1984). To do this, I engaged the

focus group participants in further discussions about the novel’s underlying romantic

ideals, and the contrasting power imbalances existing between Janie and TeaCake.

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I drew on the girls’ ambivalence, and the contradictions (Harper, 2000) that they

experienced as they struggled to resolve their dilemma about how to extricate

themselves from their own investment in the “happy ever after” fantasy while still

remaining optimistic about the good, but not perfect ending. In leading the discussion, I

invited their ambivalence and ambiguity (Flax, 1990). I believed such discomfort would

lead to a deconstruction or “troubling” Butler, 1999; Lather, 1991) of the fantasies that

contributed to Janie’s tolerance of men’s domination of her as a way of protecting and

maintaining the fantasies, the prince, and the patriarchal power structure.

Brenda and Hillary considered that Janie’s investment in the happy ending might

have accounted in part for her years of silence about Jody’s domination, and her

attempts to accept TeaCake’s slapping of her. They also considered Janie’s financial

dependence as an explanation for her passive acceptance of Jody’s abusive behavior.

Both considerations represented the heightening of their awareness of some of the roots

of unequal relationships, and some of the possible remedies.

Final Proiect/Social Imagination

For the final project, Brenda and Hillary

continued their exploration of Janie’s

relationships by creating the diary that

Janie might have kept throughout her

three marriages. According to them,

keeping the diary had allowed them to

see things they hadn ’t noticed in

theirreadings or in the discussions with

the professors and me. I noticed also

Figure 53: Janie’s Diary

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that it had the effect of “cracking a previous understanding into a new awareness”

(Heathcote, 1984, p. 122) of Janie’s experience dealing with Jody’s domination and

TeaCake’s hitting. Through the creation of this “alternative fiction” (Walkerdine,

1984, p. 184), the girls engaged in a transactional method of meaning-making with the

text (Rosenblatt, 1995), which resulted in a synthesis of what they knew as

contemporary readers with what the literary text offered (p. 259). By writing the diary,

the girls were able to discover their ambivalence about the relationship between Janie’s

investment in the “someday my prince will come” fantasy (Walkerdine, 1984, p. 162)

and her acceptance of her subjugated role in her marriages. They demonstrated this

ambivalence by alternating back and forth between Janie’s culture and their own

(Hines, 1997; Rogers, 1997), and judging the characters’ actions according to their

own standards, while being careful to keep themselves in Hurston’s narrative. This

allowed them to develop the “stereophonic ” vision as described by Bogdan (1992)

which resulted in a response that would “integrate the enjoyment and self

consciousness of the relationship between text and reader” (p. 191).

Brenda and Hillary’s discovery of this ambivalence about the relationship

between Janie’s investment in the “someday my prince will come ” fantasy and her

acceptance of her subjugated role in her marriages was initially demonstrated by the

juxtaposition of Janie’s ’ initial reflections about Jody’ with her later ones in the

journal. Initially, without having been exposed to any reference to the ‘prince’ in my

discussion of Janie’s romantic fantasies with the students, they showed complicit

understanding of ‘Janie’s’ connection of Jody with a prince. In the journal, they wrote:

He was dressed so proper; I was almost in awe of him. He was so kind to me, making me feel like I was some damsel in distress. He said the sw eetest things to me. He told me I should be treated like a lady, a princess even. (Diary, p. 5)

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Here the girls demonstrate Janie’s’ view of Jody as the rescuer of herself as the

damsel in distress. They also demonstrate their own complicit understanding o f the

fantasy by implying the existence of a rescuer and one rescued. Their description of

Janie's reflections later in the relationship shows the girls’ understanding of the power

of Janie’s romantic fantasies to sustain what they suggest through irony is a misbegotten

tolerance of spousal abuse. For, after having ‘Janie’ confess in the diary that Jody’

“talks down,” to her, “tells her what to do,” and “has gone from being charming to

insensitive,” they have her take her thoughts back to show her effort to preserve the

dream of the “prince” and “happy ever after” resolution:

No. No. I know that can't be true. Jody is much too wonderful. He is my dream of a perfect man, so I must be crazy to be thinking these thoughts!I love him. I do. I do! God hopes he still loves me! (Diary)

The girls attempted to critique Jody’s behavior and Janie’s easy forgiveness by

merging the strong disapproval of Jody’s behavior that they imagined for Janie, with the

acceptance that Janie actually demonstrated in the novel.

Jody hit me today. He was upset that his dinner didn't taste right. I spent my whole day preparing his dinner, and he hits me because he disapproves.My feeling is, let him cook his own damn dinner. Although I know myself, and I couldn't follow through with that (Diary)

The connection between Janie’s investment in the “someday my prince will

come” fantasy and her acceptance of her subjugated role in the relationship is even

more evident in the relationship between Janie and TeaCake. TeaCake is the real

prince. As I pointed out earlier in this section, the two girls had struggled with the

anomaly of a real ‘prince’ hitting his wife. In their record of Janie’s reflections of

TeaCake’s hitting of Janie, they succeeded in depicting Janie’s bifurcated psyche. They

also demonstrated that they were able to deal with the tension that they imagined Janie

felt as well as the struggle they experienced as they attempted to Justify TeaCake’s

actions against their own moral measuring stick.

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Today TeaCake hit me. Right across my face. He saw another man talking with me and told me it made him an awful lot of jealous. In his mind, it tells everyone I belong to him. I suppose I should be proud to wear my welts. They are from TeaCake, and I am glad to belong to him. I want th e world to know we're together and I wish no guys to flirt with me. I love Teacake with all my heart but I couldn't hit TeaCake for anything. Even if I was to learn that he had been unfaithful to me, I still couldn't bear to cause him pain. I am disturbed he found it so easy to hurt me, even if it is really so he won't lose face with the guys' or because a man has been flirting with me. I still don't think it's right (Diary)

Later, however, the girls critique Janie’s forgiveness of TeaCake and her

acceptance of a romantic ideology based on a definition of masculinity characterized by

power, authority, and aggression, and a definition of femininity’ characterized by

compliance with subordination. By using irony and hyperbole, and again

demonstrating a textual accountability, they simultaneously show how Janie heals her

bifurcation through a resignation, which is bom of a patriarchal gender order. They

comment’ from their critical perspective on the ludicrous nature of her resignation.

Combining an illustration of Janie’s dependence with a satirical commentary on the

same, they have Janie say:

Well, look at me writing on and on about this nonsense. Of course I should be slapped. I downright deserved it. I belong to TeaCake one hundred percent, and if I talk to another man, I should be punished. I should wear these welts with pride, and be glad I have a loving man to give them to me.Now I will return to the kitchen and make dinner for my husband (Diary).

In the essay accompanying this diary/scrapbook, Brenda explained that in the

diary, she tried to show her opinions through Janie, without changing Janie’s opinions.

She explained that in having Janie “talk herself out of being worried that [TeaCake’s

hitting] was wrong ” and attempt to convince herself that she was “proud to wear the

welts from TeaCake, ” that she was attempting to critique Janie’s acceptance of

TeaCake’s abuse and authoritarianism. She also stated that by saying “TeaCake was

right to slap me” and that I downright deserved it,” she was attempting to be sarcastic to

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“prove a point.” The point that the Brenda referred to, as I understood it, was that it

was not Janie who should have been feeling guilty, but TeaCake, who was the one who

had hit Janie.

By exaggerating Janie’s response beyond any reaction they could possibly

sanction today, and assigning her a response only acceptable in a sexist society, Brenda

and Hillary moved beyond their ambivalence about Janie and TeaCake’s relationship.

By using sarcasm to critique the effects of romantic fantasies on relationship Brenda

and Hillary not only challenged the fantasies but also the power of texts in shaping of

desire and the production of gendered subjectivities.

Other Projects

A few of the students in both classes chose

Their Eves Were Watching God for their final

projects. One student created a comic book

through which she told the story artistically.

Sarah and Maynard identified popular song

lyrics through which they could express the

nature of the relationships in the novel. They

selected “Christian Woman” by Type O.

Figure 5.4: Comic Book

Negative as a result of class discussions about Janie’s love life. According to them,

“every other character that we have read about who had more than one relationship or

more than one lover, was labeled a slut, hussy or otherwise. Janie’s wasn’t.” With this

song, they explored how this woman was not condemned, and why that was so, and

they tried to explore the reason for this. Other songs selected were “Not My Idea,” by

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Garbage, which characterized Janie’s relationship with Jody Starks. The song,

according to them, “is about a woman who was belittled by the man she was with and

then stood up for herself to show him that she was strong.” Maynard and Sarah’s ability

to connect Jody and Janie’s relationship with a similar relationship in a contemporary

song succeeded in intensifying their connection with and their understanding of, that

relationship in their own terms. Their last song, “You Complete Me,” by Stabbing

Westward, compared Janie in her relationship with TeaCake, to a woman in the song

who had evolved as a character and found the man she had been looking for. “You’re

the light that I’ve been searching for ‘cause my whole life there’s been something

missing” is the line they found most significant.

D r a w i n g f r o m the

conversation that the afternoon

class had with the professors

about how Janie and the

surroundings should look in

the scene depicted on the last

page o f the novel, Barbara

created an oil painting of Janie

at the end of the novel. I

realized when I saw the

picture that Barbara had

Figure 5 3 : Imagining the Last Page

carried out the choices that the class had eventually made during their long and lively

argument about setting, mood and colors that should be chosen for the visual depiction

of the end of the novel. She converted these choices into a painting. The class had been

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attempting to design the cover of the next edition of the novel, and she carried out their

wishes by creating a beautiful picture of Janie, as she looks at the end of the novel when

“she pulled in her horizon like a great fish net. Pulled it from around the waist of the

world and draped it over her shoulder . . . [with] so much of life in its message”

(Hurston, 1998, p. 193).

Barbara was able to portray Janie as she “called in her soul to come and see”

(1998, p. 195). She was able to portray Janie’s maturity, her wisdom, her silence and

her ultimate contentment that was evident now that she had come to consciousness

through her project of “finding a voice, with language as an instrument of inquiry and

salvation of selfhood and empowerment. . . ” (Gates in Hurston, 1998, p. 197).

Reflections

Brenda’s connection with the characters in Their Eves Were Watching God

intensified her awareness of the gender issues in the literary relationships, in

relationships she sees in her life, and in those she imagines for herself in the future.

Discussions, activities and interviews also alerted her to her own susceptibility to an

involvement in an unequal relationship, and her own and other girls’ vulnerability, to

spousal abuse.

Hillary, who began the course with extremely traditional ideas about gender

roles, began to question those roles as a result of discussions and activities. During the

course, she became increasingly aware of the enforcement of traditional romantic

narratives by the society, and of the existence and reinforcement of sex role stereotypes

and double standards by church and family members.

My own struggle to develop a feminist consciousness in these girls was

challenged by Hillary as it had been by Ellen and Marie. Her resistance to my agenda

to raise consciousness about gender equity forced me to remember that change does not

come instantaneously, or because I will it. It took a very long time for men and women

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to construct these gender roles, stereotypes, androcentric perspectives and imbalances of

power, and, it would take a long time to undo the damage. Indoctrination is no

substitute for a gradual paradigm shift, nudged along by a patient coach. I realized that

the exploration of the literature and the consideration o f gender issues as well as the

students’ own contradictions and conflicts were what was important and valuable.

For both girls, Walkerdine’s (1984) literary critical perspective led to an

awareness of how Janie’s investment in romantic fantasies accounted in part for her

years of silence about Jody’s domination, and her attempts to accept TeaCake’s

violence. The introduction to Walkerdine’s (1984) ideas introduced students to the idea

that unless readers have a critical perspective, texts which lure readers to engage with a

forlorn heroine (who is rewarded with a ‘prince’) can produce readers who assume that

their victory will depend on their passivity.

For both of these girls, an involvement in social imagination activities, such as

educational drama and art, intensified their awareness of the gender inequalities in

Janie’s romantic relationships with Jody and TeaCake, and fostered a stronger

awareness of the gender issues in their own lives. These activities caused the girls to

consider the effects of Janie’s decisions on her life, as she looked back on then from the

end o f the novel. The diary they kept on Janie’s life, recording Janie’s responses to her

role in and reaction to the marriages, allowed the girls to imagine themselves walking in

Janie’s shoes (Kohlberg, 1986; Heathcote 1984; Johnson, 1993; O ’Neill 1995;

Edmiston, 1999). W riting in role also encouraged the development of their

stereophonic vision’ (Bogdan, 1992) of Janie’s experience viewed through her eyes

and their own. In addition, this ‘stereophonic vision’ enabled them to consider not only

Janie’s life, but also their own lives in terms of hers.

Their use of irony and hyperbole to critique the traditional gender roles

exhibited in their “favorite relationship ” of all of the ones considered, showed that they

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had made much progress in developing a critical consciousness to unequal relationships

in literature and life. It showed that they also were aware of the ways in which romantic

fantasies can result in the continued subordination of women in relationships.

Chapter Conclusion

In the three literary investigations in this chapter, students focused on the

representation of males and females and the love relationship, and investigated the ways

■ in which they were caught up in romantic fantasies such as those represented in the

three novels as well as romantic narratives constructed by the society.

The following and final chapter addressing the research data deals specifically

with the last literary work covered in the class, “The Untold Lie,” by Sherwood

Anderson.

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CHAPTER 6

THE VOICES OF MEN AND WOMEN

People live by stories. They attempt to shape their lives by the available narratives. If the available narratives are limiting, people’s lives are limited.

Richardson, 1997, p. 58

The play’s the thingWherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King

Shakespeare, Hamlet II, ii ,616-17

Introduction

This chapter is dedicated solely to the investigation of Anderson’s short story,

“The Untold Lie, ” from the novel, Winesburg. Ohio. It is the last literary work to be

investigated not because it was the last work to be read, because chronologically,

Hurston’s Their Eves Were Watching God is a later work and was the last work to be

assigned and read in the class. “The Untold Lie ” is placed at the end of the study for

several important reasons. Firstly, it was the last literary work to be investigated by the

focus group, who worked on it in the months after the actual course had ended.

Secondly, the form in which the analysis and interpretation of the work is presented

distinguishes it from the rest of the literary works because it is presented dramatically.

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Lastly, because of the distinctiveness of the form, the significance of the content, and

the fact that the play combines the words and the perspectives of the students, the

feminists and me, it works as a metaphor for the study, capturing essence of the research

project and the perspectives, struggles, and conflicts of all those involved in the study.

Explanation of the Format

Like the other literary works, Sherwood Anderson's “The Untold Lie” was

investigated in the two classrooms and in personal interviews with the focus group

participants. However, it was also studied in a series of small group discussions and

improvisational workshops conducted with the ten focus group participants.

1 had originally thought that creating a film update for this story would be a

good social imagination strategy for focusing the students’ attention on the governing

textual ideologies and on the relevance of a film adaptation of such a story for

contemporary audiences. So, 1 engaged the focus group participants in an investigation

of the challenges presented by the story for such a project.

During the early part of the discussion, I charged that Anderson’s story about

Ray Pearson and Hal Winters turned on an androcentric perspective and made its point

by means of a androcentric representation of Minnie Pearson and the institution of

marriage. I challenged them to decide if and how they planned to address Anderson’s

portrayal of Minnie as a sharp voiced shrew whose identity as a wife was synonymous

with the harness on the 'soon-to-be-worn out old horse.’ It was my idea that this

representation of women and marriage, if kept in a 1999 update, would contribute to the

reproduction of a tired archetype of ‘woman as ball and chain’ for yet another

generation. I also argued that it would not play well for today’s youth.

There was much resistance especially from Dale who believed that the archetype

of “women as ball and chain” still works today, and that without a negative portrayal of

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women, Anderson’s point would be weakened. There was also resistance from Charles,

who, as we remember, except when considering “Hills Like White Elephants,” is a

purist when it comes to literature, and speaks in defense o f the author and of universal

meanings, and against mixing politics and literature. For the purpose of engaging the

students in deconstruction of the piece, and to alert them to the androcentrism, I

engaged them in conversations and dialogues geared at challenging the idea that the

story demanded a shrewish wife.

The enthusiasm for the film update waned (mostly because of the time

constraint). However, there was enthusiasm from the girls who enjoyed the idea of

brainstorming a stage adaptation of the story in which silenced female characters could

speak, and nagging shrews could be imagined differently. They engaged in staging

some scenes and in improvising conversations between silent characters to deconstruct

the text for the experimental drama. Time constraints prevented the students from

writing the play. However, I wrote the play that the group was unable to finish.

By organizing their responses (transcribed from discussions, and interviews)

into a one act play, I used writing as an additional method o f inquiry (Richardson, 1994)

and discovery (St. Pierre, 1995) to create “a new form of reflexive and transgressive

verisimilitude” (Denzin, 1994, p. 304). In this dramatic form, “text intrudes upon text

in an enabling disruption” (Butler, 1999, p. 23) and captures the students’ perspectives

and deliberations and my struggles more poignantly.

In addition, by dramatizing the study, I have been able to more clearly identify

students’ positions and the dynamics of the interactions, more critically assess the

effects o f the teaching strategies used, and more economically demonstrate the

experience in which we all participated. More importantly, I have been able to

construct a metaphor not only for the study of “The Untold Lie,” but also for the entire

research project. This dramatic piece illustrates the responses, the textual negotiations,

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and the dialogic encounters, which characterized the project. It also demonstrates the

transaction in a way that no other method could have done, crystallizing the struggles

with the gender issues in the text that would not have been possible with narration.

Engaging in experimental writing has served as one process of interpreting this

research data. With that in mind, 1 have decided to describe and interpret the data for

this story with the one-act play 1 wrote, instead of describing and interpreting the data as

1 have done with the other literary works. For “The Untold Lie,” 1 have engaged the

entire group in the storytelling process by employing the students as players, and

presenting the interpretation of the in dramatic, rather than narrative form.

1 believe it is the most effective way to present the experience, as it joins the

actual dialogue from the story with the students’ responses, and their interactions with

each other, the text, and me. It also elucidates their responses to a feminist literary

criticism of the story (represented by the WOMAN). Lines attributed to each student are

the lines that that particular student uttered during the discussions. The WOMAN is a

composite of Judith Fetterley and o f me, and her lines are a combination of my thoughts

and Fetterley s quoted words, which represent my perspective. The lines-of the narrator

and the characters from story, are Anderson’s lines.

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“THE UNTOLD LIE”

Sherwood Anderson

A WORKSHOP DRAMATIZED

By Pat Zumhagen

A radical critique of literature, feminist in impulse, would take the work first of all as a clue to how we live, how we have been living, how we have been led to imagine ourselves, how our language has trapped us as well as liberated us; and how we can begin to see—and therefore live— afresh. Rich, 1979, p. 18

ChoiceBecause Winesburg. Ohio is an often-assigned high school work, I chose to

discuss one story from that book. I chose “The Untold Lie” because I see it as revolving around a subtle, yet clear androcentric perspective.

SynopsisIn this piece, which is one of the short stories in Anderson’s novel, Winesburg.

Ohio, a fifty-year-old Ray Pearson is forced to look back on his own life as a result of the fact that his young friend, Hal Winters, has gotten his girlfriend Nell Gunther pregnant. The situation is reminiscent of Ray’s own history, for he had gotten his now wife, Minnie, in trouble when they were young, and it had changed his life forever for the worse. Ray struggles during the course of the story with how to respond to Hal’s question of whether he should “marry and settle down” and “put himself into the harness to be worn out like an old horse. ”

Ray’s wife is sharp featured and sharp tongued, and he clearly resents her and the life he lives with her. He claims, at one point, that his children are just “accidents of life,” that he didn’t owe Minnie anything, and that Hal doesn’t owe Nell anything either. After a scolding from his wife, he is determined to go back to tell Hal not to marry. But, when he gets there, Hal has already decided that he is going to marry Nell, that he wants to be married, settle down and have children. Ray lost his nerve, and said nothing, but realizes after seeing Hal, that “whatever he had told him would have been a lie.” And, on the way home to Minnie, he has some pleasant memories of “evenings spent with is thin legged children in the tumble down house by the creek,” realizing that his adult life was spent literally in the middle of a conflict between responsibility and freedom.

Mv readingThis Sherwood Anderson story is one of my favorite short stories in American

literature. The bind that Ray Pearson is in is heartbreaking and familiar to many who

have felt the tension involved in the battle between freedom and responsibility, lust and

long term commitment. Anderson dramatically and effectively captures the divided

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man who has been beaten by his decision to be responsible, but can’t quite take the road

to freedom or recommend it to anyone else in his situation. Unfortunately, to tell his

story, Anderson silences the voices of the women, making the women only a reference

point for a patriarchal limited perspective. Anderson chooses to elicit sympathy for his

main character by depicting Ray’s wife as the scolding, shrewish, ‘ball and chain’

which she has become during the course of their marriage. Because the story is told

from Ray's point of view, the uncritical reader is lured into Ray’s perspective that Hal’s

decision to “do the right thing” will bring him to the same unfortunate end that Ray has

reached. The men are drawn as mirror images of each other, thus implicating not just

Minnie but Nell and other women into the role of ‘ball and chain.’ My objection to the

story is that he depicts a divided man by implicating women as central culprits in

marital discord and his disappointment with the institution. Though I love the story, I

feel a need to reveal a problematic depiction of marriage when reading the story with

young, impressionable readers. A dialogically feminist (Lundberg, 1989) reader is

called upon to cut through the sexist exclusion which is based on a patriarchal ideology.

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REVISIONISM IN ONE ACT

Challenging dominant versions o f femininity will necessitate developing alternative textual strategies for the classroom, which move beyond simple realistic readings of the ‘world’ of the fiction. Taylor, 1993, p. 141

More studies that center on previously marginalized perspectives need to be performed, both for literary and for sociopolitical reasons

Lundberg, 1989, p. 199

CharactersPlav Within the PlavActor Playing Narrator: A storyteller telling the tale.Actor Playing Ray Pearson: A fifty-year old farm hand.Actor Playing Hal Winters: A twenty-two year old farmhandActor playing Minnie Pearson (Ellen): Ray’s sharp featured, sharp voiced wifeDirector: DaleDramaturge: CharlesStage Manager: HowardNell Gunther: Alicia playing Hal’s girlfriendThe WOMAN: Feminist professor, representing owners o f theatre.Chorus: Alicia, Ellen, Brenda, Hillary, Marie, Maynard, and Sarah.

This is a One Act ‘play within a play’ in six scenes. The time is the present. The entire play takes place in a theatre, where the troupe is rehearsing Dale’s stage adaptation for Sherwood Anderson’s story “The Untold Lie,” from Winesburg. Ohio. Scenes I and III and VI (Dale’s “Untold Lie” play within the play), take place in the field where Ray and Hal work as field hands. Ray’s house in the background. Scene II (play within the play) takes place in Ray’s bam. The bam is on a swivel in the back of the farmhouse and tums for Scene II so that the audience can get a glimpse into Ray’s homelife and private life with his wife, Minnie. Scenes IV and V and interruptions in the other scenes, involve the comments and reactions of those viewing the play rehearsal.

The set is designed for a proscenium stage in a regular theatre where Dale is attempting to rehearse his play. The scenes are played center stage slightly on the diagonal facing down stage left. Dale’s director’s chair is placed down stage left so that he can watch the action. The choms members are members of the troupe are watching this rehearsal from a slightly raised area upstage right, left and center.

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SCENE ONE

A stage somewhere

The two main characters in the inner play are Ray Pearson and Hal Winters. “Ray is a quiet, serious, rather nervous man with a brown beard and shoulders rounded by too much and too hard labor.” Hal, his fellow employee, is a young man in his early twenties, a bad one,’ with a reputation for drinking, devilment and women scrapes. When the play opens, Ray, a 50-year-old farm hand, is in a sad, distracted mood, and is affected by the beauty of the country.

Stage manager: OK places. We are going to run the play. (To the chorus) You guys can stay and watch, but you have got to be quiet. I am trying to set lights and running time. OK? All set. Dale.

Dale. Ok, let’s hit it.

LIGHTS UP. SCENE ONE:

Hal and Ray are husking corn in the Held on a morning in late October. Ray is staring into space over the fence, dreaming of the beauty of the countryside.

Narrator: Ray and Hal were husking com and occasionally something was said and they laughed. Then came silence. Looking out at the yellows and reds of the fall scene, Ray began to think o f the time, long ago, when he had wandered into the woods to gather nuts, hunt rabbits or just smoke his pipe. His marriage had come about on one of these days of wandering. He had induced a girl to go with him for a walk, and something had happened. He was thinking that afternoon how it had affected his whole life. He had forgotten about Hal when he uttered the words:

Ray: (staring into space) Tricked by Gad, that’s what I was, tricked by life and made a fool of!

WOMAN: enters and makes her way into the audience.

Hal: Well, has it been worth while? What about it, eh? What about marriage and all that? (laughs, and then the laugh dies down and he begins to pace and says, in a worried tone). Has a fellow got to do it? Has he got to be harnessed up and driven through life like a horse? (paces back and forth thinking for a while . . . .(finally) I’ve got Nell Gunther in trouble. I ’m telling you but you keep your mouth shut.

They stare at each other for several beats—really seeing each other.

Hal: Well then, old daddy. Come on. Advise me. I’ve got Nell in trouble. Perhaps you’ve been in the same fix yourself. I know what everyone would say is the right thing to do, but . . . what do you say? Shall I marry and settle down? Shall I put myself into the harness to be worn out like an old horse?

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The WOJVIAN (comes from out of the audience) and stops the play in the middle of the action:

WOMAN: WAIT A MINUTE. WAIT A MINUTE. WAIT JUST A MINUTE. HOLD IT! HOLD IT! HOLD IT! STOP RIGHT THERE! STOP EVERYTHING! WHAT IS THIS?

Dale (director) jumps up from his director chair and enters. What in the hell? Stage manager enters, (baffled): Ok, lights up.

HOUSE LIGHTS UP.

WOMAN (sarcastically to herself): Harnessed up and driven through life like an old horse? Whose words are these? Who will harness him? Where is the director of this thing? Who’s the writer?

Dale: That would be me . . . on both counts.

WOMAN: Are you kidding? In the year 2000? Where is this Nell Gunther? Nell Gunther! Where are you? I think we need to see the character of Nell Gunther? I think she needs to hear what people are saying about her here. Maybe she needs to speak for herself. Respond. (Questioningly) Harnessed up and driven through life like a horse?

Dale (to stage manager): Who in the hell is this broad?

Stage manager: I haven’t a clue. I saw her walk in a few minutes ago. She has been sitting in the audience. Maybe she’s the rep they’ve sent up from the watchdog group to see the show in rehearsal. They own the building. I told you. They are dedicated to politically correct art or something of the kind. One of the students thinks she also teaches a Women’s Studies course at the university. But, no one knows her name.

Dale (trying to be polite): Excuse me. Mam, but just what in the hell do you think you are doing? There is a play going on here? Who are you and how do you get the nerve to stop my play? Get off the stage! We are trying to run a tech rehearsal.

WOMAN (dramatically): I have been forced out of my seat by this onerous display of misogynist dialogue that somehow equates a married man with a horse that is harnessed up and driven through life. (Sarcastically) And, I guess we know who might be doing the driving? Women once again reduced, subjugated, made the object of moral indignation and the story’s hostility. Women’s subservience reified in the hearts and minds of yet another generation. Do you not see the androcentric perspective undergirding this dialogue? The woman here is turned into a ball and chain responsible for the pain and suffering of MANkind? Do you not see the patriarchal ideology reinscribed in and driving this dialogue? Who wrote this abomination, anyway? Who defined marriage in this odious way?

Dale (now fully exasperated, but trying to remain controlled and using measured speech, to Stage manager): What is she talking about?

Stage manager: I haven’t a clue.

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Dale (to woman): Mam. Whatever your name is. One of the great short story writers of the twentieth century originally wrote this piece. Sherwood Anderson. And, I have written the stage adaptation. I’m trying to be bloody polite here, but (yells, losing control). You are in the middle of my play here and (regaining control, softly and measured) there is no character named Nell Gunther. You are mistaken. She is not a character. She is merely referred to in the play. Sit down and watch the play and you will see. The men talk about her. This is their story. It is about the men. It’s a poignant story about a man dealing with the two warring sides of himself. Classic. Universal. Nell, unfortunately, does not speak for herself. She does not exist!

WOMAN: Very unfortunately, especially if she is going to be referred to as a harness, (whining) And, well, that’s nothing new, now is it? That story is as old as the hills. But, perhaps it is time she did speak for herself. We are not in Anderson’s time anymore. This is the 21st century. If you are updating, you might consider the life in your upped date.

Dale: Listen, lady. I’ll up ya one.

Stage manager: That’s enough Dale. Just watch. Things are going to resolve.

(WOMAN resigns herself temporarily and goes back to her seat)

Dale (whispers to Howard): Is she staying till the bitter end?

Stage manager: I think so.

Dale: Gy. Ok let’s role. Let’s pretend she’s not here. Scene II

Stage manager: OK everyone. Places for Scene II

Dale: Yikes! What next?

SCENE TWO

The same stage somewhere

Actors rehearsing Scene H of Dale’s adaptation of Anderson’s Story which is set in his barn later the same day. Ray is puttering in the barn. A child’s bitter weeping can be heard in the background.

LIGHTS UP

Narrator: After the talk with Hal, Ray had not returned to the cornfield but had worked in the bam. As the scene opens, he is staring once again into the beauty of the country . . . this time into the failing light.

Enter Minnie: trudging toward the barn, looking annoyed, calling after Ray in a shrill, nagging voice.

Minnie: RAY, RAY. WHERE ARE YOU?

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Narrator: Ray wanted to do something that he had never done before, shout or scream or hit his wife with his fists or something equally unexpected and terrifying. He looked hard at her back as he followed her out of the bam but she seemed all right. She only wanted him to go into town for groceries and as soon as she had told him what she wanted, she began to scold:

Minnie: (scolding in a shrill voice). You’re always puttering. Now I want you to hustle. There isn’t anything in the house for supper and you’ve got to get to town and back in a hurry.

Ray (putters around the barn, picking things up)

Minnie (scolding): The children will cry and cry. Why are you always puttering?

WOMAN (jumps up and re-enters from audience: That’s it. STOP IT. STOP IT NOW. Aw come on. I can’t take any more. You’ve got to be kidding.

Stage manager: Stop everything. House lights up. Here we go again.

HOUSE LIGHTS UP

Dale rises (exasperated) from his director’s chair

Dale: Now what?

WOMAN (to Dale) This can’t be what she gets to say? And you can't really be having Ray trudging behind her like that in that deferential wimpy way. NOT IN AN UPDATE, ANYWAY. Isn’t this just a bit too easy? A bit of a duty trick on the little woman here? A set up? Right in the middle o f Ray’s mid-life crisis, his existential angst, Minnie gets to play out the wicked witch of the west scene? This guy is whipped. Are you telling me that this is any kind of realistic representation of women or men in marriage? Then? Now? Leave it to a man to write something like this.

Dale following her up to the stage (wiping the sweat from his face).

Dale: Mother of the good Lord, God. Will someone throw this feminazi out of here? (To WOMAN) What do you want now? What in the hell is your problem? This is all she gets to say.

WOMAN: Why is this bitchy scene here the one that Minnie gets to play at this point? Will we be left with only this as an image of the only woman with any lines in the play? How are all of these decisions going on around her and Nell without them having anything to say? They have been essentially left out of their own story. THEY HAVE BEEN SILENCED MARGINALIZED, ERASED. And what’s more, you are setting Minnie up here.

Dale (QUIETLY, in measured cadence, to WOMAN): Madam. This is not Minnie’s story. This is Ray’s story. And, it is not your update, (now hysterical) it is mine! And, I have chosen to be true to the original.

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WOMAN: Well it doesn’t have to be M innie's story, BUT WHY IS SHEPORTRAYED IN THIS TERRIBLY BITCHY WAY? Even Wayne Booth thinks that the historical defense robs you of your responsibility to living women?

Dale: Who in the hell is Wayne Booth? And, who cares? She is portrayed this way because she is bitchy.

WOMAN: An example of circuitous logic at its worst. This portrayal is a dated, dangerous sexist stereotype. And this ball and chain thing . . . (To Ellen, playing Minnie) Darling, haven't we women put up with this crap long enough? This stuff can’t be being put on in the year 2000, can it? What kind of messages will young people get about women when they see this crap, dear? You should be demanding more. Getting to explain Minnie’s character, maybe . . . in a different tone perhaps. Anyway this won’t work in this society. People don’t think of women as balls and chains and harnesses anymore

(Stage actors freeze as chorus speaks)

Chorus (Hillary, in the audience, to Marie, seated next to her) taken up with what is going on): She's right about Minnie. I mean, it almost makes sense that she is the way she is right now. I mean, she made a mistake and because of it, she ruined any chances she might have had to do other things with her life too. And no wonder she is bitch. I mean, I would be bitchy too if I got involved with a guy and I got pregnant and I had to get married before I got to go to college or whatever. I wonder if Anderson was portraying her as a bitch because she too was disappointed that she had to marry him. Or, did he just think married women were bitches?Minnie (coming out of the freeze): I don’t know if she is bitch, maybe just bitter. (Returns to freeze with others).

Chorus (Hillary): She probably wasn’t like that when she was in the relationship at first. And she got pregnant and then it was a matter of time. It would be hard to go through all of that and still be sweet.

Stage manager (raises his arm to the chorus in upper audience): I am warning you guys up there. You can watch the production, but one more word and you are out of here. This is not a bloody literature class or (looking at the WOMAN) a consciousness raising group. This is a rehearsal of a play! I’m warning you! Keep it down. We are trying to run tech.

Stage actors unfreeze

Dale (to WOMAN): Madam. I am a writer. I know something about archetypes. You are mistaken about this not working today. This archetype still works in our society. The ball and chain archetype for women still works. Everybody gets it. You are the only one having trouble with this.

WOMAN: Are you saying that because this is Ray’s story and this is what is going on in Ray’s head that this exonerates Anderson (and you, I might add) from essentially portraying the woman in marriage like a ball and chain?

Dale: That is the way that Ray is viewing it and he is presenting that viewpoint. This is the way that Anderson was seeing it.

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WOMAN: My poor dear. I would think you would be bright enough to realize that if the archetype still works, that that is our number one clue that there is something dreadfully wrong with this society. Is it your goal to make sure the archetype continues to work for the next 100 years?

Dale: Where in the hell is the dramaturge. (Yells) Charles, where are you? Can’t you see we are having a crisis here?Enter Charles (Dramaturge).

Stage manager: Take five everyone.

HOUSE LIGHTS UP.

Actors and chorus relax but do not leave their places.

Dramaturge (Charles in a William F. Buckleyesque manner, delivering as a speech): Madam. 1 think that the ball and chain mentality is not limited to guys looking at women as the ball and chain, but I think that society in general sees the state of marriage as a ball and chain, judging that 50% of marriages fail. I think it is not just the guys anymore saying that this marriage is holding me back. Now there are a good many women saying it.

WOMAN (to Charles): Well, easy for you to say, Mr. Dramaturge, when it is not the female character calling her husband a ball and chain. And, I imagine you are very clear about the ways in which husbands can be balls and chains to wives, no?

(To Minnie): Minnie, come over here, my dear.

WOMAN (To Minnie): Come over here Minnie. We have to talk. We have to do something about expanding your role. Perhaps setting up a conversation with Nell here. Something needs to be done here. You are setting a terrible example, don’t you think?

Dale. Nell where? There is no Nell! (Visibly annoyed) I appreciate your connection with this theatre. If you have one, but we have a contract here that I am the director, not you. Now, take a powder, buttinsky. Let’s continue with the play.

Minnie (meekly . . .playing the shy Stanislovsky student): Well, actually, Mr. Dixon, there are some things that I would like to say if I could. I have only these three lines and I really don’t think the audience gets to know my motivation well enough. I think the woman here is right. They think I am a bitch and they don’t think beyond that. But there is more. I may not always have been a bitch. I was a person too.

Dale (jumping up and down, screaming): We do not have to deal with your motivations. MINNNIE SIT DOWN. We get to know you through Ray. This is his story. Not yours. How many times do I have to tell you, you are a secondary character? Now be quiet and deliver the lines as they are written.

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Minnie (A bit stronger): Well I am going to speak. I don’t like the way they are getting to know me only through Ray and Hal. It might be his story, but it makes me into a stereotype, not a character. And, I think that implicates all women. I do.

Dale (verging on hysteria, to Minnie). No you cannot have any more lines. You are secondary. READ THE SCRIPT. YOU DO NOT SAY ANYTHING MORE. You whine, that’s it. GET OFF THIS STAGE. This story is about the men. The women’s movement has gone beyond equality. Now no one cares about the men! Somebody has to stand up for the men!

(controlled. To the WOMAN) Sit down. Take it easy. The story is about two guys and not their wives. And the two guys probably aren’t in love with the people that they had gotten in trouble, and probably shouldn’t have gotten involved with them. THAT is the ball and chain. That is what this is about. Now promise me that you will watch the rest of the play and not interrupt anymore.

Actors freeze

Chorus: (Marie, wagging her fînger) I think this is yet another instance. I think this is yet another instance of people not taking responsibility for their own actions. Like Minnie and Nell screwed up, they shouldn’t have been messing around.

Chorus: (Brenda): Yeah

Chorus (Hillary): But . . . to spend your whole life with someone you don’t like though . . . Why don’t people think?

Chorus (Brenda): Yeah. But, it’s a mistake though: People shouldn’t be punished for life for a mistake.

Chorus (Marie, completely carried away and standing) I don’t feel sorry for either of them. Nell and Minnie should have thought o f how of how it would turn out before having sex. All four of them. Sex is not a recreational activity. It is not! They think they are invincible. They can have sex and do drugs and drive fast and nothing will ever get me because I am young.

Chorus (Brenda, pulling Marie down): SHHH. You are getting carried away. We are going to get thrown out of here. Didn’t you hear the stage manager?

Actors unfreeze

Dale (to WOMAN on stage) So, obviously you see, being tied to them would put them in to a sort of ball and chain It doesn’t matter that they are women. It is just an obligation that they have that they don’t really want because they got themselves into a bad situation. Do you get it now?

WOMAN (returning to her seat): Do / get it? You are missing the point. They always say it doesn’t matter that they are women. Why doesn’t anyone write the reverse then? Let’s do a reversal then? How would you feel if men were the secondary characters all the time?

Dale. Forget it. Sit down. Ok, let’s get back to it. Let’s role Scene III

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SCENE m

Same stage somewhere. Rehearsing Scene m . Set in the fîeid (same as Scene I) later on the same day.

SHOW LIGHTS UP

Narrator: Ray’s wife had given him the money for the groceries. He climbed the fence and made his way toward the store. It was just growing dark and the scene that lay before him was lovely. The whole world seemed to Ray to have come alive with something just as he and Hal had suddenly become alive when they stood in the cornfield staring into each other’s eyes. He could not stand it. All of a sudden, he forgot all about being a quiet farm hand and throwing off his tom overcoat began to run across the field. As he ran, he shouted a protest against his life, against all life, against everything that makes life ugly

Ray (Yelling): There was no promise made. I didn’t promise my Minnie anything and Hal hasn’t made any promise to Nell. I know he hasn’t. She went into the woods with him because she wanted to go. What he wanted she wanted. Why should I pay? Why should Hal pay? Why should anyone pay? I don’t want Hal to become old and worn out. I’ll tell him. I won’t let it go on. I’ll catch Hal before he gets to town and I’ll tell him. I must catch Hal and tell him. The children . . . they are the accidents of life. Hal. They are not mine or yours, I had nothing to do with them

WOMAN (whispering to Ellen in audience, nudging her to the stage

Enter Minnie (somewhat annoyed, starting to talk as she walks to the stage): Well, wait a minute. What do you mean you don’t owe me anything? What do you mean our children are the accidents of life? What are you talking about?

Dale (from his chair, flustered): Minnie. READ THE SCRIPT. You don’t get to respond to this. You are not on stage now. (Waving his arms) This is Act III, not II. Get off. Get off!

WOMAN wandering around the audience encouraging the girls to cause an uprising.

Nell gets up and makes her way to the stage, following Minnie.

Nell enters.

Dale (rising and entering): Who in the hell are you?Nell (as played by Alicia): I am Nell.

Dale (having now lost control): What in the hell are you doing here? Oh my God. You are not even a secondary character. You are one and a half. No. You are a non­character. You are not in this play. Where did you come from? Who are you? Aaarrrgh.

Enter the WOMAN.

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WOMAN: W e’ve been talking in the balcony. We think she needs to havesomething to say. She wants to, don’t you Nell. After all, she’s being referred to as a young woman with every chance of tinning into a ball and chain. And Mirmie here seems a bit distraught with the way things are going with her portrayal here as well.

Nell (quietly, sheepishly): Actually, I just think for this audience, I am being misrepresented as someone who will go along with whatever is decided by Hal so that I don’t look like a slut. I don’t get to decide anything. I’m interested in my motivation. At this time in history would I be just waiting to see what Hal would decide?

Actors Freeze

Chorus (Brenda): I think there is a huge significance for Nell not having any lines. It clearly shows she’s not the one who gets to make the decision for her own future. She is basically waiting to hear what will be her life. Is this realistic?

Dale (Now responding to audience): IT WAS REALISTIC!

Chorus (Candy): It is not her decision. If Hal decides ‘yes,’ they will get married, so it really doesn’t seem to be her decision and it doesn’t seem like she has her own life so she has nothing to say. Will that fly today?

Chorus (Brenda): Yeah

Marie (To Brenda): Now who’s going to get us thrown out of here?Actors Unfreeze

Nell (continuing sweetly): And, I think Minnie has been misrepresented too. I mean. I wonder if she and I could have a conversation. I mean, I am pregnant and I have a decision to make here too. And I have worries too. I would like to talk to Minnie, if I could. I mean. Could we create that conversation? 1 think it would help. Hal and Ray are making this decision for me, and I am kinda scared myself and have a few things to ask Minnie. I have some thoughts too.

Dale. WHAT? This cannot work if Ray is not around for a conversation between Minnie and Nell. It will destroy the story. You have got your central story and it is all about Hal’s crisis and Ray’s nostalgia and his moral dilemma. EVERYONE ELSE IS A SECONDARY CHARACTER. Where in the hell is the dramaturge? CHARLES!

Dramaturge (to Minnie and Nell a la William F. Buckley, pencil in hand, delivering line as a monologue): Too often, today, people who update try to put the politically correct spin on it. In The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne never lets you forget that Hester has committed a grave crime. And, that it is a horrible thing that she did. In the screen update, it almost seemed to make her into a woman’s rights liberation activist. And, it just took away from the original intent because you can’t try to fit today’s views into an old story. We can’t be wondering about the women’s attitudes here

WOMAN: Do today’s readers know this?

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Nell: Well. I have some things to say, here.

Dale: You have nothing to say. You are nothing. You are no one. (stamps his feet).

Dramaturge (to Nell, continuing on in his monotone): And, this story can be updated without changing anything because it carries a universal theme that transcends cultures and time periods. Like Antigone, you can still look at that and say, “Wow, that still applies today even if it is still written a thousand years ago. Aaid I think the same thing holds true of “The Untold Lie.” You see, you don’t have any lines because not having lines is representative of how you were portrayed in the original short story . . . (at the top of his voice) IN WHICH YOU DID NOT APPEAR.

Nell: Well, if I don’t appear, the audience will confuse me with Minnie. That’s how Anderson planned it. We women are all the same. But, that isn’t fair. This story is about me, and I don’t understand this universal stuff. I am all about the particulars. I am situated. What makes you think anyone else is going to be able to think of people as universals?

Charles (To Dale, giving in): I don’t think we are going to be able to convince them of anything until we allow them an improv here. Let’s go with it. It will take a few minutes, they’ll get over it and we can get back to the play. At this point I don’t see anything else to do.

Dale: What are you talking about? Who ARE these people? I have never heard of anything like this. Let them improvise MY play? This play is about men, not women. It is about how the men feel. This chick seems to think she owns the theatre

Stage manager: I think I did tell you that she might represent the people who do, right?

Dale: UGH Ok. Stage manager. Let’s go. Let’s have lights.(to women): Nell, Minnie. It’s all yours. Improvise it your way then. W e’re all ears and eyes.

SCENE IV

Same stage somewhere

Minnie and Nell are improvising their scene behind the barn (same as Scene II).

STAGE LIGHTS UP

N arrator: I have no idea what I am supposed to say. Do I have a script?

Dale (sarcastically): No one has a script. It’s an improvisation. Go with it!

Narrator: Well. And, ah. And the women in the story, according to the woman, Minnie and Nell, are the victims of the story. It is hard to get a story’s point across without someone being the bad guy, but of course there is the possibility that

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Anderson got his point across by picking an easy victim. He needed a shrew rather than a well-rounded character

Dale: Glory be to God, man, get on with it!

Narrator: And, so, the women have essentially hijacked the play and here they are. (runs off)

Nell: Minnie. Could I talk to you, please?

Minnie (grabs a rocker from back stage). Sure

Nell (kneeling aside the chair): I am in a situation where I have gotten pregnant by Hal and I don’t know what to do because . . . and I know that you have been in this situation. At least that is the word in the neighborhood. And. I don’t know how to go about this. I am nervous about this. I don’t know if he is gonna stay. I don’t know if I can handle this. And, I don't want to be tied down for the rest of my life. I don’t know what to do.

Actors Freeze

Chorus (Marie yelling): You and Minnie should have thought about how it would turn out before having sex. Nell, Tell her you understand the consequences of your actions. Give it up for adoption if you don’t want it.

Chorus (Sarah, agitated): Yeah, that is an option in 1925. No. Tell her about your own dreams. Tell her what you will lose. What if he acts like a male ball and chain . .. drinking, gambling, and cheating . . . the things that men do when they are balls and chains? Tell them what you will lose.

Chorus (Marie, now forgetting where she is and doing a monologue): Dreams. Dreams (stands up, takes the scene). This is exactly why I will not sleep with a guy until I can have the ring on my finger, and we did the wedding thing because I know that it would get in my way. There are places I want to go and just, what if all of a sudden I found something I am so passionate about and then I can’t do it because I made a bad choice and thought this sounded like a good idea at the moment

Stage manager: Shut up you two.

Actors Unfreeze

Minnie (To Nell): Well, Nell. How can you not be tied down for the rest of your life? What do you mean you don't want to be tied down? Didn’t you get yourself into this situation? I can’t pity you.

Chorus (Marie to Minnie): You go girl!

Nell (Alicia): Well, don’t you have any pity for me in this situation. I didn’t want this to happen.

Minnie (Ellen): Well. I feel bad, but it was your conscious decision and so, you are responsible. You need to handle it.

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Nell (Alicia): Don’t you feel bad?

Minnie (Ellen): I feel bad but not bad enough.

Nell: Well, it’s that, and. I guess I am afraid of becoming a . . . kind of naggy, bitchy person.

Minnie: I sort of had to mold Ray to what I needed. And, to do that, I had to become a stronger person. You will too.

Nell: And, so are you stronger now, and n o t . . . . ?

Minnie: I think I am definitely stronger. Not only did I get him to stay, but I also control these six children.

Dramaturge (from his seat). I think Minnie is highly manipulative and Ray should just leave her and go away. (To Dale) I told you they would hang themselves.

WOMAN (again leaping out of her seat and coming on stage): Girls, girls, girls, you are playing into their hands. Minnie. This is our one chance. You are blowing it! Minnie, Minnie, Minnie (a la Bob Newhart’s Vinnie Vinnie Vinnie). Remember. Up until now, you have been portrayed as the cause of the men being worn out . . . as the bitch who drives the workhorse.

Minnie. I don’t know if I am a bitch. Maybe just bitter, I am slightly bitter but I am accepting where I am.

Nell (Alicia, out o f character): Minnie. I don’t like the way you are playing this. Let’s switch roles.

Minnie (Ellen, out of character): Switch roles? What are you talking about?

Nell (Alicia out o f character): You are too strong. And, I can do it better. I have some things to say.

Minnie (Ellen, out of character). Well, fine then. Maybe I have some things to say too.

(Minnie and Nell Switch)

Nell (Ellen): So, as I was saying, I hear you are kind of a BITCH, and I am afraid of being that too. Have you always been a naggy person like that? I mean . . . I don’t want to be like you and I wonder . . . will I? It seems like I am destined by the men to turn out just like you.

Minnie (Alicia, much softer): Well, you can’t think this is easy. This farm. These kids. And the way it all started. And, now Ray staring off into space.

Nell: I’ve been wanting to ask you. Did you just want to get married when it all started? Did you have anything to say about it? How did you feel then?

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Minnie (Alicia): Well I guess I wondered if would Ray would protect my unborn children and me or would he spite me for ruining his dreams? And, I wondered, “Did I ruin his dreams?”I had dreams too.

(Actors Freeze)

Chorus (Hillary, walking to the stage): Yeah. She probably wasn’t bitchy like that when she was in the relationship at first. And she got pregnant and then it was a matter of time. It would be hard to go through all of that and still be sweet. I mean, it almost makes sense that Minnie is the way she is right now. I mean, she made a mistake and because of it, she ruined any chances she might have had to do other things with her life too. You would get mad if you got stuck with a child and a husband all of a sudden and you couldn’t go and do what you wanted to do and you had to be stuck in the house taking care of a child and a husband. You would be upset too.

Chorus (Maynard, coming to stage): Yeah, tell her you are bitter because you had several kids and that is a big responsibility and a huge financial burden. Tell her you are trapped with all of those kids. Tell her the woman is usually the bitch anyway because she is the one who takes care of the kids and she gets very frustrated.

WOMAN (getting agitated): Simmer down, Maynard.

WOMAN: Don’t tell her the woman is usually the bitch. Tell her that women don’t always run the show. They don’t even usually run it!

Maynard: And tell her you are bitter because you are not attractive anymore. She’s bitter because she used to have a nice figure and now her husband isn’t interested in her anymore because she has had six kids and he thinks she is funny looking . . . and that would turn anyone into a bitch

WOMAN: Maynard. That’s enough.

WOMAN: Stage manager. Howard. Could someone move Maynard temporarily to another part of the stage? . Or shut him up. Maynard. This is not where we are trying to go here. That is the beauty myth, Maynard. A classic example. That is not the message we are trying to get across here.

Chorus (Hillary): No, tell her you never felt you got complete and total help from Ray.

Candy (pleading, slowly walking down stage center to Minnie, and delivering her speech down stage center under lights as in a performance): Minnie. Do not tell her to marry him for the sake of the kid. Stop telling her to marry him acting like the bitch that they say you are. Tell her to make sure it is what she wants to do. Tell her to do it because she wants to be there. Tell her you felt like you weren’t really ready for it because you were too young and that you should have waited and made sure that it was what you wanted to do. Tell her if you had done that, you might not be a bitch. Tell her the truth. Tell her you are a bitch not because “women are bitches” and “harnesses” but because you are not happy. You are not happy because he doesn’t live up to what he should be doing and because you both made mistakes when you

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were too young. Now, he stares into the horizon all the time and doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain. So, you have to nag. Tell her that Ray gets to leave the house all the time and you have to stay at home with the six kids. Tell her that he isn’t happy which makes you not happy and that you are both miserable together with all these kids. Tell her. Please. And, Minnie. Tell her the truth. That you are sick of this ball and chain rap, and that he is something of a ball and chain himself. And tell her about your dreams. Your dreams, Minnie.

Audience applauds. WOMAN hugs Candy. Girls hug each other. Lots of activity.

Dale (finally rising from chair). This is ridiculous. You people can’t even agree on what it is you think should be done here. You’ve had your fifteen minutes o f fame. Back to the secondary character classification. Let’s go on with the play. Let’s role the Scene V.

Stage manager: Places everyone. Final Scene. Stage Lights for Scene V

Chorus (drawing together, each taking a line): No. We do agree on some things. We may not agree on everything but we agree that Minnie may have had dreams, and that Nell may have them. (All) We agree that an update making the simplistic point that a wife is a ball and chain won’t fly today. We have had one too many stories where the man does the right thing and lives out his life as the hero and martyr with the wicked witch of the west. Why can’t it be his responsibility and not hers?

Charles (thinking.. now puts pencil behind his ear and begins usual recitation of lecture style monologue): I think that we must recapture the inherent message in the book. It is important to see what the author had in mind or what he had subconsciously in mind when he wrote this story. When people update, they have to take certain precautions. When you do an update, two things are necessary. You have to stay true to the story' and if you go too far trying to update it, you lose what the author was originally trying to say.

(Company begins to discuss issues)

Howard: Well, if you ask me, the problem with trying to translate the story into a play was flawed from the start. Nowadays, you don’t just have the option of getting married or being irresponsible. You have all these other options. Adoption, abortion. That is why it doesn’t translate well. How do you roll all of those things into it?

Ellen: Yeah, the options make it difficult.

Alicia: But, not really. Those decisions are hard too.

WOMAN: But, how do we update it and still remain true to some essential part of this piece of literature. . . And remain conscious of what older white males did to women in some of these stories without allowing them to continue doing it over and over again in these updates

Dale: Well, we could turn it into a Hemingway story and call it “Hills Like WhiteElephants” That is a little more relevant.

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Charles: I already did that update. Too late.

(Back to lecture mode) But, I did want to say . . . interestingly, that many times those options you are talking about aren’t even used today. America has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in the industrialized world. Obviously, “The Untold Lie” could happen and does happen today.

WOMAN (pacing): I think the problem is easily solved, then. The story is about a man in crisis between his responsibility and love for his family, and his need to be free of that responsibility and free to chase his dreams. As old a conflict as time itself. We had three problems here. We’ve solved one. We’ve at least established that the women had dreams too. That is necessary. One other problem is these options. We can either make it a period piece or assume that like our dramaturge says, it will work today. The other problem is this ball and chain bitch archetype. That’s got to go . . .. Why can’t she just be nice but not the one he wanted to be with . . . or maybe the right one at the wrong time. Wouldn’t it work as strongly if she weren’t portrayed as a bitch?

Brenda: Yeah. He still might not be happy. He might just not want to be married to her. Just cuz a person is nice it doesn’t mean you want to be married to them.

Alicia: Yeah, I think it would work. Why would her bitchiness be the only thing making him unhappy there?

Howard: But, there has to be a victim somewhere. I don’t think he could have had Ray in the middle of such a decision without there being a bad guy.

Dale: There has to be something to make him feel badly or look poorly upon marriage or v/hatever. . . the discouraging thing for Hal. The play will not work without that!

Alicia: No, why can’t Ray be unhappy about just not loving Minnie, and about being stuck? Why is it that her bitchiness can be the only thing making him unhappy here? It’s just marriage that he doesn’t want. It doesn’t have to be . . . It’s not that his wife is making marriage bad, it is just the whole situation of being married and having to be there for all the time is bad, and that his dreams have been mined. Having to stay with his kids. This idea is much more interesting than the reason he is unhappy being because his wife is a bitch. His wife could be perfectly fine, and he is still not happy because he is married and he lost out on his dreams.

WOMAN: Yeah, I actually think it is more poignant if she isn’t a bitch. There is nothing worse than being stuck with someone nice that you really don’t want to be with—with a world out there you want to explore.

Brenda: Yeah, I just think it could be about regret . . . I think he regrets not having the chance to do anything when he was younger. But he is still stuck, because he loves his children. Yeah, it’s about regret. Why can’t it be about regret? That would work.

WOMAN: Or, about being in two places at once. I think it would work. Let’s see if the ending works with the idea of Minnie not necessarily being a bitch, but just that Ray is trapped into a situation that he wished he had avoided, and he wants to keep

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Hal from being miserable if he can. He realizes that it is a trap because there are two sides to it. Cuz, in a way, he does want to do the right thing.

Dale (reluctantly, and compromising): Well, we can’t tell if it will work until we look at Scene V in terms of these ideas to see if it makes sense.

WOMAN: Ok, let’s try it.

Dale: Ok, let’s run V. I can’t believe I am saying this.

Stage manager. Lights for Scene V. Let’s try it.

LIGHTS UP

SCENE V

Same stage somewhere. Actors rehearsing final scene of Dale’s adaptation of Anderson’s “The Untold Lie.”

Set in the cornfield, same as Scene I and III

Narrator: Darkness began to spread over the fields as Ray Pearson ran on and on. His breath came in little sobs. When he came to the fence at the edge of the road and confronted Hal Winters, all dressed up and smoking a pipe as he walked jauntily along, he could not have told what he thought or what he wanted. Ray Pearson lost his nerve and this is really the end of the story of what happened to him. Hal winters jumped a ditch and coming up close to Ray put his hands into his pockets and laughed. He seemed to have lost his own sense of what had happened in the com field and when he put up a strong hand and took hold of the lapel of Ray’s coat, he shook the old man as he might have shaken a dog that misbehaved.

Hal: You came to tell me, eh? Well, never mind. I’m not a coward and I’ve already made up my mind. Nell ain’t no fool. She didn’t ask me to marry her. I want to marry her. I want to settle down and have kids.

Ray: It’s just as well. Whatever I told him would have been a lie.

Stage manager. House lights Up. That’s it!

HOUSE LIGHTS UP

SCENE VI

Same stage somewhere. Stagemanager, WOMAN, Dale dramaturge and the cast reacts to scene V

Stage manager: Ray didn’t have a vision, but, what is the word I am looking for, not a moment not of truth but a moment of fear, when he saw Hal going down his road and I guess he suddenly found himself doubting how he’s lived his life and he hadn’t looked at the good things, you know, so at the end, memories o f pleasant evenings spent with the thin legged children in the tumbled down house by the creek must have

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come into his mind. So, the end would still work if Minnie hadn’t been a bitch, but had been the nice woman Ray didn’t really want to marry then. I think it would work just as well.

WOMAN: Yeah, he wants to stop him but he understands what Hal is going through . . . the same thing he went through . . . the fight between the responsibility to do the right thing and the need to be free to do what he wants and marry someone someday that he really loves. I think it works. I think it’s actually more poignant if Minnie is portrayed as a nice person. It would make it even sadder and more powerful.

Dale: But does it work dramatically? That is the question I’ve got. There is nothing more boring than a nice person, and nothing more dramatic than the interaction of a bitchy ball and chain and a miserable husband. And, without thinking that Nell is going to turn into a bitch, why would we think Hal was making the wrong decision?

WOMAN: Because it is clear that it v/as just a moment of weakness . . . not someone he loved. And, that point would have to be stressed. And, as I said, she could be just tired, and somewhat unhappy. Not necessarily a bitch.

Chorus: Yeah.

Dale: Ok, then, girls. You win. But, You, woman, whatever your name is . . . you will have to update it. It is not the play I want to write, or direct. I can’t justify altering what Anderson was trying to do. I don’t think it’s right.

Charles: Yes, touché, my boy.

Dale: Now, he comes through.(to WOMAN): Anyway, I would rather spend my time updating “The Gentle Lena ”

or A Farewell to Arms.

WOMAN: Ok, we’ll give it a shot. We’ll see what we can do. All right. Let’s get at it girls and boys. Let’s start brainstorming!

All chorus memhers surround WOMAN. They start brainstorming and what happens is that the kids start talking to each other. It seems they no longer need the WOMAN. She stays, for a while, watching. When they are engaged in the activity so that they lose sight of what she is doing, she gets her hat and hag and slowly walks out of the theatre the way she came in, unnoticed by the others,

LIGHTS DOWNTHE END

Play Analysis

The perspectives taken by each of the cast members in the play, with reference

to each other as well as to THE WOMAN, represent the students’ actual responses to

my discussion topic about the androcentric perspective at the center of the story. In a

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larger sense, the play stands as a dramatic portrayal of the discussions about “The

Untold Lie” and many of the other stories we read as well. Dale’s resistance as the

director attempting to stay true to the original text was a resistance we saw during our

group and class discussions. Charles’ arguments honoring the authority of the author

and a resistance to revisionist work echo his arguments during discussion of The Great

Gatsbv and “The Untold Lie. ” Ellen, in taking on the role of Minnie, held Nell

accountable, playing her role according to the way she sees her responsibility in life

(Rosenblatt, 1978). Consequently, in engaging with the responsible Minnie, she began

to see the conflict from that perspective (Golden and Guthrie, 1986).

One interesting point was the way Alicia and Ellen switched roles when Alicia

was playing Nell and Ellen was playing Minnie. At one point in the improvisation from

which the scene was created, the same thing happened. Alicia, who was striving to

uncover some sympathy and understanding for Nell, was not getting it from the

intolerant Minnie (as played by Ellen), and attempted to change her character by

suggesting that she play Minnie and Ellen play Nell. When that happened, she was free

to break from the literary character and utter the words she wanted to say: that Minnie’s

job taking care of the kids and the farm was a hard one, and that she had her regrets.

This honesty and softness on the part of Alicia playing Minnie allowed Ellen (as

Nell) to ask questions about how things had been for her at the beginning o f her

marriage, and how she made the decision to marry in the first place. And, it is she who

utters the words “I had dreams too,” the words that succeeded in bringing the

perspective of the marginalized wife into the spotlight. In this way, this activity made a

difference for Ellen.

The comparisons between the play and the discussion of the short story

continue. The tension between the three main male characters on one side and Alicia

and the WOMAN on the other characterized many of the group discussions we had on

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“The Untold Lie.” Howard, Charles and Dale had agreed on the idea that an update

could not work without the tension of the bitchy wife and the idea that “[tjhere has to be

something to make him look poorly upon marriage” (Dale). They also agreed that

“there has to be a victim somewhere” (Howard) Alicia and The WOMAN, on the other

hand, resisted stories working on a level that incriminated them.

In addition to the lead characters, each of the chorus members (Marie, Hillary,

Brenda, Candy and Maynard and Sarah) played the roles that they often played in class

discussions and in the case study group. And, the particular students involved had an

effect on the action (Beds and Peterson, 1991; Beds and Wells, 1989). Marie clearly

took on the role of the moralizer, and had an effect on the rest of the group. Brenda felt

sorry and tried to act as her own moral barometer; Sarah brought out the ironies o f the

cultural ignorance; and Hillary struggled to understand both sides of the situation.

Maynard continued to insist that wives will be bitchy because they do all the work and

lose their figures. The surprise was Candy, who gave the speech that caused the turning

point in the play, engaging everyone in the attempt to attempt a non-sexist update.

The choice was mine to give Candy the spotlight as she pleaded for Minnie to be

allowed to do what she wanted to do, without anyone forcing her. Candy, who

struggled with the contradictions of being a young girl at this time in history, was able

to write down those words for Nell, if not say them. I chose to have her say them,

loudly and clearly.

I also chose to have the WOMAN articulate my agenda loudly and clearly, with

words I wrote and the ones I borrowed from Judith Fetterley. This also characterized

our discussions on “The Untold Lie,” in which I was very frank about critiquing

Anderson’s depiction of women and marriage and the way he promotes stereotypes of

women and marriage, and silences the female perspective. I clearly felt that Anderson

had told his tale of two unfortunate men at the expense of more than two unfortunate

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women. Writing and rereading this play, however, also enlightened me to level o f

amusement with which I depicted Fetterley and myself as The WOMAN. While I took

her seriously, I understood that some of the other characters did not understand her, and

found her to be a representation of a too-strident feminism. Perhaps by making her

scenes funny, I was striving to reduce the tension my agenda sometimes caused. On the

other hand, although I foregrounded the women, and clearly championed a feminist

perspective, I depicted the resistors with an understanding, gentle hand and some humor

as well. The result is that I do not feel that I have alienated either side in my struggle to

transform the play and the players. I think the reason for that is that I am endeared to all

of these students, and while I am committed to bringing about gender equality, I am also

committed to them as individuals and to their best interests.

The end of the play leaves them all struggling to find the right way to explode

the storyline that constitutes dominant identities in males and submissive ones in

females, and a gender inequality based on those binaries (Davies, 1992; Harper, 2000;

Martino, 1995; Obbink, 1992; Walkerdine, 1984;). Their struggle, with the cast of

characters joining together to attempt the update, mirrored my struggle as I attempted to

identify some pedagogical approach which would maintain the play’s aesthetic appeal

without engaging in the reproduction of an old formula (Bogdan, 1992,).

Listening to the words of the students, writing the play, and rereading the words,

helped me to realize that the students were, during this time, engaged with me in the

process of attempting to dismantle the subtle ideologies by which we are constructed,

yet most often unconsciously. The were engaged in an enormous task—that of

envisioning a story capable of capturing our divided selves without the ease of a cliche,

or a tired archetype which only serves to continue a system o f gender inequality. We

are still working on the update.

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POST SCRIPT

Comprehensive Final Responses

At the end of the course, I administered a survey (Appendix B) to the larger

group (including the focus group) in order to determine what, if any, changes had taken

place in their responses to the literature and their perceptions o f the course from the

beginning to the end of the study. In the following discussion, survey questions and

student responses are identified, followed by my analyses of the effects of the course on

the students in terms of the data.

Question 1; What particular activity, discussion, or criticism gave you a more critical perspective about the representation of men and women and relationships in the literature?

Focus Group Social Imagination Discussion Other60% 30% 10%

Larger Group Social Imagination Discussion Other50% 25% 25%

Table 6.1: Teaching Approaches.

Sixty percent of the focus group members and fifty percent of the twenty-three

respondents from the larger group of thirty-five students identified the social

imagination activities as the techniques having the greatest effect on their consciousness

of literary gender issues. The students selected the drama activities in the study of Their

Eves Were Watching God and the drawing activities in the study of The Great Gatsbv

as their favorite social imagination activities, and mentioned self-designed final projects

as activities having a high impact on raising their consciousness to gender. In addition,

every one of the focus group participants identified the improvisational workshops as

having a strong impact.

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Thirty percent of the focus group participants and over twenty-five percent of

the responding twenty-three students in the larger group identified discussion as the

strategy that had the most dramatic effect on their gender consciousness. This made

discussion the second favorite activity of the larger group as well as the focus group.

The majority identified the discussion of A Farewell to Arms as the one textual

investigation having the greatest impact on their awareness of gender issues in the

literature. Other discussions identified by students were those investigating Washington

Square and The Great Gatsbv. One focus group student, Howard (PJVI.), selected

Fetterley’s (1978) critical writings as the teaching approach having had the greatest

effect on raising his consciousness.

Teacher/Researcher commentarv

Social Imagination Activities

Data analysis supported the students’ perspectives and indicated that social

imagination activities were the most beneficial methods for stimulating awareness of

stereotypes and gender inequities in the larger group and with focus group members.

The data analysis also indicated that social imagination activities heightened students’

gender consciousness in ways that had not been possible through other techniques. The

activities involving students’ artistic, dramatic and creative exploration of the literature

activated their imaginations in ways that helped them to investigate relationships, and

envision possibilities by exploring the gender issues from within the texts.

Specifically, writing in role helped Candy to imagine and create a stronger, less

submissive response for Catherine Sloper (and for herself) and enabled Brenda and

Hillary to deliberate on the contradictions they had seen at the heart of Janie and

TeaCake’s relationship. This enabled them to resolve some of their own issues with the

novel and ‘trouble’ their own relationship ideals. This approach also helped Dale to

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explore his own contradictions about compulsory heterosexuality by merging Gertrude

Stein's work with Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms.

Drama activities in the improvisational workshops raised critical awareness in

students. Experimenting with writing and improvising the film update of “The Gentle

Lena” led students to empathize with the characters and explore connections with the

pressures in their own lives that they did not make as a result of other teaching methods.

Also, the role reversal activity for A Farewell to Arms in the final improvisational

workshop revealed students’ previously unacknowledged acceptance o f traditional

gender roles.

Giving voice to Nell in their improvisations of “The Untold Lie ” encouraged the

boys to consider the woman’s point of view, although the author had not. It also

resulted in Ellen’s realization that the women in the story had dreams. In addition, the

students engaged in preliminary improvisations for an update of this work that led to an

identification of the crisis of representation that problematizes the story for

contemporary men and women and undergirds the play I eventually wrote. By

interrogating the text for presences, absences and governing perspectives, and by

imagining alternative storylines and roles for men and women in marriage and

relationship, they initiated a dismantling of the patriarchal narrative, although they still

vocalized some resistance in endeavoring to politicize the literature. A combination of

these improvisations and group discussions on “The Untold Lie, ” brought them to as

great an awareness of a patriarchal governing textual ideology as they were able to

develop in the course/study.

Discussion

My perspective also corroborated students’ responses regarding the

effectiveness of discussion in developing a more critical perspective in the students.

Initial discussions clarified the students’ different positions and invited further

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discussion and a dialogic textual investigation of the literary works. Students’ exposure

to my ideas and those of other students and the guest professors resulted in the students’

demonstration of an increased sensitivity to the double standards, stereotypes, and

relationship inequities in the literature. This was evident in classroom discussions,

focus group interviews and group discussions where students showed an awareness of

gender inequities unacknowledged in previous written responses. The students were

always brought to more sophisticated levels of analysis and critical consciousness of

gender issues by means of dialogic investigation in discussion as emerged in the

comparison of transcripts of interviews and discussions o f each work with the

corresponding written responses.

In discussions with works read later in the course, the students’ remarks became

more focused on the ways in which the main characters were represented by the authors.

This was particularly evident in discussions of The Great Gatsbv. A Farewell to Arms

and Their Eves Were Watching God. In these discussions, the students’ ability to move

beyond a focus on character traits to a focus on authors’ portrayals of characters

represented the first step in an understanding of how governing textual perspectives can

coerce readers into specific positions. Two of these discussions were conducted by

visiting professors from the City University, lending support to the idea that including

experts from the field of academia can improve the quality of the curriculum and yield

positive results.

Writing and Literarv Criticism

In spite of the fact that social imagination activities and discussion were selected

as having the greatest impact on students’ consciousness of gender inequities in

literature, there were no techniques that went unmentioned when students were asked

about what techniques were influential. However, aside from social imagination

activities and discussion, I specifically found that writing exercises were very effective

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for particular students. Although none of the focus group participants identified writing

as the activity that had the greatest effect on raising their critical consciousness about

gender issues in literature, most of the focus group participants emphasized the

importance of writing to their process of discovery. Many relied upon creative writing

in final projects to help them to explore gender issues and to expand on the discoveries

made through discussion and social imagination activities.

Critical readings were also helpful for some students’ appreciation of

Washington Square. The Great Gatsbv and A Farewell to Arms. Several students

voiced an appreciation for specific critics, and critical papers reflected the ways in

which their critical perspectives influenced the students’ thinking. In fact, the student

who was, in the end, most capable of identifying governing androcentric ideology in A

Farewell To Arms, was able to do so through reading a combination of narrative theory

and feminist literary criticism.

Question 2: Was there any realization of any previous naivete in terms of ‘seeing’ how gender stereotypes are created by authors, or in noticing either sexist or unequalportrayals of characters, or sexist perspectives in the literature

Focus Group 50%Larger Group 50%

Table 6.2: Realization of Previous Naivete

Nearly half of the responding students in the larger group and half of the focus

group participants claimed to have realized their previous naivete regarding observance

of stereotypes and sexist ideology in literature previous to the class. These students

claimed that the class helped them become more astute about identifying sexism in the

literature.

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Teacher Commentarv

The students’ reports were corroborated by my data analysis. When comparing

their responses to initial surveys and final surveys, their increasing ability to identify

gender stereotypes and double standards in their written and verbal responses is clearly

demonstrated, as is their heightened awareness of sexist gender representation.

Question 3: What impact has this class had on your book reading/movie viewing in terms of noticing gender issues (stereotypes, double standards, sexist ideology?

Focus Group Had impact on reading 80%

Larger Group Had impact on reading 80%

Table 63: Impact on Reading

Eighty percent of both the larger group and focus group participants claimed that

the course had been instrumental in helping them to be more sensitive to gender

representation in literature and in film. Twenty percent of the respondents from the

larger group even claimed that they had never paid attention to gender issues in books

and movies before the course.

Teacher Commentarv

Students’ reports were corroborated by my data analysis. As the course

progressed, students demonstrated an increasing ability to identify gender stereotypes

and double standards in their written and verbal responses. However, data analysis also

indicated that the course had a limited impact on the students’ identification of

patriarchal ideology.

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Question 4: What impact has this course had on your day to day life in terms of increased sensitivity to gender inequalities?

Focus Group Impact No impact Was already sensitive60% 20% 20%

Larger Group Impact No impact Was already sensitive50% 40 10%

Table 6.4: Impact on Life

Forty percent of the twenty-three responding students from the larger group and

sixty percent of focus group members reported in the final survey that the course had

made them more conscious of gender issues in their lives. Interestingly, two dissenters

from the focus group claimed to have been conscious of gender issues in their lives

before the course.

Teacher Commentary

My data analysis corroborated the students' reports that the course did have

some impact on their lives. In initial written and oral responses to literature studied

early in the course, the students did not make ready connections between gender issues

in the literature with those in their lives. In these responses to early works, the students

commented frequently about discrepancies between their contemporary gender and

relationship roles and those of the characters. In classroom and in focus group

discussions, they explored the issue of contemporary gender inequalities. As the course

progressed, the students commented less frequently on discrepancies between

contemporary gender and relationship roles and those of the characters. They also

responded in written responses and discussion to later works with a greater capacity to

relate gender inequalities evident in relationship representations with gender inequalities

in contemporary society.

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In spite of their reports and those data, however, many students continued to

exhibit behaviors demonstrating the fact that consciousness does not always translate

into behavioral change or continued commitment to social equality. In addition,

realizations of gender inequities in life expressed by particular students during the

course were sometimes forgotten or denied by the end of the course.

Question 5: Did you experience any resistance to, the direction taken in the class in terms or its emphasis on gender issues, sexist stereotypes and gender/relationship representation?

FocusGroup

Initial Resistance to Focus

90%

Eventual Resistance to focus

10%

R esistan ce to feminism

70%LargerGroup

Resistance to Focus

90%

Eventual Resistance to Focus

10%

Resistance to Feminism

85%

Figure 6,5. Resistance

Although the class was advertised as one focusing on gender issues in early 20*

century American literature, almost all of the students expressed the idea that they

had initially been surprised at the emphasis on gender but eventually found it enjoyable.

Teacher Commentarv

Any resistance that the students experienced regarding the emphasis on gender

was not apparent to me during the class. While there was no apparent disenchantment

with the direction of the class, however, there was some resistance to feminism.

Like the girls in Harper’s (2000) study, most of the students in the larger group

and seventy percent of the focus group members exhibited a fundamental aversion to

feminism and feminists, as well as their call for change (See Table 65). And, while

80% of the focus group students reported an increased sensitivity to literary stereotypes

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(Table 63 ) and 60% of focus participants reported an increased awareness to sexism in

their lives, the only student among the ten focus group members who openly adopted a

feminist perspective on gender equality and a negative response to male dominance was

Charles (AM,). In addition, the only student to admit the need for more gender equality

and express a willingness to work for that equality on a personal, relationship and

societal level was Howard (P.M.). The rest of the focus group participants were situated

in various positions on the spectrum. Sarah (P.M.) was not averse to feminists or

feminism, but preferred to challenge sexism as an individual, rather than as part of a

movement. Dale (A.M.) admitted to a continuing societal sexism but vacillated

between being unsure about the need for change and resisting it. Candy (A.M.) was

convinced that there was no way to change the system, and Brenda and Hillary (both

P.M.) were situated between the extremes, able to see the imperfections in the system

but not sure if anything could be done. Marie (P.M.) and Ellen (A.M.) occupied the

most resistant positions, expressing certainty that there was no need for change.

In spite of the continuing resistance (Table 6.5), however, a consideration of the

final surveys (Appendix B) illustrates the students’ heightened awareness of gender

issues and gender construction brought about by the extended focus on sexism and

androcentrism in the literature, and the intensive exploration of sexism in the literature

and in students’ lives. Their final comments illustrate their development from readers

unconscious of gender representation and ideology in literature to readers engaged in

the process of exploring, questioning and considering these issues.

Initial surveys addressing students’ background with gender studies and

literature indicated students’ lack of familiarity with gender issues. The survey,

however, indicated that the students, though still as resistant to feminism as they were in

the beginning, had begun to notice the ways in which men and women have been

represented in older literature. The final responses indicated that the students had begun

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the process of ‘troubling’ those representations for a richer appreciation of the literature

and the construction of more equal gender relations. In their lives

Individual Focus Group Responses to Survey

In addition to completing the final survey, focus group members completed a

final questionnaire (Appendix E). The reason for the final questionnaire was to

triangulate earlier responses to the literature once the students had read all of the works

and engaged in all of the literary investigations. Responses to final questionnaires were

incorporated into the previous investigations and interpretations of the literary works in

which the focus group participants were highlighted.

At the end of the course, the focus group students also participated in a final

improvisational workshop (Appendix G). The emphasis in this improvisational

workshop was to elicit the students’ imaginative responses to the various works in the

corpus of literature covered in the course. The following synopses indicate a

combination of the final responses and discoveries of the individual focus group

participants drawn from final surveys, questionnaires, and improvisational workshop.

Candy: In the final survey. Candy selected the university professors’ drama

activities for the study o f Their Eves Were Watching God as her favorite activity. She

reported that watching the body language and facial expressions of those who were

playing the roles of the fictional characters gave her a more critical perspective about

how men and women and relationships are portrayed in literature. In the final

questionnaire, she reiterated that Catherine Sloper was still the only character with

whom she had made an extremely strong connection because of the way she had been

treated by the men. In the questionnaire. Candy also claimed that she could avoid being

like the early Catherine Sloper by being independent enough, and watching the

situations that she gets into. “It is always important to have your guard up— to realize

you are better than second place, ” she said. In the final questionnaire, she wrote that

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James was, after all, the only author who had attempted to challenge sexual stereotyping

and relationship inequalities. She realized this because, she said, in the end, “Catherine

becomes independent and is satisfied with being alone.”

Despite this acknowledgement. Candy's ambivalence about being independent

and ‘feminine’ continued throughout the course and was evident during the final

improvisational workshop conducted with the focus group (Appendix G). When

addressing Nell’s lack of voice in “The Untold Lie,” Candy was able to see that the

silencing of the women was problematic and reflected a silencing that women

sometimes experience in reality. At the same time, during these improvisational

exercises. Candy admitted that she liked the attention that she has received by being a

traditional and ‘feminine’ girl, and expressed a desire for the kind of attention which she

feels she would not get as a male or a less fem inine’ girl. She demonstrated the

conflict between the desire for empowerment and the desire to be sexually desirable

(Lewis 1990) and saw these as mutually exclusive.

She reported in the final survey that the coiurse did have an impact on her life.

Before the course, she said, she had rarely paid any attention to gender issues in

literature or in life. Since the course she has noticed the way people fit into stereotypes

in life and the way that the genders are represented in books and movies. In spite of that,

she does not call herself a feminist. She sees society’s construction of gender a problem

in that it results in stereotypes, but feels no need to change the status quo. “I think it is

great that there are people to fight for and believe in women ” she says, “but you can’t

change anyone, so in some ways it is a waste o f time. ”

Maynard: In Maynard’s final survey, he described the overall effects of the

course by reporting that his favorite characters were Gatsby and Dr. Sloper. He also

reported that the drawing exercise that we conducted in The Great Gatsbv was his

favorite activity and the one that most helped him to explore the characters and their

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gender representations on a deeper level. He claimed that while the class had no real

impact on his day to day life, that it was good to discuss the issues. Maynard also

confessed that the course had little impact on his book reading or movie viewing in

terms of noticing gender issues because he believed that he was already sensitive and

aware before taking the course. In his final questionnaire, he concluded that men and

women will never be treated alike, that he doesn’t think the relationships between the

sexes will change, and that he thinks there is nothing he can do. His final definition of a

feminist: “a female activist; sometimes a man hater.”

In the final improvisational workshop, Maynard reiterated his preference for

being male, and his belief in male superiority. He did conclude, however, that “men

were usually at fault” for the problems in the literary relationships, being the cheaters

and the violent ones, and he admitted that “this is true in real life as well.”

Dale: According to Dale’s responses in the final survey, writing the screenplay

really forced him to think about Frederic in A Farewell to Arms. In addition, engaging

in the artistic activity associated with The Great Gatsbv helped him to “get into the

characters’ heads and hearts and minds. And, the attempt to update “The Untold Lie”

into a screenplay helped him to understand Minnie and the way she was represented as a

female by Sherwood Anderson. He did point out, however, that he did not enjoy any of

the role-play because it was hard for him to get into the roles and did not feel that role-

play helped him to develop a more critical perspective on the portrayals or on the

characters. However, his improvisational work with “The Gentle Lena” seemed to help

him to understand the comparable social pressures in contemporary society better.

During the final improvisational workshop. Dale admitted the effectiveness of

drama in bringing about awareness of sexism. However, he pointed out that discussion

is still necessary. Aside from writing screenplays, discussion was the activity that he

enjoyed most and the one that helped him most to develop critical perspective.

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In the final improvisational workshop. Dale also came to some realizations

about gender constructions that he had not seen or expressed previously. A reversal of

Frederic and Catherine’s lines convinced him that “we have stereotypes in our heads

that we don’t know about.” In the activity on “The Untold Lie,” however, he did not

show an ability to distinguish between the author and the character in order to address

the sexism in the silencing o f Nell. During these exercises, like Maynard, he clearly

demonstrated his belief that the body is more important for the female than the male and

that beauty is a necessity for women but not for men.

In the final questionnaire. Dale reported that he is sensitive to gender issues in

fiction and in film, but that he does not like focusing there when he reads or watches a

film. While Dale had stated during the course that society was still pushing people into

traditional gender roles, he ended the course by saying he sees no need to change the

status quo and doesn’t know anyone who is bothered by it. Dale had an initial interest

in the study of gender. However, like Charles, he resisted altering the author’s

perspective in rewrites. He still longs for a feminism that will unite and not divide.

Sarah: In the final questionnaire, Sarah reported that the writing of the update

to “The Gentle Lena ” provided her with insights into “Lena” and the ways and which

society still pressures people into fixed gender roles and relationship patterns.

However, she claimed that the activity that gave her a more critical perspective about

how men and women and relationships are portrayed in literature was the discussion of

The Great Gatsbv. and the drawing of the characters. She also reported that working on

the project, in which she and Maynard selected popular songs which further depicted

the characters and their situations, helped her to relate better to the characters and the

relationship issues they had with their significant others. In the final survey, she

expressed an appreciation for Fetterley and claimed to have been intrigued by her

perspective on Daisy.

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During the final improvisational workshop, Sarah expressed an appreciation for

social imagination activities. She said “to some extent, [social imagination activities]

gets you into the habit of walking in someone else’s shoes and looking at things from

another angle. You leam to be more aware of the roles people play.”

Sarah claimed in the final survey that the class did not have too much impact on

her life because she had always been aware of gender imbalances. She pointed out,

however, that the course did have an impact on her reading and film viewing. She

became aware of how much impact movies really have on the way girls and boys invent

themselves and their relationships by adopting characteristics of film characters.

Sarah enjoyed the gender focus of the course. She thinks that society’s

construction of gender is a problem and thinks all of societ>' must change. In the final

questionnaire, however, she reiterated that she lives feminism and prefers to deal with

sexist issues personally but has no interest in being part of a feminist cause. She prefers

feminists who do not have to scream to prove themselves.

Charles; Charles reported in his final survey that his preferred way to leam is

through discussion and that he learned much during the course. He also claimed that

one result of the discussions was a heightened awareness of sexism in movies and

fiction. He had always been somewhat aware of sexism in literature and the culture, but

he claimed that by the end of the class, he was more aware. Charles claimed that the

discussions impacted on his day to day life, but that he had already been sensitive to

sexism in the culture. Charles reiterated at this time that gender constructions are a

problem in society and said that he thinks things need to be changed. “We cannot allow

sexist stereotypes in a democratic society,” he said.

In the final improvisational workshop, Charles expressed the realization that

“even in the year 2000, women are not viewed on the same level as men.” He added

that females get less respect than males and expressed the need for women to counter

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sexist reactions by retaining a sense of self and accomplishment. These exercises also

resulted in his declaration for the need to reduce competition, aggression and violence

in males. Specifically, the activity focusing on the role reversals in A Farewell To

Arms caused his awareness that “in literature men have been pretty much exclusively

dominant, an if submissive, it’s usually to another male. It’s rarely seen where the

female character has control over a situation.”

Though Charles had resisted a revisionist approach to the study of literature, in

his final questionnaire, he demonstrated a realization that although he opposed judging

old literature by contemporary standards, he actually accomplished just that in his own

update of “Hills Like White Elephants.” In this update, he reversed the male and female

perspectives for a contemporary point of view.

Marie: In the final questionnaire, Marie identified Jay Gatsby as her favorite

character “because he loved Daisy so much.” In the survey, she claimed that she

enjoyed the drawing of the Gatsby characters, although discussion was her favorite

approach to learning. She reported in the final survey that the discussion of A Farewell

to Arms gave her a more critical perspective about how men and women are portrayed

in literature than any other activity. “Both the men and the women were grossly

stereotyped,” she said. “I didn’t take notice of the author’s portrayal of the relationship

until the class discussion.” She reported in the final survey that she found that she had

benefited more from discussions than from any of the different pedagogical approaches.

While Marie continued to resist judging the literature by current standards, and

while she continued to see the characters in terms of their sexuality and sexual

decisions, she did become more conscious of sexist stereotypes during the course of the

study. During the final improvisational workshop, she countered Anderson’s

stereotypes of women in marriage with an awareness of ways in which men also can rob

women of their dreams in marriage. However, she continued to exhibit a penchant for

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gender stereotyping. She also continued to argue even in the final survey, however, that

the class had little impact on her reading and movie viewing in terms of noticing gender

issues. She claimed at this time that gender issues were not applicable to her.

Howard: Howard’s favorite characters were Gatsby and Nick in The Great

Gatsbv. and he reported in the final survey that Fetterley’s criticisms had the most

significant impact of all the activities and approaches. Fetterley, he said, gave him a

new perspective on how women are portrayed in literature. Before being exposed to her

essays, and some of the narrative criticism, he hadn’t seen the importance of the writer

as creator as vividly. He added that his ability to see things as Fetterley did has enabled

him to “notice Fetterley -style stereotypes in other stories.”

To the question of whether the course had any impact on his day to day life, he

said that it “definitely impacted my relationship and I adopted some new perspectives. ”

In the final questionnaire, Howard reported that stereotypes are problematic and that he

does feel the need to change things. Howard thinks a feminist is “someone strongly in

favor of women’s rights” He is for it, but sometimes is bothered by extremists who

make a point of telling everyone how they feel.

Brenda: In the final survey, Brenda reiterated her love of Their Eves Were

Watching God and reiterated that Janie was her favorite character in the final

questionnaire. Brenda identified discussion, feminist criticism and writing as the

activities that most helped her critique power structures. But the Gatsbv drawing was

the activity she liked most. “It made me think in detail about the characters,” she said.

The final improyisational workshop indicated Brenda’s awareness that gender is,

to some degree, socially constructed with respect to manners, dress, and the use of the

man’s last name in marriage. During these activities, she also noticed that nearly all of

the literary relationships were male-dominated, and she made a connection between the

fictional relationships and those existing in contemporary society. During the

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improvisational workshop, she added social imagination activities to her list of helpful

teaching approaches, expressing the opinion that

Social imagination activities are a good way to learn more about the story.You really have to think o f what is going through the characters' minds during key times in the story. Body movement, eye contact shows a lot.This sort o f thing does make me think because you have to think of everything, what t hey show in their eyes, face, body, gestures, etc. I t really makes you think and understand what th e author was trying to get across and how you interpret it.

She was also highly affected by the interview, which led her to some personal

realizations about gender, and by keeping the diary in her final project, an activity

succeeded in reducing her ambivalence about TeaCake's slapping o f Janie.

In the final improvisational workshop Brenda was also able to articulate the

unspoken dreams that the women in “The Untold Lie” lost. In addition, Brenda’s

response to the activity focusing on Nell’s lines in “The Untold Lie ” showed that his

activity was effective in bringing about a realization that

there is a huge significance in Nell not having lines. I t clearly shows she’s not the one to moke the decision for her own future. She is basically waiting to see what will be her life.

However, while she was aware of Nell’s predicament, there was no expression of a

realization about authorial androcentrism or the connection between Nell’s situation and

comparable situations for women in society'.

Initially, Brenda had said that she had been somewhat naive before taking the

class and had not noticed the sexism in some of the male author’s works. In the final

survey, however, she claimed to be better able to understand more subtle sexism in

movies and books. She also claimed that the class had had an impact on her day to day

life in that it made her more aware of feminist actions and sexist individuals, although

she does not find society’s gender constructions a problem for her. She claimed to have

enjoyed the class and reported no resistance to the heavy concentration on gender

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issues. In fact, she claimed to feel positively about feminists, whom she described as

women who won’t take crap from anyone. “It’s girl power,” she said. “I like it.”

Hillary: In the final questionnaire, Hillary identified her favorite characters as

Janie Crawford and Catherine Sloper. She was also very taken with Their Eves Were

Watching God. Hillary reported in the final survey that discussion was her favorite

approach to learning, citing that Their Eves Were Watching God and Washington

Square were her favorite discussions. There were some contradictions. Hillary reported

a remarkable series of realizations during the course about women’s opinions (including

her own) having been minimized by members of her church committee, and about the

way her mother had promoted gender stereotyping at home. However, in the final

survey, while she reported that the course had impacted her responses to movies and

books and on her day to day life, she stated that she did not see any problem with

society’s construction of gender, and saw no reason to change the status quo.

Ellen: To the question in the final survey of what activity prompted a more

critical perspective about how men and women and relationships are portrayed in

literature, Ellen responded that playing the roles of the characters in the focus group

workshop of “The Untold Lie” really impacted her the most. The dramatic activity

conducted by the professors on Their Eves Were Watching God ran a close second, as

she had engaged enthusiastically in that role play, mostly directing the activities of the

others in the class who played the roles of the characters. She also was enlightened to

social pressures through the improvisational workshop on “The Gentle Lena.”

During the final improvisational workshop, Ellen held to her ideas that “it works

much better for women to be submissive than for men to be submissive.” Here she

continued to support the duality of male dominance and female submissive behavior. In

addition, the exercise requiring lines for Nell in “The Untold Lie ” caused Ellen to

consider the dreams of the women in the story for the first time (see Revisionism in One

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Act, Chapter Six). Although the lines she gave to Nell in this exercise reflect some of

her traditional views, they also indicate a consideration of the implications of Nell’s

silence about her own dreams. In the survey, she reported that while she is able to

identify sexism in literature and in life, the awareness of gender inequality was short

lived and didn’t impact her life, because she thinks in opposite ways to feminists.

Post Script

In a subsequent paper written by Ellen for another literature class, she

investigated the representation of women in three works by Hemingway: A Farewell To

Arms: For Whom The Bell Tolls, and “Hills Like White Elephants. ” In this paper, she

developed a thesis that demonstrated her belief that “in all three pieces, the women

behaved in the same way, as they possessed a very passive, needy and selfless attitude.”

She argued in this paper that these women were “the same generic women that

Hemingway used for all of his stories.” She pointed out that in “Hills Like White

Elephants ” Jig’s needy and passive nature was evident in her remarks, “Then I’ll do it.

Because I don’t care about me” (Hemingway, 1969, p. 213). Here Ellen argued, that

“Jig was only going to hurt herself by doing what the American told her to do for his

convenience.” She continued on to say that Jig suppressed her thoughts for his sake,

willing to do anything for love and happiness.

In this paper, she also posited that Marie, in For Whom the Bell Tolls “was very

submissive and did whatever she was told, whether it be a command from Pilar, or from

Robert. From the beginning it seemed like Maria was a servant and content with that

status.” According to Ellen, “she was always looking for reassurance, or acceptance

from Robert in the same manner that Jig did, . . . and was always selfless in the same

way that Jig was.” Ellen also wrote that Marie wanted to please Robert even when it

meant hurting herself. In the final part of the paper, she pointed out that in A Farewell

To Arms. “Catherine followed the noticeable trend of being a doormat. ” She argued

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that Catherine “was completely submissive and let Frederic lead her to wherever he

wanted her.” She went on to cite passages which supported this line of thinking, and

concluded by identifying the common phrases used by all three women as they

seemingly begged for reassurance from their men:

Jig: “And you’ll love me?” (Hemingway, 1987, p. 213);

Catherine: “You did say you loved me, didn’t you?”

Maria: “No, thou wilt not love me” (Hemingway, 1940, p. 81).Ellen pointed out that these three women were all modeled from ageneric woman that Hemingway created initially to fit into all the stories.

In this paper, Ellen adopted a different position as a reading subject from the

reading subject who had argued for Catherine’s strength in the first paper and in earlier

discussions and interviews. In attempting to account for the transformation, I considered

that arguments, critiques, teaching approaches, or simply the passage of time might have

accounted for her change of heart. I also considered the possibility that reading three of

Hemingway’s works together had convinced her, as it had Charles before her, of

Hemingway’s stereotypical portrayals of women. Finally I considered the possibility

that it was easier for her to try out a new feminist perspective with another teacher, one

not focusing on gender issues. When asked, Ellen claimed to have been merely

experimenting with a new thesis to fulfill a course requirement for a written analysis of

A Farewell To Arms. She stated that a transformation had not occurred.

It was clear, however, that Ellen had indeed examined a feminist perspective of

A Farewell To Arms for this paper, and that she shared that paper with me. It was also

clear that she had considered and was able to present a clear and logical argument that

ran counter to the one that she had previously accepted, even though she claimed that it

was only an exercise and one that did not reflect her sentiments. In the end, she still

professed to believe in Catherine’s strength. However, she had made her point well.

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CHAPTER?

REFLECTIONS, FINDINGS, RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY

Questions, it seems, contain enormous power, for the questions we ask of texts and the standards we bring to literature help determine both how we construct and how we are constructed by a text: whose voices we hear, which details we attend to, which perspectives we take as our own. Ultimately, our questions inform and are informed by political issues, and the matter of reconstructing the canon is therefore much larger than simply learning to ‘assimilate some long-forgotten works or authors into existing categories’ Lauter 1985, p. 37

Introduction

In conducting this study, I have been acutely aware of my location on a

continuum, where I am placed between the feminist women and men who have and will

continue to engage in educational research designed to bring about an emancipatory

pedagogy for high school literature students. Those who have come before me have

shared findings and recommendations that have paved the way for my attempt to engage

in a collaborative effort with high school boys and girls to imagine a space for literary

study, conducive to the development of heightened gender consciousness in readers. It

is a space that is both critical and hopeful; a space where liberated readers deconstruct

disempowering textual representations of men and women and dismantle patriarchal

ideologies in order to bring about more inclusive literary experiences with classic texts,

and reconstruct a dream of a more just, more egalitarian society.

As I attempt to create such a space, I stand on the shoulders of others. From

cultural feminists who have preceded me, such as Hines (1997) and Scholes (1995), I

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inherited a desire to encourage high school literature students to link the reading of texts

to the reading of selves, society, and the world for a more egalitarian society. To

accomplish this, I followed Cherland's (1992) advice to strive for pedagogy that would

minimize gendered responses by engaging male and female students in a collaborative

creation of knowledge and question language practices as practices of social regulation.

I also followed recommendations based on Harper’s (2000) findings, to emphasize

textual negotiation and the interrogation o f the complexities, ambiguities and

contradictions “that exist in the investments and identity formations in adolescents

lives” (p. 163).

I followed in the footsteps of Bogdan (1990; 1992; 1997) in my search for an

approach to the study of classic literature that would hopefully result in students’ ability

to fuse aesthetic and political responses for a combined literary appreciation and

critique. 1 also followed Lewis’ (1990, 1992) advice to proceed with caution and with

an understanding that young people’s strong investment in ‘heteronormativity’

(Britzman, 1994) works against change if not acknowledged.

Aware of the need to extend the boys and girls beyond a hegemonic masculine

literacy, I drew from Davies (1992) to “make visible the constitutive force of discourse .

. . and to create fissures in the absoluteness of apparent naturalness of dominant

masculinity” and femininity (p. 13). Drawing also from poststructuralist psychoanalytic

theorists such as Davies (1992), Harper (2000), Martino (1995) and, Walkerdine (1984),

I attempted to maintain a dual focus. I attempted to focus (1) on the deconstructive work

I could do to undo the bonds of already existing, discursively constructed worlds, and

(2) on the imaginative construction of worlds other than the ones we inhabit (1992, p.

13). I attempted to keep this dual focus in mind throughout the study.

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Overview o f the Study

Over the course of one year. I conducted my research on the responses of thirty-

five high school boys and girls to the gender issues in selected early twentieth century

classic American Literature. The study included an emphasis on a focus group of ten

representatives from this larger group. The selected literature included seven works:

four by celebrated male authors whose novels and short stories are regularly taught in

the literature classroom, and three by women writers. The authors are: Henry James,

Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Emma Goldman,

Gertrude Stein, and Zora Neale Hurston. In addition, the students read Hemingway’s

short story, “Hills like White Elephants,’’ which was addressed in detail by one focus

group participant.

Besides recording initial and developing responses of all thirty-five students to

the gender issues in early twentieth century American literature, I also focused on the

effects of the instructional approaches and strategies on the students’ responses. In

addition, I attempted to determine the methods most effective at raising students’

awareness of sexist representations and androcentric perspectives in the literature. I

also focused on my own experience while engaged in the project and identified the

challenges and discoveries that I encountered as the teacher attempting to heighten

students’ critical consciousness of the gender issues in literature. Therefore, my study

combines the interpretive, critical feminist, and self-reflexive approaches that I called

the Reflective Feminist Interpretivist stance. This stance accommodated my objectives

in framing all aspects of the study: the generating of the research questions, the data

collection, the instructional approaches and the analysis and interpretation of the data.

Throughout the study, I attempted to identify approaches and strategies for the

study of the works that would provide students with the appropriate tools for reading

and appreciating the American classics. I was hoping to prevent them from either

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dismissing the works as irrelevant for their time, or succumbing, without resistance, to

coercive textual powers that threaten to position them in patriarchal masculine and

feminine ways. The study essentially investigates how students respond to several

authors’ representations of males and females, their romantic relationships, and

governing gender-related ideologies in selected 20“' century literature. Again, the

research questions guiding the study were:

• Would students report or exhibit an increased awareness of sexist gender and relationship representations or androcentric perspectives in the literature during the course?

• What teaching approaches and strategies would be reported or determined to have had the largest impact on students’ consciousness of literary gender issues: discussion (and dialogic investigation), critical writing, critical readings, social imagination activities or projects)

• What, if any, changes in gender consciousness would be reported or demonstrated to have occurred in their own lives as a result of the study

• What challenges would be involved for the teacher conducting the class/study ?

• What discoveries would be made that would benefit the literary educational community?

Findings

Findings Regarding Increased Awareness

Did students report or exhibit an increased awareness of sexist gender and relationship representations or androcentric perspectives in the literature during the course?

The students claimed that that the course had been instrumental in helping them

to be more sensitive to gender representation in literature and in film. Their reports were

corroborated by my data analysis. As the course progressed, they demonstrated an

increasing ability to identify gender stereotypes and double standards and gender

inequities in their written and verbal responses.

Although the students became increasingly more adept at identifying sexist

representations and relationship inequities over the course of the study, their ability to

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identify governing patriarchal ideologies in the literature did not increase to the same

degree as did their ability to spot stereotypes in characters, detect double standards in

literary relationships, or identify other gender inequities in literature. The lack of ability

to identify authorial perspective and theme in the literature affected the students’ ability

to focus on governing textual ideology.

Findings Regarding Effects of Teaching Approaches/Strategies

What teaching approaches and strategies were reported or determined to have had the largest impact on students’ consciousness of literary gender issues: discussion (and dialogic investigation), critical writing, critical readings, social imagination activities or projects)

Specifically, social imagination activities (including role-play, improvisation,

creative writing, and educational art and drama) had the greatest effect on students’

consciousness of literary gender issues. In addition, many larger group and focus group

participants specifically identified discussion as the teaching method that also had a

dramatic effect on their gender consciousness. My data supported the students’

perspectives that social imagination activities and discussion were the most beneficial

methods for stimulating awareness of stereotypes and gender inequities in the larger

group and with focus group participants.

However, the fact that other specific teaching approaches such as writing,

literary criticism and the design of individual projects were successful in raising the

students’ consciousness of gender issues in the literature, indicated the value of a

comprehensive approach to such a study, especially for classrooms comprised of a

diverse group of students.

Findings Regarding Impact on Students’ Lives

What, if any, changes in gender consciousness were reported or demonstrated to have occurred in their own lives as a result of the study

Primarily through discussion and social imagination activities, students made

gradual realizations that there were similar pressures and ideologies governing the

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characters’ lives and their own. As a result of classroom literature investigations and

focus group discussions, students were able to explore the issue of contemporary gender

inequalities in contemporary life.

Although forty-three percent of the larger group and sixty percent of the focus

group reported that the course had make them more conscious of gender issues in their

lives, some of the students’ attitudes and behaviors illustrated a continuing ambivalence

about feminism and the conventional roles of males and females in society.

Findings Determined From Reflections on Mv Experience

What challenges were experienced and what discoveries were made by the teacher and researcher as a result of the study that could benefit the literary educational community?

Challenges

Challenges presented by the study involved communication and experiential

gaps stemming from the students’ age and life experience; the students’ limited critical

reading ability, and their resistance to feminism.

Age and Life Experience

The age and experience of the students presented a challenge to my research. It

was sometimes difficult to discuss the implications o f a patriarchal system on career

choices, economics, relationships, marriage, and childrearing with the students who did

not come to the discussion with experience in these areas.

Communication

A related challenge was the need to identify ways to communicate concepts so

that that students would understand my points. Often, in posing questions to the

students or in making connections to gender inequities, I was painfully aware that the

students’ lack of life experience and educational opportunities prevented them from

completely understanding my references or questions.

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Reading Ability

I was also challenged by the difficulty o f communicating concepts such as

‘androcentric perspective’ and ‘coercive textual power’ with students whose critical

reading ability was limited. The challenge of leading students to an awareness of the

politics and ideologies framing the stories and coercing the readers was magnified

because of the students' limited ability to identify authorial intent and theme in

literature. It was difficult for me to engage them in a consideration of textual

assumptions, perspectives, and governing ideologies because they had little experience

seeing the authorial or cultural contracts reinforcing the patriarchal perspectives. An

inability to differentiate between an author’s perspective and a character’s or to identify

implied authorial or cultural constructs in the literature made it difficult for many of the

students to see beyond the plot to examine either the ideologies or the patriarchal myths

driving the storylines. They struggled, and I struggled with them, providing narrative

theory to help to lead them to recognize the subtle ironies that often signaled the author

or the narrator’s perspective in contrast to a character’s perspective or beliefs.

Difficulties with Washington Square, and “The Gentle Lena,” in which the authors are

critiquing the society, were traced to this problem

Satisfaction With Patriarchal Societv

My greatest challenge, however, was that I found it difficult to come to terms

with my students’ reported and apparent satisfaction with the status quo with regard to

gender relations. Responses given by participants from the larger group and the focus

group to the literary characters, to my questions, to me, and to their classmates

suggested that a hierarchical system of gender binaries is still alive and well, and safely

in place in their world. For the most part, the students acquiesced to the notion that

male characters and males in society were dominant in relationships. In addition, they

admitted to sex role stereotyping at work, in the government, at school, and in the home,

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and they judged characters and each other by a system of double standards relating to

work and sexuality.

Resistance to Feminism

Though the students’ awareness of gender issues and inequities was heightened

as a result of this course, my research also confirmed Harper’s (2000) study which

found that contemporary adolescents are resistant to ideology that threatens their

investment in heterosexual relationships and changes to the status quo.

It was challenging to find that today’s adolescent boys and girls would see their

own critique of patriarchal thinking and gender inequality as an indication of a threat to

their masculinity or femininity. It was also challenging to find that in spite of some of

the students’ epiphanies about the existence of sexism in their lives, that they still

remained comfortable enough at the end of the course to report that they did not see the

need for change to the status quo regarding gender relations. I was disheartened

primarily because I equate the status quo with continued gender inequality, harmful to

both boys and girls.

It was most challenging to find that in spite of statistics and research findings on

wife battering, rape, eating disorders, sexual harassment and gender inequity in schools

and in the workplace, no steps had been taken by any previous teachers to educate these

students about gender issues and sex discrimination. Students had been exposed to little

information about women’s history and no education dealing with gender representation

in film, advertising or literature. In addition, no formal analysis of the patriarchal

models for gender and relationship in literature and in life had been initiated.

Attempting to have an influence on students during the course of two semesters was

challenging when they had not been previously introduced to the realities of gender

discrimination and gender inequality. Consequently, I found that although the students

had been able to explore the gender issues in the literature and in their lives during the

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course, that the series of investigations had not changed their basic attitudes on

feminism expressed in the initial surveys.

Discoveries

In addition to the challenges, there were some discoveries made through the

study, some of which shed light on some of the challenges.

Student Ambivalence and Contradictions

Student resistance is a symptom of the fact that adolescents coming of age at the

turn of the twenty-first century are located at a crossroads in terms of their views on

gender equality and their expectations for masculine and feminine behavior and

identity. This location played itself out in the students’ ambivalence about ideas related

to the roles they play and are expected to play as young men and young women in

relationships. It also played itself out in contradictory literary analyses.

For example, all of the larger group participants expressed an appreciation for

the freedoms that separate them from the traditional femininities and masculinities

represented in the literature, and argued consistently that there was no sexism in today’s

society. However, their responses and stated attitudes reflected a different reality, a

reality that was particularly evident in the dramatic rendering of their responses to

Goldman’s “Love and Marriage.” In the discussions of that story, they mocked

Goldman’s challenges to the limitations for women in marriage and fought her ideas

with attacks and insults focusing on beauty and sexuality. They also fought to preserve

a patriarchal view of relationships based on male/female binaries and Goldman’s

attempt to enlighten women about their subjugated status in relationship.

The contradictions were also evident in the study of Washington Square. While

some students pointed out during the study of this novella that “men do not think they

are better than women anymore,” and that “women aren’t judged according to a

standard of beauty anymore, many repeatedly contradicted that stance by insisting that

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Catherine comply with conventional standards of womanhood. They stressed the

importance of beauty for the women and girls in their lives, though not the men and

boys. Additionally, they perpetuated sexist stereotypes in discussions of the literature.

Contradictions were evident in individual students who though they admitted to

realizations of gender inequities throughout the course, reported in the end that there

was no need to change the status quo.

Several students attempted to explain such contradictions by emphasizing that

representatives of their generation are caught between two paradigms, and that as

contemporary adolescents, they are aware of the prejudices against women, and at the

same time, they are trapped within a mindset that engages them in sexist behavior.

They emphasized the difficulty that young people have in knowing what they can do

about the problem. My data analysis corroborated their reports and further suggested

that the generation is also trapped in a mindset that accepts and promotes the myth that

there is no sexism in today’s society.

Appreciation of the Literature

One of my concerns as I began this study was that the students would have

difficulty relating to the characters reflective of a patriarchal society. In fact, my study

emanated not only from a desire to heighten students awareness of gender inequality in

literature and life, but also from a desire to preserve the classic literature by developing

a pedagogy that would foster literary appreciation as well as a gender-based critique. I

discovered that the process of exploration of the literature through my chosen teaching

approaches did engage the students and enhance their appreciation for the literature.

While I did not make feminists of the students, in most cases they stated and

demonstrated that they had more appreciation for the literature after our investigations

than they had immediately following the readings. I found that the process of discovery

using the various teaching methods made the literature more interesting for them.

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Impact of Gender

The most remarkable finding in terms of gender was the fact that it was two of

the boys who were the strongest feminists. And, these two boys were more concerned

about the unequal treatment of women than were the girls. While there was one girl in

the study who was also a proponent of feminist ideals, she was hesitant to be identified

as a feminist.

Although these two boys were the declared feminists in the class, the findings

did not suggest a sharp gender divide. With regard to resistance, I found that in most

cases, boys and girls were equally resistant to feminism, although the responses differed

in the two classes. The larger group of boys in the A.M. class were generally more

vocal about their resistance than the group of quieter girls in that class, although the

girls voiced most of the resistance in the PM . class. Students (A.M. and PM .) who

were most willing to openly align themselves with a feminist perspective, or express

sympathy about the status of women, or express negative opinions about the dominant

position of men, or express a commitment to work for gender equality and change, were

male. In fact, the students (A.M. and P.M.) who were able to make an initial

comparison between the oppressive treatment of literary women with the treatment of

women in contemporary times, were also the boys (A.M. and P.M.). None of the girls

in either the A M . or P.M. class made those connections initially. However, girls in the

P.M. class were more likely than the boys in either class to notice stereotypical

representations of female characters in the literature.

There were differences in the ways that boys and girls saw some characters,

however. In the discussion of The Great Gatsbv and A Farewell To Arms, girls were

more skeptical about Daisy and Catherine than were the boys. Boys connected with Jay

Gatsby more readily than did the girls, and sympathized with his romantic losses. In

discussions of A Farewell to Arms boys in both classes initially thought Catherine was

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“nice” and “gentle,” while the girls found her to be overly submissive. I determined

that the boys’ failure to see Catherine’s deferential behavior was indicative of the way

in which women are constructed in our society.

Impact of the Communitv

With respect to the influence o f the community, some responses differed on the

basis of classroom dynamics. The boys in the P.M. class saw Daisy as particularly

powerful and insensitive, while all the others in both classes found her to be

alternatively controlling and subjugated. The predominantly female P.M. class related

strongly with Janie and Their Eves Were Watching G od, while the predominantly male

A M . class disliked the novel, and made no connection with any of the characters.

Students were influenced by the individuals in their respective classrooms and

by the students in the focus group. For example, when a few students in the focus group

or a given classroom saw -a strong connection between sexism in the literature and in

their lives and presented their ideas to the others, other students’ considered those ideas.

This occurred in both classrooms and in the focus group. Specifically, girls in the P.M.

class an impact on the boys in the P.M. class who, after initially arguing for Catherine

Barkley’s strength, were eventually convinced of her submissive behavior.

Implications of the Study

My research shows that boys and girls in high school literature classes seem be

equally open (or not) to a feminist perspective, with boys often being more conscious of

the ways in which women have been subjugated than are girls.

My research also shows that while engaging students into an exploration of

gender issues in literature does not necessarily make feminists of the students, it does

result in raising their level of awareness to the gender inequities in literature and in life.

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My study, therefore, indicates that teachers can draw from my research the value of

emphasizing gender issues in the study of literature in order to help students challenge

the limiting definitions of masculinity and femininity that threaten to restrict them.

My study also indicates that English teachers can draw from my research the

value of emphasizing critical reading skills to help students identify authorial and

cultural constructs, theme and tone in literature. Without this ability, various political

and cultural perspectives in literature can coerce students, including sexist ones, as is

evident in my data.

In addition, my study indicates that teachers can draw from my research the

value of the idea that time is the significant factor in exploring literature. When

students have the time to revisit responses (Bogdan, 1997), they have more success at

increasing their awareness of literary gender issues. Because focus group participants

took part in extended dialogic investigations with me (in interviews) and with others (in

group discussions and improvisational workshops), they were able to engage in deeper

reflection on their initial written and verbal responses and contradictions than were the

larger group members. They were also able to explore gender issues in literature and in

society more intensively and more extensively than were the larger group participants.

This supports Bogdan’s (1997) idea that reconsideration of responses helps bring

students to a deeper understanding of their engagements and resistances with texts.

My study also indicates that literature teachers can draw from my research the

value of educational art, drama and creative writing for engaging students’ imaginations

in the critique of gender and other social inequities for the ultimate envisioning of a

more ethical world in which gender equality is emphasized. While most teachers

engage students in discussion and in writing exercises, social imagination activities such

as art and drama are often underused in the high school classroom.

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Finally, my study indicates the value of a teacher’s writing as a method of

inquiry, and the importance of that to the clarification of students’ understanding.

Limitations of the Study

The fact that this study was conducted with students in a mostly white, middle to

upper middle class suburban community limits its generalizability. I am not certain that

students' attitudes are representative of most adolescents. Furthermore, the unique

atmosphere of the Werthlin School, dedicated to openness, student choice, student

empowerment, collaboration, and the multi-age classroom environment, sets it apart

from larger, more formal, and more conventional educational institutions. In addition,

the freedom that I had to select my texts may not be a luxury afforded to teachers in

many school districts across the country. Lastly, the freedom offered Werthlin students,

and the familiarity they enjoy with teachers, may have resulted in an openness of

conversation that would be difficult to duplicate in more formal school settings.

Another limitation derives from the fact that I conducted research and collected

data in my own classroom. It was clear to the students and their parents that the

students’ completion of the required work and not the adoption of the teacher’s position

determined grades. However, the possibility exists (although it is an extremely slight

one, given the individualism of the Werthlin students) that the students might have

made a valiant effort to dismantle patriarchal nairatives for the duration o f the course

for the teacher’s benefit, rather than for their own. There is always the possibility that

students will be influenced by teachers and not necessarily transformed by them.

However, the final surveys and questionnaires did reinforce the idea that students

expressed themselves honestly without concern for pleasing the teacher.

I do believe that these limitations of the study were ameliorated, however,

because of my attempt to counter the subjectivity involved with playing the dual part of

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the teacher and the researcher with reflection. By adding a reflective component to the

interpretive and critical aspects of the study, I was able to challenge myself and question

the potential subjectivity of my conclusions. The strong emphasis on my own

experience in designing, conducting and responding to the research was meant to record

my experiences for teachers interested in employing such a pedagogical approach.

A final limitation of this study is the fact that the findings are determined on the

basis of a short period of time. The effects of the work done may not yield results

immediately, as paradigm shifts do not occur during the course of a school year. The

seeds planted in this class may reap results in years to come when these students have

gained the experience of age and have transcended the social pressures o f adolescence.

Need for Further Research

I join Davies, (1992); Harper, (2000); Martino, (1995) and Walkerdine, (1984)

in expressing the need for a continued research and experimentation with instruction to

determine ways to make the constitutive force of discourse visible to the students. New

ways should be sought to help to engage readers in an examination o f how language

coerces the reader. Also, new ways should also be determined to further engage

students in reflection on the contradictions evident in their attitudes about gender

relations in the literature and in the society, and the investments which result in an

aversion to a feminist perspective. This would include an analysis of the benefits for

readers who respond to patriarchal texts in traditional ways, as well as the liabilities that

exist for those engaging in a feminist critique of such texts. Such an analysis may

demonstrate to students the reasons for their resistance.

I believe also that there is a need for continued research on “self-subversive self­

reflection” (Bogdan, 1997) to determine whether continued re-readings of the literature

and reflection on literature and literary responses would heighten students' critical

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awareness of their unconscious resistances and attractions to the texts. Conducting

research in smaller classes and using shorter literary works would allow for second and

third readings, and the time to engage students in writing and re-writing responses as

well as engaging in in-depth discussions. The opportunity would help students to

uncover the unconscious forces impacting their resistance to and engagement with the

literature.

There is also a continued need for research to be conducted to determine the best

ways to improve high school students’ ability to identify narrative constructs and

authorial perspective in literature. Without this ability, it is difficult to introduce

criticisms that address governing textual ideologies or metanarratives.

There is also a need for continued research to determine the optimal

combination of teaching approaches and strategies. One student’s success as a result o f

the combination of narrative theory and feminist criticism has convinced me of the

value of combining some approaches and strategies. In addition, research is needed to

investigate the results of juxtaposing male and female-authored literature and classic

and contemporary literature to see if that combination would result in helping to raise

gender consciousness.

By giving voice to the silenced characters in improvisational dialogues, my

students took the first steps toward awareness of the important part that ideology plays

in the construction of the story and the reader. Future research may identify additional

steps that could be taken to further engage students in a consideration of textual

positioning. Continued research is also needed in order to identify the relationship

between consciousness of gender inequality in literature and in life, and the

commitment to social action and an ethical way of life.

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Conclusion

Envisioning myself on this continuum has helped me to see my involvement as

one in process. Seeing myself as part of a process has allowed me to better accept the

students’ resistances as a necessary reaction of adolescent boys and girls to such a

fundamental paradigm shift. It has also helped me to see the challenges, contradictions,

failures, and lack of closure identified with this research project as necessary by­

products of an ongoing struggle to bring about social change involving gender equality.

Finally, it has allowed me to see any small victories or epiphanies as progressive strides

in the continuing commitment to the transformation of reading practices and lives.

I began my investigation with the students by attempting to raise their critical

consciousness of gender inequities in the literature and in their lives. In spite of the fact

that there was a resistance to what students saw as a feminist perspective, and to societal

change, the findings regarding the effects of my literary and strategic choices on the

students responses are not completely without promise. Students’ evaluations of the

teaching approaches and methods indicate resistance, but also a great deal of progress,

as we were able to identify and investigate the contradictions in their convictions.

Considering the fact that this course was the students’ first conscious

experience with gender-related education or a gender-conscious approach to literature,

the findings strongly suggest that pedagogical strategies and choices can make a

difference, and that further efforts will continue to produce positive results. The fact

that the students are experiencing contradictions suggests an increased opportunity for

growth (Kohlberg, 1980; Heathcote, 1984; Johnson, 1997).

One can only resist what threatens to usurp one’s notion of reality, one’s notion of an ordered universe. Resistance, then, is not necessarily a non­response; rather, it suggests dissonance which in turn, signals a recognition whether conscious or not, that new knowledge has upset one’s equilibrium. We can use resistance I have shown, to foster deeper investigation than would be possible when what we teach is met with acceptance (Soter, private conversation, July 2,2001).

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APPENDIX A

Background Survey

Personal Background

IWhat do you understand by the meaning of the words “gender” or “sex?”

2. What experience have you had with any gender-related education?

3 .What does the word ‘feminist’ mean to you?

4. Do you think feminine and masculine behaviors biologically determined/socially constructed?

5. List some ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ traits. Have labels of ‘’’feminine” or “masculine” behavior been limiting or troubling for you?

Literary Background

1 . Have you had any experience reading a book written far enough in the past so that you have experienced a cultural gap of any kind when attempting to relate to the characters or to the story?

2. Have you ever had any experience with any book, story, or play where you have experienced a specific inability to relate to the characters, relationships, or situations due to old-fashioned gender or relationship representations?

3. Have you ever been aware, while reading, that you are being drawn into the narrative, even though you have resisted the story on some personal, cultural, or ethical grounds? Be as specific as you can be.

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APPENDIX B

Final Survey

(1) What particular activity, discussion or criticism (of what book or story) gave you a more critical perspective about the representation of men and women and relationship in literature?

(2) Was there any realization of your previous naivete in terms of seeing how gender stereotypes are created by authors, or read by an audience? Was there any realization of previous failure to notice either sexist or unequal portrayals o f characters, or sexist overall perspectives in the literature?

Yes No Explain

(3) What impact has this class had on your life?

(4) What impact has this class had on your book reading/movie viewing in terms of noticing gender issues (stereotypes, double standards, and sexist ideology)?

(5) Did you experience any resistance to, or struggle with, the direction taken in the class in terms of its emphasis on gender issues, sexist stereotypes and gender/relationship representation?

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APPENDIX C

Questions for Initial Written Responses

(1) In terms of gender representation, are men/women and the love relationships portrayed realistically? Could this story take place today?

(2) Did you relate to any characters/central relationships?

(3) Did you have trouble relating to any of the main characters or central romantic relationships? What were the issues that made identifying with characters or story difficult?

(4) Did you find that your difficulty to connect with characters or relationships (due to cultural gender disparities) affected your appreciation of the text?

(5) What do you think the author’s point is in this story?

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APPENDIX D

Background Questionnaire (Focus Group)

Are your parents married? Yes No If so, how long have parents been married?How many siblings do you have? Names, agesHow would you describe your relationship with your parents?How would you describe your relationship with your siblings?

What is your religious affiliation?Would you describe yourself as religious? Yes No Are your beliefs typical of your religion? Yes No

What do your parents do for a living?Mom:Dad:

How long have you lived in this town?What schools have you attended?

Are you happy living here? Yes No Reasonably happy Do you like to read? Yes No Do you read a lot? Yes No What kinds of books do you like to read?

What is your favorite book(s)?How would you describe your success in school? General level o f contentment. Grade point average etc.

Are you a person with lots of friends or a few close ones?How would you describe your relationship with the staff? Other adults?What two qualities do you think the staff would list describing you?12What are two qualities that you think your friends would list in a description of you?12Do you have a boyfriend, girlfriend right now? Yes NoWould you describe as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or not sure?Does this sexual preference represent any problem/difficulty for you?If you are heterosexual, do you think that a realization that you were gay or lesbian would be difficult for you? Yes, No Explain.

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What are your hobbies, talents, co-curricuIar activities?Do you have a job? Yes No Hours per week___________What is it?_____________ Do you like it? Yes NoWhat kid of entertainment do you like? Films, theater, type of music etc.?”

Would you describe yourself as someone who thinks current gender constructions are a problem in this society for people or the society? Yes, or no? Why?Do you think they are a problem in various media?Do you feel any need to work to change the status quo in that respect? Yes No Why? Have your ideas changed on that subject as a result of the class?

Do you feel comfortable with the male or female gender role that you think society has constructed for you (conditioned you to play) Yes No Explain Do you feel at all rebellious about that role? Yes No Explain If so, in what way do you act that rebellion out?What effect does this rebellion have on others? Yourself?

What does the word 'feminist' mean to you?How would you describe your attitudes about feminism coming into this class?Has that attitude changed?Did you come to this literature with positive or negative ideas about marriage?Positive Negative Explain on back

Is there anything that you would like to say about yourself that you think is an important identifier or something you think is important about yourself that you haven’t had much of a chance to say? Use other side.

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APPENDIX E

Final Questionnaire (Focus Group)

Here is the lineup of women and men in classic literature we have met:

1 James’ Washington Square

2 Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsbv

3 Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms

4 Hemingway’s “Hills Like White E.’

5 Anderson’s “The Untold Lie’’

6 Stein’s “The Gentle Lena

7 Hurston’s Their Eves_________

Catherine -Maurice

a. Daisy-Torn; b. Daisy-Gatsby

c. Nick-Jordan; d. Tom- Myrtle

Catherine-Frederic

Jig and the man

Ray and Minnie Pearson

Lena and Herman

Janie- a; Jody b Janie-Teacake

Indicate the degree to which you relate/connect with the character

Catherine Sloper negligible low moderate high extremely high

Daisy negligible low moderate high extremely high

Myrtle negligible low moderate high extremely high

Catherine B negligible low moderate high extremely high

Jig negligible low moderate high extremely high

Minnie Pearson negligible low moderate high extremely high

Nell Gunther negligible low moderate high extremely high

Lena negligible low moderate high extremely high

Janie negligible low moderate high extremely high

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Dr. Sloper: negligible low moderate high extremely high

Maurice negligible low moderate high extremely high

Tom negligible low moderate high extremely high

Gatsby negligible low moderate high extremely high

Nick negligible low moderate high extremely high

George Wilson negligible low moderate high extremely high

Herman negligible low moderate high extremely high

Man in “Hills” negligible low moderate high extremely high

Frederic negligible low moderate high extremely high

Ray Pearson negligible low moderate high extremely high

Hal Winters negligible low moderate high extremely high

Logan negligible low moderate high extremely high

Jody negligible low moderate high extremely high

Teacake negligible low moderate high extremely high

Of the ones you selected ‘high’ or ‘extremely high’, in what ways do you relate?

Names Ways you relate

Of the ones you rated high or extremely high, who are the ones whose romantic situations you think you could imagine yourself getting into on the basis of your similarity with the character?

What attracts the female protagonist to the man or men with whom she is involved; what attracts the male protagonist to the female?

1 Catherine-Maurice (Washington Square!

2 Daisy-Tom (The Great Gatsbv) Tom-Daisy

Maurice-Catherine

3. Myrtle-Tom Tom-Myrtle

4 Daisy-Gatsby Gatsby-Daisy

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5 Catherine-Frederic (FTA)Frederic-Catherine

6 Janie-Jody (Their Eves Were Watching God~)Jody-Janie

yJanie-TeacakeTeacake-JanieDo you think that your era colors your feelings about the characters? Yes No Why, how? Who has the power in the story? over whom? How do they get that power?1 Catherine/Maurice

2 Daisy/Tom

■ 3 Daisy/Gatsby

4. Tom-Myrtle

5. Nick-Jordan

6. Catherine-Frederic

7. Hills Like White Elephants man. woman

8 Janie-Jody

9 Janie-Teacake

In which cases does the power balance change as the story progresses?

In which case(s) are the authors making a critique of what they see as unequal power relations in the story? How do they do it?

In which cases do you critique the power structure in the story? Why?

Do you find it difficult to do this without help from others to see it? yes no

W hat, if any, are the double standards for behavior (behavior /beauty/power or otherwise) and/or expectation for men and women you see in the novels?

1 Catherine/Maurice

2 Tom/Daisy

3 Tom-Myrtle

4 Catherine/Frederic

5. Hills Like White

6. Janie/Jody

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7 Janie/Teacake

In which case(s), if any, are the authors making a critique of the double standards in the novel?

Do you agree with those critiques, if you see any? Why? In what cases?

Are these critiques related to gender of author? yes, no. Which?

Circle the word which best describes the following men:

Dr. Sloper dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Maurice dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Tom dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Gatsby dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Nick dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Frederic dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Ray dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Hal dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Herman dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Jody dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Teacake dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

In general, do these common portrayals reflect general male characteristics that are realistic for men today? Yes No

Do any authors mean to critique these kinds of men?Which?

If so, do you agree with these critques?Why?

Circle the word that best describes the following women: assertive, independent, controlling or dependent and followers, leaders

Catherine S dependent cooperative leader assertive... independent ...controlling

Daisy dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Myrtle dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

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Catherine B dependent cooperative leader assertive . independent controlling

Minnie dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Lena dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

Janie dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

girl/Hills dependent cooperative leader assertive independent controlling

If so. are these general characteristics realistic for descriptions of women today? Yes, No, Why?

Do any authors mean to critique their types of women? Who? If so, do you agree with these critiques? Why?

If you resist the portrayals in general, what is the basis of your resistance?

How were your ideas about marriage affected by “The Gentle Lena?”What were your ideas?

Did Stein’s and Hurston’s novels have any affect on how you looked retrospectively on any of the other men or women or their portrayals in men’s works? How? Which ones?

What, if any, sexist perspectives do you think are being reinforced by?

Hemingway A Farewell To Arms Hemingway (“Hills”)Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)Sherwood Anderson (“Untold Lie”)James (Washington Square!Hurston (Their Evesl Stein (“TTie Gentle Lena”)

Do you do anything that you are aware of to resist sexist stereotypes as you read them in literature? What?

Do you do anything to resist them in your own life? If so, what?

Do you do anything to reinforce sexist stereotypes in your life? What?

Do you see others reinforcing sexist stereotypes or inequality in relationship today?

Do you think inequality between the sexes is a moral issue we all should be concerned with? Like racism etc. Why, why not?

Boys, how will you avoid turning out like Jody in Their Eves Were Watching God or Tom in The Great Gatsby?

Girls, how will you avoid turning out like Myrtle in The Great Gatsbv. Catherine Sloper in Washington Square, or Janie with Jody in Their Eves Were Watching God?

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APPENDIX F

Interview Questions for Focus Group Members

Background1. D oes your mother work?2. Did she stay at home with you when you were small?3. What part did your mom/dad play in your child rearing?4 . What career are you considering?5. Do you think you will have children?6. Have you ever thought about who will take care o f kids?7. D oes this decision represent a conflict in terms o f balancing work with childcare?

Definitions1. What are some characteristics you would deem to be masculine?2. What are some characteristics you would deem to be feminine?3. What percentage o f these is biologically determined?4 . Which are personally troubling or limiting for you?5. What is your idea o f how the ideal relationship should work?

Literature1. W ho is your favorite fictional character so far?2. W ho do you relate to most/least?3. What is the history o f your education regarding gender stereotypes in literature/life?4 . When you watch an ad, or read a book, are you sensitive to gender stereotypes?5. D o you like thinking about gender stereotypes, looking for them?6. When we discuss it in class, do you make any connections to your own life?7. In literature, who suffers more from sexist stereotypes, men or women?• When you read older literature, and you meet characters created in pre-women's movement times, do

you make an attempt to fill in the cultural gaps by 'updating' the men and women with more contemporary characteristics in order to relate better?

9 , Do you believe that literature reflects culture?10. Do you believe that you bring your culture to the reading o f a book?

Specific Literature1, Talk about Ernest Hemingway in terms o f the w ays in which he represented gender and relationship in "Hills like White Elephants and A Farewell to Arms.

Could Catherine be portrayed today the way she was in A Farewell to Arms? W ould people find her anachronistic today?2. H ow does the central perspective about the sexes differ in those two works? Do you think that Hemingway is writing as a feminist in "Hills like White Elephants?”

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3. Do you think that there are any other books that com e from that perspective, or ones we read that don’t com e from that perspective?4 . D o you think that Henry James took a fem inist perspective in portraying the way women were treated in a negative way?5. Do you believe that literature reflects culture realistically? Do you believe that you bring your culture to the reading o f a book, the interpretation o f the characters?6 . So . should w e only read more current novels?7 . How do you. as a reader today, respond to and identify with the relationship between Daisy and Tom in view o f economic/cultural factors determining the male dominance in the relationship?8. What would be needed to bring about a more egalitarian relationship here?9. How did you initially relate to Catherine Barkley, in A Farewell to Arms? Did your ideas change?10. How did you respond to Jim Phelan’s point that Catherine’s portrayal was beyond sexism because she transcended her sexist role and realized that the only way to live was to love and be loved and to not waste a lot o f time. Just g ive yourself?11. Do you think that Catherine Sloper and Daisy Buchanan make choices or are they made for them?12. What would Catherine Sloper and Myrtle W ilson and Daisy Buchanan and even Lena and Minnie and Nell from “The Untold Lie" have to do to be the ones taking control o f their lives?13 Talk about Sherwood Anderson’s ideas about the roles o f men and o f women in marriage.14. Did that awareness affect your appreciation for the story?15. Are there any other stories you can think o f where the point o f the story is made at the expense o f men or women as a gendered group? Have you read One Flew over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey? Talk to me about the roles o f men and women in that book in terms o f theme.16. What did you think about the fact that TeaCake hits Janie in Their Eves Were Watching God? Is this a social issue, reflecting gender issues in society, or a personal one?17. Give me a line for (Catherine Sloper. Lena, Herman, Daisy. Minnie and N ell. Janie) that you think they would have spoken if they could have but were unable to speak in the book— a line that really characterizes them.18. What advice would you give (chosen characters) from a twentieth century point o f view?

Literature and Life1. When we discussed gender portrayal in literature in the class in terms o f characters .’do you make any connections to your life? H ow did you do that?2. D o you do anything that you are aware o f to reinforce sexist stereotypes?3. D o you think sexism or gender stereotyping are moral issues we all should be concerned with?4 . What do you think is needed to bring about a more egalitarian male female society?5JDo you think there is social pressure concerned with talking about gender and relationship stereotypes in class?

Reactions to Pedagogies2 . Did any conversations or activities affect the way you think about gender and gender construction?

Are you more attentive to the ways authors construct characters?

How did you react to the follow ing exercises?1. Katherine Sloper’s letter to her dad2. Drawing the pictures o f the characters in Gatsby3. Interview by journalist o f Equal Relationship M agazine to actors playing sexist parts in The Great Gatsbv.4 . Why do you think kids didn’t engage with the questions the journalists asked in that exercise?6 . How did you respond to the role play discussion w e had with Nell Gunther and with Minnie Pearson (“The Untold Lie”) about their being pregnant and losing their dreams and their freedom?7 . How did you react to drama activities for tire study o f Their Eves Were Watching God?

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8. H ow do you react to Judith Fetterley’s points about The Great Gatsbv? A Farewell to Arms?9X)id any o f these activities change your perspective on gender representation in literature, or make you more conscious o f gender issues in literature or in life?

Male Authored v. Female Authored Literature1. After having read Emma Goldman’s work and that o f Gertrude Stein and also Zora N eale Hurston, did their ideas and literary perspectives change any o f your reactions to the male-authored books? How do you account for Hurston's having TeaCake hit Janie in a book that people have called one with a ‘fem inist perspective?’2. What if ‘ The Untold Lie" had been written from the viewpoint o f the women? H ow would that work? W ould it work? What would be lost?Changes Over the Course o f the Class.1. Are you more attentive to the way you construct characters when you read? Like in “The Untold Lie,” did you notice initially that women were sort o f left out, at best, or depicted badly at worst.2 . thinking about the women: Catherine Sloper Daisy, Myrtle, Catherine Barkley, Jig, and Lena M innie, N ell, Janie3. Did you change your mind about any o f them from beginning to end?4. If you could give them advice, what would it be?5. If they had a line to say that they didn’t say in the book but that you thought they wanted or you wanted them to say, what would they be?6 . Have you changed your ways o f thinking, reading since the class?

7. How would you have liked it to be different?

8. Do you think anything would have worked better to get to the issues o f the differences between present day and idea o f relationship in early 20th century?

Advice for the Teacher1. D o you have any recommendations that would insure that students will continue relating with this older American literature?2. Do you think that the study o f this literature requires any intervention for kids to think about gender?3. What should kids in the future think about in relation to this literature so that they can continue to read the literature?4. Do you think that you have becom e more sensitive to the w ays in which men and women and relationships are represented in literature since the class began?5. Do you think there is pressure concerned with talking about gender issues in classes with boys (girls)?6. How did the experiences doing your projects help you to relate with the gender issues in your particular literary choice?7. If you have been affected by the issues brought up in this class, what do you intend to do about it in your life?

417

APPENDIX G

Final Improvisational Workshop

1) 15 minutes max. Take two to three minutes to close your eyes, imagine that you have the . opportunity to be a member of the opposite sex. If you were a girl instead of a boy, or viceversa, how would your life be different? Jot down your reactions to being the opposite sex in terms of whatever things come to mind: your feelings, reactions. Parents' reactions, friends’ reactions, different ways you would look, act, dress, behave, think about romance, career, sports, power, family etc.

2) 5 minutes. Act out a scene reversing roles in A Farewell to Arms (See Chapter Four, Section on A Farewell to Arms for script. Write your responses to Frederic.

3) 20 minutes. Four students participate in an extemporaneous reader’s theatre. Students play the parts of Minnie, Hal and Ray, and read the following lines. Nell is silent throughout the reading, with her back to the audience. When all three have spoken, Nell is invited to speak. When it is her turn, what does she say? Write either Nell’s words or her reaction to her silence.

Script:Minnie: “You’re always puttering. Now I want you to hustle. There isn’t anything in the house for supper and you’ve got to get to town and back in a hurry. The children will cry and cry.

Hal: "Shall I marry and settle down? Shall I put myself into the harness to be worn out like an old horse? Has it been worth while? What about it, eh? What about marriage and all that? Shall I do it or shall I tell Nell to go to the devil?"

Ray: Has he got to be harnessed up and driven through life like a horse? There was no promise made. I didn’t promise my Minnie anything and Hal hasn’t made any promise to Nell. Why should I pay? Why should Hal pay? Why should anyone pay? I don’t want Hal to become old and worn out. I’ll tell him. I won’t let it go on.

Nell:

4) 10 minutes. If "The Untold Lie” was written by a woman about the woman’s fears of being trapped in marriage, and Nell was in Hal’s shoes trying to decide whether to marry or not, what would her concerns be? If you created a stereotype for the male (as opposed to nagging like Minnie did), what characteristics or foibles would you assign to the husband that would frighten the woman from marriage? Write.

418

APPENDIX H

Early Social Imagination Activities

I Girls:

Write a letter to this female character in which you introduce yourself.

Boys:

Write a letter to a male character in which you introduce yourself

2. Explain to the character the ways in which you are similar

3. Explain the ways in which you are different from her.

4 .Explain to the character the ways in which it is easy/difficult for you to relate to the character because of/in spite of the cultural differences.

5.Pose two questions that you would like to ask the protagonist about her life and how it seems different. Or, give any advice you would like to give to the character.

6. Tell the protagonist two things about your life that seem better to you.

419

APPENDIX I

Advanced Social Imagination Activity

Suggestions for Updates for “The Gentle Lena”

(1) Reconstruct this story to be set in the year 2000, making whatever changes and decisions in actresses, actors, set, costume ideas, circumstances, situation you deem necessary to draw and appeal to a contemporary audience. Try not to change the plot or characters or essential story any more than you have to. Strive to keep the plot and characters and situation as close to the original as you can without sacrificing the box office.

(2) Improvise the group for the class as well as you can, assigning appropriate roles to other members of the group.

(3) Explain why you made the changes you made and what that has to say about the suitability of the original for today’s audiences.

(4) Discuss the implications of these changes.

Follow-up Activity:

For a long-range activity, each group writes a screenplay for the particular scene designed, selects the actors, scene, costumes etc. and videotapes the scene. The written and videotaped versions are passed in.

420

APPENDIX J

Suggestions for Final Project

Choose one of the following suggestions or design vour own project. Remember that allproiects must address gender issues in addition to whatever other issues you want toaddress.

1. Write a screenplay and videotape the updated version of one section of eitherThe Great Gatsby, Washington Square, A FarewellTo Arms, Their Eyes Were Watching God Or The Gentle Lena, The Untold Lie or Hills Like White Elephants.

2. Produce a Charlie Rose style TV interview (one half-hour) between yourself and two novel authors or the male or female characters in two novels.

3. Write an extended scene for the stage between Catherine (WS), Daisy, Catherine (AFTA) and Janie wherein they have monologues and dialogues about their relationships with the men in their lives.

4. Write an extended scene for the stage between Dr. Sloper, Tom, Frederic and Jody wherein they have monologues and dialogues about their relationships with the men in their lives.

5. Put together a photography exhibit for The Great Gatsbv 1920s.

6. Create and produce a poetry reading for three fictitious poets and where the poetry explores the issues raised in any of the literature we have studied in the class. You write the poetry. You could have it read by others for the presentation.

7. Create a timeline on the web wherein you bring in create or import literary, historical musical, cultural background for the literature between 1900 and 1937.

8. Create a web page on literary women of the period between 1900 and 1940. Include historical and fictional characters and historical situations.

9. Write a song (music and lyrics) for one of the characters or a duet for two of the characters in one of the literary works.

10. Compose an aria or quartet for two characters or the men or the women in all the novels. Explain your choices in typewritten paper.

421

11. Design costumes and make one for a character in any of the books. This would be accompanied by an explanation of the character’s costume(s).

12. Design a media kit for the opening of the movie version of any of the literature we have studied, complete with design for book cover and posters, even TV storyboard for ad.

13.An artistic rendering of some aspect of a novel or short story or depiction of conflict. This work would be accompanied by a short paper describing your choices.

14. Cartooning. Make a version of characters from all of the stories or rework one part of a novel or whole short story. Or, even create a scenario between different characters from different books and cartoon that story.

15. Make a diary belonging to one of the characters over a period of time. Or, write letters and make a book of them like Griffin and Sabine.

16.Make a magazine edition on the literature of the of the first quarter of the 20th century in America.

17. Create a radio show of your design in which you interview various people such as authors, characters or experts on the literary period studied.

18. Video yourself doing a stand-up comedy routine in which all of your intelligent humor is drawn from the literature, the authors and the culture that we have studied about the literary period between 1900 and 1940.

19. Create a documentary for TV in which you take a literary/cultural stroll through the period between 1900 and 1937. Youd could do the same thing with a website or magazine, using interesting layouts to introduce authors, little stmies, authentic reviews, and descriptions of the life and culture of the time

20. Make up something we haven’t thought of yet and run it by us.

422

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