"if they weren't all so in thrall to the Navy and Daddy and Giles, none of whom must be upset in any way at all"
So true, biskybat - this attitude puts me out of patience with Rowan, Mrs M - and also Nicola, too. Of course, Nicola's very young. But as soon as I start thinking "well, Nicola's very young" I'm no longer identifying with her in the easy way I do in the other books, and so that's distancing me from this book too.
I think the attitude you've identified also feels additionally a betrayal as the Marlows have been set up in so many ways as "just as good as the boys" or interchangeable with boys - they are educated, active, resourceful, expected to have careers, taken seriously, without even much discussion of whether this should be so, it's just marvellously taken for granted - and that's very liberating to read about - but then the rug is pulled.
I guess it points to an underlying problem in Forest creating these characters in a society (at least in the 1940s) that maybe couldn't accomodate them. But Rowan is being stitched up whichever way you look at it: 1) traditionally, she would be expected to get married, but tying her to Trennels as farm manager is really going to constrain her options in that respect, geographically and in terms of whoever might marry her having to somehow accomodate that role 2) in a more feminist age, she'd expect to have a career of her own choice, not to bail out daddy and big brother. So according to either framework of values, she's the loser.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-07-27 01:09 pm (UTC)So true, biskybat - this attitude puts me out of patience with Rowan, Mrs M - and also Nicola, too. Of course, Nicola's very young. But as soon as I start thinking "well, Nicola's very young" I'm no longer identifying with her in the easy way I do in the other books, and so that's distancing me from this book too.
I think the attitude you've identified also feels additionally a betrayal as the Marlows have been set up in so many ways as "just as good as the boys" or interchangeable with boys - they are educated, active, resourceful, expected to have careers, taken seriously, without even much discussion of whether this should be so, it's just marvellously taken for granted - and that's very liberating to read about - but then the rug is pulled.
I guess it points to an underlying problem in Forest creating these characters in a society (at least in the 1940s) that maybe couldn't accomodate them. But Rowan is being stitched up whichever way you look at it:
1) traditionally, she would be expected to get married, but tying her to Trennels as farm manager is really going to constrain her options in that respect, geographically and in terms of whoever might marry her having to somehow accomodate that role
2) in a more feminist age, she'd expect to have a career of her own choice, not to bail out daddy and big brother.
So according to either framework of values, she's the loser.