Power, Thy Name is Woman

MUNRO YEAR 12 STUDENT

As part of their HSC English course, students write in a range of styles including imaginative, discursive and persuasive, and are expected to reflect on how their ‘craft’ has been informed by the prescribed texts. As part of her assessment, Flora Munro reimagines the female voice in literature as inspired by Margaret Atwood’s speech, Spotty Handed Villainesses

A few years ago, I was coerced into watching a performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet at London’s Globe Theatre. I felt like an intruder in the dramatic theatrical space of rustic oak beams and tight rows of seats, but as the stage lit up, I became entranced. As the actors came on stage, I was struck by the casting decision to create a gender fluid production. With the foils, Hamlet and Laertes – paragons of chivalric masculinity – played by women, and the archetype of female passivity, Ophelia, played by an Indian-British man, the production could interrogate and play with gender roles. This privileging of the female voice and blurring of distinctions between the sexes was particularly prominent in a scene now imprinted on my memory. When Hamlet gazed into the skull of Yorick and the actress spoke the famous soliloquy about life and existence, which for centuries had been an iconic male role, it was a significant display of female power and intellect. I left the theatre that night with a re-envisioned perspective on the construction of gender roles within society which forced me to reflect on prejudiced gender and left me wondering, what do other texts reveal about gender?

This experience highlighted an enduring truth: the power of literature in communicating stories, helping to educate and unite society. Literature allows us to see the world from the perspective of others, examining individuals past and present and what their experiences represent of humanity. Texts written centuries ago, such as Hamlet , retain relevance in modern society precisely because they serve this function, demanding that we think critically about important and timely aspects of the human condition. During lockdown, whilst perusing my mother’s bookshelf, I came across the poetry collection Ariel by Sylvia Plath and appreciated its radical presentation of the female experience. I adored the way her confessional poetry, composed at the dawn of the second wave of feminism, questioned gender >> roles in fundamental ways. The Applicant particularly stood out to me from this collection, a story in which the voice of patriarchal dominance and voicelessness |of the female persona were all too familiar. Like Hamlet gazing at Yorick’s skull and reflecting on his life, literature forces us to examine how society’s adherence to gender roles can erode the freedom of both women and men.

Literature has also been important in its essential role of challenging prejudices. In the 1990s, the introduction of intersectionality expanded the scope and interests of feminism by highlighting that women’s experiences are not universal and are profoundly shaped by other issues such as race and wealth. Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple (1982) voiced the experiences of millions of African American women throughout her country’s history. The protagonist, Celie, confronts the horrific challenges of domestic violence and Black queerness – aspects of the African American experience that had been largely unexamined. In one of her letters, Celie concludes: “I’m pore, I’m black, but I’m here.” That tone of defiance is the same as that which underpinned Sojourner Truth’s speech entitled Ain’t I a Woman, delivered at the 1851 Women’s Convention for women’s rights. Walker’s epistolary novel supported intersectionality, highlighting that the female experience is not homogenous and is intertwined with different factors including race, class and disability.

Literature has the power to direct our attention to the experiences beyond our own lives but does it always do so? Unfortunately, we live in a society where Black women’s stories too often remain untold, their voices unheard and their concerns unspoken. Even where stories of women are told, literature can be used to convey gender roles in ways which only reinforce narrow stereotypes and prejudice.

Is this any surprise? While there were many women amongst the pioneers of fiction in the 18th and 19th century, most (apart from Austen) have been forgotten, while the names of the men (Defoe, Richardson, Swift, Trollope, Dickens etc) remain in public consciousness.

Men’s access to education and status allowed them to dominate, and too often representations of women were one-dimensional. This did not begin with the novel. As far back as the Greek mythological poem, The Odyssey, we see powerful stereotypes in play. Homer celebrates the protagonist Odysseus for his cunning, brave and courageous nature whilst he presents his wife, Penelope, as an individual of great loyalty, fidelity and submission to her husband, a character who was valued in society precisely for upholding these traits.

Literature has been used to limit women, promoting narrow gender roles which strip them of the flesh of humanity. But that evening at the Globe Theatre opened my eyes to the sheer power of literature to express the female voice. •