In the beginning of this course on women’s literature, I predicted we would see trends of various themes throughout the works we read, including: violence, discrimination, body images, and gender equality. But after reading various novels, one of the themes that stick out most for me is death. It isn’t that death is thought of as being the same concept in everything. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Instead, the pieces analyze death in completely different ways, whether it is a way of communication, to do with reincarnation, or due to a mental illness, they all connect to death. I would never have thought that women’s literature could include an emphasis on death, but it truly does.
Firstly, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, portrays death to be something completely different from its common meaning. After news of the death of Septimus, Woolf writes, “Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded; one was alone. There was an embrace in death” (163). The way Woolf writes, she makes it seem that death is not a sad and solemn time for someone. Instead, it is a way of escaping; of escaping a life in which you feel alone. I can see how this connects to Mrs. Dalloway, and all women for that matter. Mrs. Dalloway goes through a realization of how trivial her life is. Going to buy flowers, throwing parties, they are all trivial things. Her life lacks meaning and purpose. And death is an escape. But Clarissa sees her escape not as death, but as Richard. “Even now, quite often if Richard had not been there reading the Times, so that she could crouch like a bird and gradually revive…she must have perished. She had escaped. But that young man had killed himself” (164). This dependency on men, in my opinion can be even worse than death. From what I have already written about for Jasmine, you need to be yourself. Individuality does not come from others and your choices in life should be your own. What is very interesting is how Clarissa claims that she feels like Septimus: “She felt somehow very like him- the young man who had killed himself” (165). He had shown defiance in his choice. His final choice was his own. Death in Mrs. Dalloway is an escape, but not the only escape in life. Clarissa is content with her life, she loves Richard, and he is good for her. Clarissa does not need death, but I think she needed to see it so that she could come to that realization.
Secondly, in Jasmine, we see death as a series of reincarnations throughout Jasmine’s journey of men. Each time she moves, she is with a new man, and she gains a new name or identity. “I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmime, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane. Half-Face for Kali” (197). I don’t think it is her identity, though, that dies every time she moves. I believe that Bharati Mukherjee is trying to emphasize the death of places, and the continuation of an identity. When we leave a place forever, we keep memories for as long as we can. But that is all we have left. In our minds, these places have vanished, never to be seen in person again. But I don’t think this should be a sad occasion. For Jasmine, the death of one place just means the birth of another. Another step on her journey. Another man to love. The memory of her life in Hasnapur stays with Jasmine throughout the story. In a recollection of bathrobes, Mukherjee writes, “I want to tell him that when I was a girl in Hasnapur only playboys in Bombay movies wore bathrobes. That meant, in short-hand, they had a bathroom, they had modesty, and they had air conditioning… I have triumphed” (231). But Jasmine keeps these memories to herself. Mainly because Bud does not fully understand, but partly, in my opinion, because Hasnapur is her own, the one thing that has stayed with her through everything.
Lastly, The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf explores the end result of intense mental illnesses like anorexia and bulimia. Both of these are extremely harmful to the bodies of women, a majority of which are very young. Wolf states that, “The disease is a deadly one. Brumberg reports that 5 to 15 percent of hospitalized anorexics die in treatment, giving the disease one of the highest fatality rates for a mental illness” (182). Being suicidal is a mental illness, just like anorexia. We don’t normally think about eating disorders in that way, but it is a form of suicide. But I find it horrible that we have come to this point, where teenage girls are starving themselves just so they can look like the models in magazines. And it is all thanks to the path that society has taken. Every year, the models have become thinner and the pressure has increased on young girls to be pretty. Appearances are so important in every sphere of life, including the office, your social life, and school. First impressions are important, and what do you first notice about a person? What they look like. But what is worse is that society does nothing to bring awareness about these problems. “When they fall, there are no memorial services, no intervention through awareness programs, no formal message from their schools and colleges that the society prefers its young women to eat and thrive rather than sicken and die” (181). We hide these illnesses, but it is only harming those of us who are healthy. Death for these women is an escape from pressure. Their desire to be skinny overshadows their logical thinking. And this is what leads them to their deaths. Naomi Wolf brings in a very interesting point when she refers to Virginia Woolf.
“Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own had a vision that someday young women would have access to the rich forbidden libraries of the men’s colleges, their sunken lawns, their vellum, the claret light… Now young women have pushed pas the staff that barred Woolf’s way… they are halted by an immaterial barrier she did not foresee. Their minds are proving well able; their bodies self-destruct” (181).
As women have become more equal in society, society has pushed right back and sickened the minds of millions.
Death is a choice. Death is an escape. Death is reincarnation. Death is the birth of a new place. Death is the continuation of a journey. Death is an illness. Death is what society wants. I have thoroughly gained a new perspective on death through women’s literature. It has been connected to so many different things, that I can see in my own life. Something that I think every piece of literature should achieve.
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