Expectations All Around

Reading Stevie Smith’s Novel on Yellow Paper definitely solidified the fact that I am a “foot-on-the-ground” (38) reader. Smith’s novel was difficult for me to get into, and that made it even harder to make connections with the text. It seemed like Smith would bring up really interesting issues, but as soon as I felt like I might be getting a grasp on what she had to say she would zoom into another topic. One of the things that stuck with me though was the roles that expectations played in the novel. Pompey was expected to marry and become a suburban wife, and that ruined her relationship with Freddy. Pompey’s mother was sick and she was supposed to let the illness run its course and subject Pompey to emotional scarring rather than committing suicide. The expectation that I found most interesting though was not an expectation placed on females, but the expectations that seemed to be placed on Pompey’s father.

When Pompey first introduced her father he seemed to be an average English gentleman who was ready to serve his country. Pompey described him as wanting to go into the navy initially, and then, “So when the war broke out that was the Boer War, so my papa that was then in Yeomanry he must, he would, he must go to the wars” (Smith 75). Pompey’s father seemed like the kind of English man that wanted to follow the expectations that society set out for him. He wanted to be brave, adventurous, and fight for his country. It was not those expectations that hindered him, but rather the expectations of his “female dragon” (Smith 76) mother, and later his wife. The females in his life, particularly his mother, forbade him from fulfilling the societal expectations that were placed on him, and I think that this took a toll on him as a man. I can’t condone a man running out on his sick wife and young child, but in a way, I do feel bad for Pompey’s father.

While men did have more privilege, we must not forget that men also had societal expectations that they needed to live up to. They were supposed to be the breadwinners, be strong, and brave, and if a man could not live up to that then what kind of man was he? I think that Pompey’s father cracked under the pressure because he was not able to fulfill either his expectations as a man in English society or as a family man and son. I think when he cracked and left that he ultimately chose his pride over his family and decided to fulfill the expectations of English men.

I wish I had enjoyed this novel more, and while I am not a fan of the writing style, I do appreciate all of the ideas and connections that Smith was able to fit into one novel.

 

Smith, Stevie. Novel on Yellow Paper. Virago Press Ltd. 1936.

-Samantha Hudspeth

Samantha Hudspeth Response Paper

novel-on-yellow-paper-repsonse

Smith – Annotated Bibliography (Stacy)

smith-annotated-bibliography

A Foot-Off-The Ground Novel

I remember reading Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf back in high school. It must have been junior year, the same year I decided to become an English major. And Mrs. Dalloway took me completely out of my depth. I remember that 11th grade was the first time I’d even heard of stream of consciousness. I had no idea how to handle it. That same year we read The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner. Our teacher walked us expertly through Faulkner and I loved it. But Woolf floored me. And bored me. Getting flowers “herself”, for a party, this first sentence and background theme is supposed to impress me? Get outta here. I’ll be over here reading Fight Club.

Then we read Woolf this year and I thoroughly enjoyed it – I’d changed and could appreciate it, and could even hear it, distinctly, progress from one character to another. I was no longer lost.

And then came Novel on Yellow Paper. I have to say, as a better reader than I’ve ever been, I don’t feel outmatched (though perhaps that’s the natural arc of this entry I’m writing). Reading the novel, I felt as if a narrator was leading me happily around and astray. In the first few pages of the book, the best theme (mentioned twice) is that we should figure it out ourselves.

A 2009 review I found describes it in warm tones throughout. “When first published in 1936, it overnight turned Smith into a celebrity. It was swiftly followed by the first two collections of her poetry for which, today, she is better known. But the subversiveness of this novel has never lost its appeal, its greatness lying in its exuberant celebration of the uncircumscribed spirit.”

The article also relates Novel on Yellow Paper to Mrs. Dalloway, though it feels scant – like Mrs. Dalloway is the best known stream-of-consciousness novel known, so we unearth it to show we know what we’re talking about. To be fair, I’d say this post is doing the same thing – if not for the fact that Dalloway is an assigned book in this course. Dalloway had foil characters all striving towards the same goals, appreciating and despairing over the same themes. Novel on Yellow Paper feels like a medley of different tones and concepts. But what is the unifying force? A bubbly narrator? Does that count?

So am I a bad reader, still wanting my hand to be held? What is the payoff of reader frustration, and how does an author balance that alongside reader buy-in? Because buy-in is a real thing that ideas live and die by – a book that does not try to impress me should not be surprised if I walk away unimpressed. This is a real question. As they say, if you’re gonna jerk me around, at least buy me a drink.

The same article informs us, “”So blended and intertwisted in this life are occasions for laughter and of tears.” This line from De Quincey, which Smith quotes, perfectly describes Pompey’s condition”. Smith, our author, is literally dropping in her own quotes and giving them to characters. Which, yes, happens in some way in every novel – characters are based off real-life characters, novelists pull quotes from their friends and add them into dialogue. Hmm, I guess this thought doesn’t thread – I can’t dismiss Smith for transporting elements of her story from her poems and other works – all writers cannibalize from their lives.

I feel a fault line, and I’m trying to trace what it is that I feel. I have appreciated every book in this course up until this one – and I would love to know why.

~Eric

Golden Praise for the Novel on Yellow Paper – Naomi

Readers, I find my love and excitement about Pompey overflows every time I open my mouth. Her “foot-off-the-ground novel that came by the left hand” was fun and energetic at every turn (38). And I never knew what was coming. It was a great read-o.

Because Novel on Yellow Paper was the first selection this semester that I really enjoyed, I was excited to share my excitement with other readers. To my shock and dismay, I found that each person I encountered was not as drawn in and enraptured by Stevie Smith’s first novel. I spent some time thinking about what it was in this novel that attracted me so much and I determined that it boils down to the format and the style.

While it might seem silly or distracting to readers, I particularly enjoyed the yellow paper. The reason for this choice was directly mentioned in the beginning pages of the novel when Pompey explains, “I am typing this book on yellow paper. It is very yellow paper, and it is this very yellow paper because often sometimes I am typing it in my room at my office, and the paper I use for Sir Phoebus’s letters is blue paper with his name across the corner ‘Sir Phoebus Ullwater, Bt.’ and those letters of Sir Phoebus’s go out to all over the world. And that is why I type yellow, typing for my own pleasure, and not sending it by clerical error to the stockbrokers for a couple of thou” (15). This seemingly minor detail presents a lot of information to the reader. We know that Pompey is writing at work, what she does for work and some of why she is writing. Some of you (unfortunately) got copies of this book on regular, boring book print. That is a terrible shame. The format of yellow paper is fun and I enjoyed the experimental nature of it. One of my favorite novels, House of Leaves, also employs experimental format, so perhaps that is why I was so taken by the page color.

But it was the style of the narration that really made me fall in love; I found it to be reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye. Pompey is amazing. Her jumping from story to story was fun because I got to see inside of her head. The narration, while completely stream of conscious, gave me deep insight to this character. Pompey talks about her relationships with friends and lovers and family. Sometimes this is done with humor and sometimes if is quite sad. I found myself laughing (and relating) when she is walking with the Eckhardt boy, fantasizing about having a drink when, “suddenly providence whispered in my ear: You got a flask, so I kept smiling smiling all the way after that till we got there” (97) (not that I carry a flask with me wherever I go … because I don’t). Or where she is giving a sex education lesson and ask the reader to “count up the number of your married friends who have has accidents, little Jacks and Jills that have had to be fed and educated” (139) (mine is named Avalon). If Pompey were a real, live person, I would want her to be my best friend. I would want to share her flask and laugh at her jokes and ruminate on lost loves with her.

At the end, or the beginning, of it all, I think that Stevie Smith knew that her style and format would not be for everyone, and her narrator acknowledges that early in the novel when she writes, “And if you are a foot-on-the-ground person, this book will be for you a desert of weariness and exasperation. So put it down. Leave it alone. It was a mistake you made to get this book. You could not know” (39). Well, I for one am happy that I did pick up this book and that I am a “foot-off-the-ground” type.

Cheers.

Smith, Stevie. Novel on Yellow Paper. 1936. New Directions Books, 1994.

Van Gogh, Vincent. The Sower with Setting Sun. 1888, oil on canvas, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands.

Don’t Judge a Book by its First Three Pages–Meghan

After reading the first three pages of Novel on Yellow Paper, I closed the book, walked into my living room, and handed the book to my fiancee saying, “I don’t get it.” He took Novel on Yellow Paper from me and read the first three pages aloud. When he was done I said, “see, it doesn’t make any sense and I hate it.” Though I didn’t really hate the book and I was already frustrated by the numerous other things I had to read or write that night, I judged the book very early. Eventually, I picked the book up again and continued reading. I was still frustrated with the style and found myself drifting off into other thoughts because I wasn’t fully following the text. I found the stream of consciousness writing difficult to follow, and, at first, everything seemed very random.  As I continued to read, I started understanding–or at least following–the style. The use of stream of consciousness proved to be an interesting perspective. I began to appreciate the witty comments, humor, and historical awareness that Smith presented throughout the novel.

Although I did develop an appreciation for the style and content, I still wasn’t engulfed in the text. I was curious what kind of reviews the book had and if any reflected my frustration. I found a review that called Novel on Yellow Paper a “book of a lifetime” and spoke highly of the text. I found a another review that aligned more closely with my own views of the novel claiming it to a little frustrating and have little plot, but many ideas.

I also found a blog that claimed Novel on Yellow Paper to be Woolfian because of the stream of consciousness style in which it is written. However, I disagree with this claim because I found Mrs. Dalloway much easier to follow. Plus, as we discussed in class, Woolf does not use a stream of consciousness style, but rather free indirect discourse. Mrs. Dalloway also has a clear plot (Clarissa preparing for a party), whereas Novel on Yellow Wallpaper does not. I can see a slight connection between the two novels, but I

In the end, though it honestly was not my favorite book, I found Novel on Yellow Paper to be an interesting read. I think my favorite thing about the book, aside from the literary references and humor, was that the novel was reflective of random thoughts that happen throughout the day. Though this was also the part that I found frustrating, I began to see the artistic element in stringing together random thoughts. Also, I thought it was interesting that the random thoughts ended up not really being random because they were reflective of events and interactions in Pompey’s life. I think thought tangents, like Pompey’s, happen to everyone (at least they do to me), and you wonder how your brain got there. Though I wouldn’t place Novel on Yellow Paper on the same level as Mrs. Dalloway, I agree that the novel is compelling and witty.

Here are a couple recordings of Stevie Smith reciting her work. Novel on Yellow Paper is not included, but I think it is interesting and useful to hear how the author reads their work.

The Witch and Lolly Willowes: Spoilers (Did I mention spoilers?)

by Simon Cropp

Understanding modernity in a literary context becomes difficult as Rita Felski notes in “Modernity and Feminism” due to “a cacophony of different and often dissenting voices” (13) trying to explain exactly what the modern is. Felski writes, “To be modern is to be on the side of progress, reason, and democracy, or, by contrast to align oneself with ‘disorder, despair, and anarchy’” (13). But this is only a piece of what modernity can be for Feslki.

Felski explains that modernity for some “comprises an irreversible historical process that includes not only the repressive forces of bureaucratic and capitalist domination but also the emergence of a potentially emancipatory, . . . self-critical, ethics of communicative reason” (13). These concepts are important in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s novel Lolly Willow’s when Laura sheds the oppressive shackles of “repressive forces” to ultimately find a kind of emancipation from the life she lived under a dominating, patriarchal rule.

Much can be said about the fact that Laura moves under the rule of another male authority– represented by Satan–when she becomes one of the witches of Great Mop. But it is also worth noting, the repressive order of Britain’s primarily male hegemonic structure no longer rules her, and Satan’s “rules” are easily understood to be much looser and more in line with Laura’s self-interests. Whatever rules he may have.

An interesting recuperation of the spirit of Warner’s story has recently occurred in the world of independent movies with the release of 2015’s horror film The Witch. Whether or not director Robert Eggers is a closet Lolly Willowes fan is not worth the debate, but the thematic core of his film is remarkably similar to Warner’s classic text. While vastly different in tone, Eggers presents his viewers with a young female protagonist named Thomasin who is the oldest daughter in a family run by a strict, puritan patriarch. Her father’s adherence to religious doctrine places Thomasin in the role of serving her family with no regard for herself. When her father decides the seventeenth-century puritan village they live in is not holy enough, he moves his small family deep into the woods to be closer to God. Instead, Thomasin and her family find themselves overcome by a series of tragic events that could be due to nature, madness, or perhaps a haunting by a witch who lives in the woods.

This concept of Puritan developments in the seventeenth-century becoming too big, too modern, is not something only believed by Thomasin’s father.

In her article “The Puritan Cosmopolis: A Covenantal View,” Nan Goodman writes about recent scholarship on Puritan globalism “that defined English sovereignty in this period and that characterized the colonization and imperialism inherent in the Puritans’ settlements in New England” (4). Compare this concept of Puritan globalism to Felski’s expanded notions on modernity. Feslki writes, “On the other hand, the idea of the modern was deeply implicated from its beginnings with a project of domination over those seen to lack this capacity for reflective reasoning. In the discourses of colonialism, for example, the historical distinction between the modern present and the primitive past was mapped onto the spatial relations between Western and non-Western societies” (14). Colonialism has a long history in the United States, and despite commonly held views that Puritans retreated from the modernizing of the world, the opposite is perhaps true in the sense that Puritans used the modernizing of the world for their own proselytizing.

So when The Witch begins with Thomasin’s father, William, delivering a speech before his friends, neighbors, and perhaps family, that he has presumably traveled from England with to start life anew, the meaning of the speech has particular relevance given Felski’s and Goodman’s context. William says in the opening of the film, “What went we out into this wilderness to find? Leaving our country, kindred, our fathers’ houses? We have travailed a vast ocean. For what? For what? What went we out into this wilderness to find? Leaving our country, kindred, our fathers’ houses? We have travailed a vast ocean. For what? For what? . . . Was it not for the pure and faithful dispensation of the Gospels, and the Kingdom of God?” Here seems to stand a man who does not understand the method and practice of those he thought he knew. So William takes his family and moves them deep into the New England countryside to find a more pure way toward “the Kingdom of God.”

Soon puritanical madness overtakes the family, and because Thomasin is on the verge of womanhood, the family turns on her and believes she has made a pact with Satan. That she has become a witch herself. As viewers, we know this to be untrue, and if the images on the screen are to be trusted, we know a witch in the woods is causing the family’s torment. Thomasin behaves exactly as a young woman of her time is supposed to behave. She takes care of children, cooks, cleans, prays, and does everything the hegemonic order of her community has asked.

At one point in the film, her father—who seems to be her only true ally in the family—suggests to her mother that they take her back to the village and marry her off. That her problems will be fixed by this solution.

The mother’s anger wins the father over though, and they decide Thomasin is a witch, though the film clearly depicts her as innocent. Dutiful, good-natured, kind-hearted. Everything she has been raised to be. It seems as if her fate will be to be burned as a witch though she clearly is not one at all.

Ultimately tragedy befalls the entire family, and Thomasin learns there is a witch in the woods, but worse, Satan has been on their property the entire time hiding amidst their livestock. He has been watching her suffer at the hands of her family, and in the end, he takes a human form and offers her freedom from the oppressive control of her community. All she has to do is sign his book, or consent to his rule, become a witch, like the other witches that have been in the woods all along.

Thomasin takes him up on his offer, and the film ends with her gleeful laughter as she leaves Satan behind and joins a coven of witches around a fire. Finally, she is free from the oppressive rule of her society.

Who is God When the Devil is a Loving Huntsman?

I had easily thirty-plus questions while reading this fantastic, fantastic novel. (Seriously, I’ve already bought a copy for a friend’s birthday.) But the question I’ll engage with is this: is the devil (as presented in Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner) the “god” of shortcuts? And who is God when the Devil is the loving huntsman (Warner)?

The devil’s motivations are about as clear as his natural form, by which I mean they aren’t clear at all. The devil appears as lightning and thunder, as a man walking through the woods, potentially as bees and a kitten, and finally, definitively, as a gardener. A male gardener! The audacity. (Why did the Devil, and by extension Warner, decide to appear to Laura as a male? Going with traditional tropes or what? There’s another great thesis right here.)

What are his motivations? Is he setting women free from society or is he capturing them for himself? We only get Laura’s conjectures here, and it’s worth noting that the Devil appears to have little interest in correcting her thoughts. Oddly teacher-like, he tells Laura, “I encourage you to talk, not that I may know all your thoughts, but that you may” (pg. 216). He’s not here to be analyzed. He’s here to help Laura mentally unpack.

Whatever he exacts from his servants, we are left unaware. While the entirety of Great Mop appears to be under the devil’s “persuasion”, we are only privy to one other’s interaction with the devil. The man behind the mask, described as both China-man like and as a young girl’s face on pg. 181.

On pg. 217-18, the devil describes the masked man thusly.

“‘He’s one of these brilliant young authors,’ replied the Devil. ‘I believe Titus knows him. He sold me his soul on the condition that once a week he should be without doubt the most important person at a party’”

When Laura asks why he didn’t barter to just be a talented author, the Devil replies, “He preferred to take a short-cut, you see” (pg 218).

What shortcut, then, has Laura taken in exchange for her servitude to the Devil?
What if, just as the writer skipped the work and went straight to the reward, Laura too has skipped the work of establishing the independence she values so much?

In fact, this is exactly what she has done. Lolly Willowes employs magic realism to disappear the feminist struggle. Who needs to use your own voice to engage and enact your personal freedom when the Devil is around to casually throw wrenches (or bees) into your oppressor’s way? It seems Warner is unable to completely imagine a world free of some sort of patriarchy, or at least some form of oppression. Unable to leave the binary, twentysomething know-it-alls might say. But then again, who’s to concretely say she’s wrong?

Examining the Devil character seems, on the surface, to make things even more confusing. During his time helping Laura, no blood is shed, and no feelings are hurt. Indeed, the Devil solves the problem of Titus by marrying him off! How is this Devil character so nice – patiently waiting for Laura to come around to him, correcting not only her life but the other lives around her down beneficial lanes? How is he such a gentle, kind being, giving Laura time and open-ended questions to come fully face to face with who she has become – exactly what one might wish from a teacher?

This is problematic, or at least worrying, if we allow what the other literature has to say about Satan as he appears in other literature. Or is it?

Satan is the revolutionary-thinking hero of Paradise Lost, and (spoiler alert) in the Genesis section of the Bible, assuming the snake is the Devil (never actually stated in the Bible – read this critically to analyse the typical shaky logic-ing required to equate them), all the Devil does is tell a different story. He states that God is lying, and that Adam and Eve will not die if they eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Instead, they’ll just get knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 4-5). Which is exactly what happens.

And do Adam and Eve die? Or do they just get kicked out of paradise because God now fears they’ll eat from the Tree of Life and become just like him? (Genesis 22.) (Side note – if you want to argue that A & E did die, as God then banished them from Eden and doomed them to one day die, 1. This is lazy and redactive – how are they threatened with death if the concept doesn’t yet exist?, and 2. Eve’s “mistake” is then the only reason they leave the garden and start all of humanity. So the eating of the apple, just like the tree’s name implies, gives them knowledge, perhaps, but also the lives of everyone who has subsequently lived on Earth. It does not, opposite of popular belief, give them death. Weird that knowledge is somehow anti-religious though.)

I’ve successfully connected to one of my other questions – who is God when the Devil is a loving, harmless huntsman? Where the Devil works and low-key lusts for his subjects, values and enlightens them, is it correct or fair to paint God as the Devil’s direct opposite? As aloof, removed, a thing of artifice in opposition to the thunder, wolves and foxes and wildness of the Devil? (218ish). If the Devil is pro-feminist, pro-nature and pro-independence, what is God? The critique is unflattering, even if Warner never directly brings Him into the text.

~Eric

Why Not Vote for Her?

by Simon Cropp

If I wanted to take a singular positive message from the film Strong Sisters, I could say I should be proud I come from a state that is so supportive of women’s rights, but then, I wonder, how misogynistic principles still guide principles of so many men, and I don’t mean an outright hatred of women, but instead a subconscious belief that women are inferior. I’ve always considered myself to have overcome to this belief of inferiority both consciously and subconsciously, but as I listened to the stories of Colorado’s women fighting to gain respect in the state government, an old fear gnaws at me.

What if those same, oppressive methods of thought still pervade my own subconscious views? I have tried to apply my thought processes to the decision-making processes involved specifically invoked by the film—how I deal with the concept of women in power.

It is certainly arguable if the Presidential seat in the United States is truly the highest level of singular power in our country when considering how capital influences every stage of the political process. So when a person like Bernie Sanders comes along and funds his campaign through grassroots organization and claims to only take donations from people, not groups or institutions, it is easy to get swept up in that momentum. And when Sanders was swept from the table leaving the first female nominee of a major political party ready to take the final steps towards the Presidential Office, it is also easy for me to hedge. Or to say: I don’t want to vote for a person supported by the corporate world. Our democracy is in trouble, and she represents exactly as what I see the problems to be.

Yet, what if I have voted in every election since 2000—every election since I was old enough to vote—when George W. Bush faced off against Al Gore, because those elections, I thought, had drastic implications for America.

I have to ask myself. What has really changed since 2000? Had Bernie Sanders ran his campaign in 2004 and failed to achieve the nomination of the Democratic Party, would I then have not, from the sweltering heat of Guantanamo Bay, cast my vote in that election? Would I have refused to vote during Barak Obama’s historic run?

I believe I would have voted in those elections, just the same, disillusioned or not. So again, I ask myself, what has changed? Hillary Clinton is what changed.

It is easy to sit and express voter apathy when things do not go exactly as I wish in an election. A time existed when I wouldn’t declare myself a Republican or a Democrat, but I do side with Democratic politics now. I have my entire life, to be honest, and I don’t mind sharing this. I don’t have any hatred or loathing for the other side, but I do know where my values are in terms of my political beliefs. And they have always aligned with the Democratic party.

Except this time. Why? Right. Hillary Clinton is what changed my mind.

Perhaps the problem rests with her scandal surrounding the emails. But then, I have to admit, as much as I have tried to parse out that scandal, as much as I have tried to fully understand it, I can’t. I had secret clearance during my time overseas in Guantanamo Bay, so I feel like I have some vague notion of protecting classified documents, but Clinton’s supposed lack of protection for a vast number of documents never made sense to me. Then, after a long FBI investigation, she was cleared of any wrong-doing. I’ve heard this is because she gets privileged treatment, but the more I think about how she is treated, the more I think: this is not how the privileged are treated.

Well, there is always Whitewater, right? The alleged charges that Clintons used campaign funds inappropriately. But ultimately, no evidence exists that these charges have any validity. And in the United States, the burden of proof is on the accuser, and after my year of working with “enemy combatants” in Guantanamo Bay, who often turned out to be just men picked up and turned over with no evidence, then held against for years of their lives, I came home with a stalwart belief in the burden of proof. So why should that apply to everyone but Clinton?

She does take big donations from the evil Wall Street. Still, though, Wall Street manages the majority of Americans’ retirement plans. I suppose it makes sense to work with the people of Wall Street and not paint them as villains. They hold the collective, financial futures of America in their hands. I have a dark, angry spot in my heart for Wall Street, but I’m not a politician. I don’t need to work with them and protect the futures of my fellow citizens.

So what the hell is it? Her health? She apparently collapsed recently. But hasn’t she been endlessly campaigning? Is she the first potential candidate to have health problems? Andrew Jackson had bleeding lungs (and was a massive racist), FDR was partially paralyzed, Grover Cleveland was the textbook picture of poor health, John F. Kennedy had significant health issues, and Ronald Reagan’s health issues are widely known. So what is it about her health?

The answer has to be clear at this point: my change in political occurred, subconsciously, due to oppressive patterns of thought directed toward women in power. I have voted in every election since I was eighteen years old, and I know where my political values rest. Clinton’s record speaks for itself, and her values largely align with my own. That it took so much for me to see this is difficult for me.

The reason I didn’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton can only boil down to one, singular fact: she is a woman. While embarrassed, humiliated (and uncertain if I even want to share this horrible story) by this fact, I am glad I figured it out. I’m glad I’m over that oppressive line of thinking, and I hope this allows me to be more introspective in the future.

Strong Sisters- Women’s influence in Government

After watching strong sisters, I became fixated on the concept of women in government in different time periods. The thought that women in modern day America are still fighting for their equality in government is both startling and revealing when it comes to this issue. This prompted me to write a paper on this issue for another class in which I compared the influence of women in government between two medieval texts: The Arabian Nights and the Irish text The Tain Bo Cuailnge. In this paper, I discovered that a women’s most powerful influence would come from talking to the King in the bedchamber. Women did in fact have a very powerful influence in each tale, but only indirectly through each king. Each text had a different overall outlook on women, the Irish being very negative and the Arabian being very progressive, however any actual role within government was virtually nonexistent. Although this was in the middle ages, women are still not equally represented. It is very encouraging, however, that women are finally being recognized in governments around the world. For example, I just read an article on the mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, in which she faced major backlash for vetoing the city’s Olympic bid for 2024. Raggi’s decision is not only the right one in my opinion, but also a very brave one. For a woman mayor to veto the largest sporting event on Earth undoubtedly conjured up a whole lot of sexism. She and other women are currently trailblazing through their nation’s governments, which is very exciting. Maybe women will finally find equal representation in government in the near future.

-Timmy Box