The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (2006) by Maggie O'Farrell presents the powerlessness of women through Esme's plight into the institution after her refusal to conform to married life, and also via Kitty's expectations of becoming a wife and mother (and therefore not continuing her education). O'Farrell also uses Iris as an example of a modern-day character who challenges this when he has sex with his half-brother and a married man. In contrast, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), perhaps motivated by her own feminist agenda, presents female powerlessness in the context of the early 19th century, through the character of Antoinette, who is forced to marry an Englishman in order to live. accepted by society. Rhys also compares her to Christophine, a black woman who lives alone and practices Obeah, a magic considered taboo. In both novels, patriarchal power controls all the female characters in one way or another, whether through money, marriage, or freedom of speech. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIris from The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and Christophine from Wide Sargasso Sea are both examples of women who, it can be argued , have some power within society due to their decisions to rebel; both characters are unconventional depictions of women, engaging in unorthodox behavior and valuing their own interests and needs above conformity to traditional expectations of women. First, Iris has a sexual relationship with a married man, Luke, and with his half-brother, Alex. This would be considered wrong by society, as she has not undergone the traditional conventions of engaging in a marital relationship before a sexual relationship. Although views of marriage in the early 2000s have evolved rapidly from earlier ones, women today are still expected to marry a respectable husband and be faithful to him. Therefore, women who commit adultery are considered sinful and not respectable. Sex with a half-brother or half-sister could be interpreted as incest, even if not related by blood, and deemed immoral. Despite this, Iris has sex with these two men, showing her lack of respect for these opinions. Perhaps O'Farrell is implying that Iris has some power over these male characters through sex; Luke repeatedly disgraces his wife to be with her and Alex ignores their sibling status to have sex with her. However, she must carry out these acts in secret and expresses her guilt by telling Luke, "I don't want you to leave her because of me" when he wants to talk to his wife about her. The use of "she" as a term of address – as opposed to her name – suggests the idea of ​​guilt as it is perhaps an attempt to completely depersonalize her to avoid feeling empathy for She. Additionally, Iris knows that having sex with Alex is wrong because O'Farrell reveals in a stream of consciousness that she "can't imagine what Luke would say, how he would react", meaning she avoids to tell people because she is aware of it. the negative reaction it would have. The fact that Iris knows that what she does will not be accepted by society reveals that she is still under the influence of social expectations. Her freedom is still restricted, although much less so than Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea or Esme and Kitty in The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. Ofeven, Christophine is unconventional in the way she lives alone and has children without a husband. Rhys creates a contrast in independence between the newly married Antoinette and Christophine. Although she is a former slave, Christophine has the ability to live individually with her own house and garden and is free to end a relationship if she wishes with her own possessions. She disapproves of Rochester's control over Antoinette, telling her: "Three children I have...each a different father, but no husband, I thank my God." I keep my money. I don't give it to any worthless man. She clearly despises traditional marriage and male control, implied by the words "I thank my God", revealing how close to her heart it is. The religious imagery suggests that she feels accepted by God, which contrasts with popular Christian beliefs of the time (that he only approved of child marriage). In the 1840s, women were expected to be entirely dependent on men and all their property went to their husbands. The fact that Christophine rejects this shows that she is not obligated to conform to these expectations. She is also free to act as she pleases like Iris, practicing Obeah, a faith considered sinful and strange to the people of that time, often wrongly associated with witchcraft. But like Iris, Christophine is also confined to secrecy; she must live far from civilization so as not to be frowned upon for her choices. Eventually, Christophine is arrested for her obeah practices, rendering her powerless and unable to protect Antoinette from her fate in England. The consequences of Christophine's behavior are much more serious than Iris's, because in the 1930s, women were treated much harsher than recently because they were unconventional. She risks imprisonment simply for having a belief that is unknown and poorly understood by society. Therefore, although these two characters are able to defy society's expectations of women, they fail to master them. Iris and Christophine are forced to go into hiding in order to avoid being punished for their actions, meaning that they are still controlled in many ways by expectations and ultimately powerless in a patriarchal society. Additionally, Antoinette and Esme seek refuge from the pressures of patriarchy via nature and express themselves in ways that do not conform to society's expectations of women. As a result, their parents resent them because they cannot understand them. For example, one of Esme's earliest memories is of her being tied to a chair. Esme remembers being “tied to a chair, the binding tight around her waist” during a meal where her mother was entertaining guests. This restraint literally implies that Esme is trapped in a world where she does not belong. The adjectives “tied” and “tight” are both very aggressive and powerful words, usually associated with a person in prison or the victim of punishment. The fact that Esme is tied to the chair via her mother's sling could symbolize how her mother chooses to restrict Esme and that she believes in discipline over understanding and love. It is then explained that Esme "liked the space under the table". This is something that most people would not be able to appreciate or understand, because there is no place where people are supposed to go under the table. As Esme is a small child, this behavior is not particularly strange and most people would laugh at it these days. However, in the 1930s, behavior like this would be treated as unusual. Members of society, especially thoseof the upper class, were all expected to follow a certain social etiquette, and their idea of ​​"normal" was that everyone got impeccable manners. When all the guests get up to watch something, Esme gets stuck in her chair. The literal separation between Esme and everyone else who left the table could symbolize the fact that Esme will never fit into society. Esme then notices how “the lilies stand, proud and impassive, in a glass vase; the clock counts the seconds, a napkin slides on a chair.” The use of a list of adjectives allows the reader to gain insight into Esme's thought process and we see how easily distracted yet observant she is. The personification and natural imagery of the clock countdown and the proud, impassive lilies could foreshadow future negative events that will happen to Esme, as it is an unnatural vision of the objects. This could also imply that Esme has a vivid imagination as she is able to give human qualities to inanimate objects. Additionally, Esme is discouraged by her father from continuing her studies at university. In the 1930s, women were not expected to access higher education and were limited to the private sphere, as Kitty's stream of consciousness shows: “I wasn't supposed to go to school. It wasn't done, a girl my age. I had to stay and help at home.” They were expected to provide a clean, well-kept home for their husbands, cook for him, and raise their children. Men, on the other hand, were able to continue their studies in order to access respectable employment in the public sphere. Likewise, the ideals of traditional feminine etiquette are introduced to Antoinette when she is a girl at the convent school. Miss Germaine and Hélène de Plana demonstrate the traditional British feminine attributes that Antoinette must learn and embody, including beauty, chastity, and gentle, even-tempered manners. Mother Saint Justine praises the "steady" and "imperturbable" sisters, suggesting that this is an ideal of femininity and that Antoinette's hot and fiery nature is undesirable and should be suppressed. In fact, it is Antoinette's passion that contributes to her implied madness and unhappy fate. Antoinette's love of nature and his eccentric personality are also scorned by Rochester, who claims that he "hated mountains and hills, rivers and rain". I hated sunsets, no matter what color they were, I hated their beauty, their magic and the secret I would never know until I decided to take him to England. The repetition of “I hated” depicts his passion and the listing technique reveals the extent of his dislike, as he wants his wife to be “normal” and submissive rather than expressive. Rhys compares the garden at the Coulibri estate to the biblical Garden of Eden because it is vibrant and luxurious, but it also exudes a sense of loss of innocence. She claims that the garden has "gone wild", attacking the senses and that the flowers are described as appearing slightly sinister, with one orchid having "the air of a snake", arguably reflecting the decline of man towards the greed and sensuality due to the arrival of women in biblical history. . This personification of nature is similar to how Esmé describes it, revealing their equally vivid imagination. When remembering going for a walk as a child, she says, "If razor weed cut my legs and arms, I would think, 'That's better than people,'" revealing to how she too was literally separated from society. She looks down on others because she doesn't fit in with them.expectations and is therefore punished and rejected, just as Esme felt as a child. Her love of nature is expressed again when she remembers: “It was like a door opened and I was somewhere else, something else. I am no longer myself. It is clear that Antoinette prefers the natural world to society because it allows her to be free from judgment and alone to do what she wants and be who she wants to be. Both novels explore the idea of ​​marriage as a patriarchal institution and demonstrate how it can be comparable to a business deal or an outcome of convenience rather than a product of romance and true love. For example, faced with the constraints of polite society, Esme rebels and Kitty conforms. Esme is a free spirit, living ahead of her time, having no desire to get married but wanting to go to college and be independent. Kitty is more conventional and desperate for a husband. We get a glimpse of what married life is like for women through Kitty's streams of consciousness, where she reveals snippets of her past. Additionally, as punishment for Esme's unusual behavior, her mother decides that she will "most definitely" go to the party. The finality of the adverb "certainly" reveals that Esme will have no say in the matter and that she will be forced to marry James rather than fall in love with him. Her mother then "takes Esme's arm and pulls her towards the dressing table." This physical image could also represent Esme's helplessness in the situation. The description of how she tells Esme to "sit" and pushes Esme onto the stool" again reinforces this idea, and could also suggest that Esme is dehumanized as pets are usually ordered to sit, alluding to the theme of female ownership. In the 1930s, women were owned by their parents until they met a man who would own them in marriage. The phrase "marry her off to the Dalziel boy" suggests that her mother does not care about Esme's happiness, but is only interested in getting rid of her and protecting their family's image. James comes from a respectable family and seems to be Esme's only hope as a potential husband, which makes Esme's mother desperate to want them to marry, as was what was expected of women at that time. Her mother then wonders if "a few months as James Dalziel's wife will be enough to break your spirits." Perhaps O'Farrell is trying to suggest to the reader that marriage, and its patriarchal nature, would be oppressive enough that even Esme, with her wild personality and imagination, would be considered "normal." men are also explored in Rhys's novel. After the death of her first husband, it can be interpreted that Antoinette's mother views her second marriage to Mr. Mason as an escape from her life in Coulibri and a chance to regain status in society. In the 1800s, upper- and middle-class men viewed marriage as an opportunity to increase their wealth by giving them access to their wife's inheritance. In Antoinette, as in her mother, femininity is linked to a kind of childish dependence on male characters, and it is this dependence which contributes to the disappearance of these two women. They both marry white English men in the hopes of becoming accepted members of society and no longer seen as outsiders, but the men betray them and abandon or hide them. Antoinette, like Esme, also has little influence over whether or whom she marries. She and Rochester have never met until now and therefore barely know each other, but through the arrangement of Mr. Mason and Rochester's family, it is decided that he would bebetter for them to get married. All of a woman's property and money had to belong entirely to their husband until the first Married Women's Property Act of 1870. Without this money, a married woman was economically helpless. Rochester was left without an inheritance, but he claims that "thirty thousand pounds was paid to me without question or condition" when he married Antoinette, thus protecting him financially. This suggests that marriage is more like a business deal than true love, as Rochester describes it: "I didn't buy her, she bought me, or so she thinks." His blunt language could imply his lack of affection towards her and that his only interest is to "never be a disgrace" to his father. Antoinette has no choice but to marry Rochester, otherwise she seems to have no future as a woman. Like Esme, she would not have been expected to go to college or work. Marriage gives her a reason to live, as she is expected to take care of her husband, her home, and her future children, in the same way that Kitty is desperate for a husband because her only skills are within the household. Ultimately, both of these novels feature the protagonists who are forced to enter a patriarchal institution within marriage in order to move on. They are not given the opportunity to succeed independently, which suggests that over time, women are limited to very few options in life and have virtually no freedom of choice. Sex is used by male characters as a means to exert power over women in both cases. novels. This happens in The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox when James rapes Esme and in Wide Sargasso Sea when Rochester has sex with Amélie. James uses his physical strength to push Esme to the ground and, placing a hand over her mouth. The verb "stuck" is incredibly aggressive, revealing his lack of respect for Esme's comfort while also emphasizing his ability to silence Esme without her being able to stop him. Despite her efforts to match his strength when she "kicked" and "hit" him, Esme failed to make any impact on what was happening. The end result of this incident is that Esme is so affected by what happened that she continually screams and is taken into the institution, showing the extreme results of patriarchal power. Likewise, Rochester also uses sex to emotionally harm Antoinette. When he commits adultery with Amélie, it can be argued that Rochester is fully aware of Antoinette's ability to hear them, meaning that he intended to "break" her so that he could have complete control on her. This idea is brought forward when Christophine tells Rochester that he "makes love to her until she drinks it" and that "all you want to do is break her". This creates the idea that Rochester is using sex as a way to control Antoinette and not at all to please her, like James with Esme. The outcome with Antoinette is similar in that she too is imprisoned, but in England with Rochester. Additionally, Kitty and her husband's sexual relationship within their marriage is equally unhealthy, but in a completely different way. We see how obligated she feels to please her husband and have a baby with him, as shown by her shock at him, showing no interest in sex and repeatedly saying, "You must be tired" despite his attempts at submission. She doesn't understand sex, as it would have been considered a taboo subject to discuss with young girls, but she knows that men generally expect it in a marriage. Her husband.