The Norton Book of Women's Lives: Reflections

  Word Count: 510 From The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway “There was no getting around that the work was there and had to be done, and so I fell early into a role it took me many years to escape, the person in the family who would rise to the occasion, no matter the size of the task” (157). “Presented with this plan and a request to finance it, her startled woolbrokers remonstrated with her about the hazards of a woman taking charge of her own affairs” (167). “Some of my first lessons in feminism came from her outraged conversations with the hapless valuation agent sent to inventory [...] her original investment in furniture, linen, silver and household equipment was now merged with my fathers estate. No value was attributed either to the contributions she had made to the enterprise through the investment of her capital fifteen years before” (168). Jill had to grow up at a very young age. Her brothers had gone off to school during a very difficult time, a huge drought and W...

  Word Count: 468 From A Daughter of Han by Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI “My parents had left me a good name, though they had left me nothing else. I could not spoil that for them” (634). “But I was through with begging. For a year I had begged for my food but had lived in my own home. Now I could not live in my home and must ‘come out’, even though women of my family had never ‘come out’ before” (635). Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI deals with the stress of poverty and addiction in this story. Her husband is evidently addicted to opium and looked for every opportunity to use the very little money they received to buy opium. It is true that addiction can cause people to do crazy things but I think the fact that the option that he acted on was to sell his daughter. I think that is a pretty extreme example but it shows how the society that Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI lived in viewed women, more or less as throwaways.  I think Ning Lao T'AI-T'AI’s ultimate reaction to what her husban...

Word Count: 486 From Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng “I believe the main reason I was able to survive my ordeal was that the Maoist Revolutionaries failed to break my fighting spirit” (128) After Nien Cheng was imprisoned, she went through a lot of abuse from the prison guards. When reading this, one of the things I wondered was how she survived this torment. I think it was a combination of the small kindnesses shown to her in the prison, the way she was raised, and the fact that they never broke her spirit. Most of the people she interacts with in the prison are horrible to her in many ways. Most often, she was forced to endure a lot of physical suffering combined with the sense of doom she felt knowing that she could die from her wounds. Nien Cheng herself said that they did not break her fighting spirit, but they did try. Even when these guards tried to take away her choices, she still found the ability to make her own choices and that was the reason that her fighting spi...

  Word Count: 475 From A Life of her Own by Emilie Carles “The idea of anyone else making my decisions for me was revolting, and I was not at a loss for arguments” (89). “I know we could have demanded compensation, but neither Jean nor I had the heart to take the necessary steps; we both thought it was better not to look back [...] life was stronger than all the rest” (93). “When there are children, no matter what you do, it's always the woman who knocks herself out” (101) “The dead must not prevent those who are alive from living” (107) Emilie is the first woman we have discussed that lived the societal standard through marriage and children, however that does not mean that she wasn't fighting some of these standards. When Jean came to ask for permission to marry Emilie, her family did not like the idea. The biggest concern for Emilie’s family was that Jean had no money or possessions and during that time the man was supposed to provide in a relationship. In fact, Jean calls...

  Word Count: 466 From Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain “One had to go on living because it was less trouble than finding a way out, but the early ideals of the War were all shattered, trampled into the mud which covered the bodies of those with whom I had shared them. What was the use of hypocritically seeking out exalted consultations for death, when I knew so well that there were none?” (86). World War One was a devastating time for all parties involved and Vera Brittain’s account of her experience proves that even further. She had just lost her fiance not long before and had heard about a battle in which her brother might have been in. She knew the outcome before the man came to her door, her brother had died in that battle.  Her account describes the struggle of hope in times like these. Before she knew for sure her brother was dead she said that she knew it but couldn't let herself believe it. She said, “I couldn't bring myself even to wrap up the Spectator and Sa...

  Word Count: 541 From The Italics Are Mine by Nina Berberova “I now see a kind of compensation for what I lacked as a girl. I sought not only the profession itself, but the act of choosing it, that act of conscious decision” (69). “The realization of my first strong desire to choose, to decide, to find, to move myself consciously in a chosen direction gave me for my whole life, as I now see it, a feeling of victory not over someone else but over myself, not bestowed from on high but personally acquired” (69). This story is a look at Nina Berverova’s childhood through the lens of her older self. Through this lens we get to see a more accurate assessment of her motivations as a child. The most interesting connection to me is the idea of her obsession over choosing a career being based in the idea that she had felt trapped as a child and felt she could not make her own decisions. Nina wanted to decide her future career as a child because she wanted to have something in her life t...

  Word Count: 578 From The Prime of Life by Simone de Beauvoir “We had no external limitations, no overriding authority, no imposed pattern of existence. We created our own links with the world, and freedom was the very essence of our existence” (59). “Our indifference to money was a luxury we could afford only because we had enough of it to avoid real poverty and the need for hard or unpleasant work. Our open-mindedness was bound up with a cultural background and the sort of activities accessible only to people of our social class. It was our conditioning as young petit bourgeois intellectuals that led us to believe ourselves free of all conditioning whatsoever” (62). Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Prime of Life” discusses the discovery of freedom in her life. It is an exploration of what freedom looks like and how it was limited previously. De Beauvoir seems to convey freedom as a lack of limitations, expectations or impositions from others. Simone grew up in the 1910s and 20s which ...

  Word Count: 307 From Daughters of de Beauvoir This documentary accurately defines why the editor of “The Norton Book of Women’s Lives”  included Simone de Beauvoir in the collection. Simone was a very inspirational woman who accomplished many things in her life. Her influence was greatly established in France, especially among women where she was their first exposure to a relatable narrative in the perspective of a real woman, discussing real topics, experiences and feelings.  Simone was a woman, who did not fall into the expectations of society or her parents. Simone never got married and never had kids, her life did not revolve around the home, it revolved around her studies, which was relatively abnormal during this time. Simone remained committed to her own work and maintained a sense of integrity without giving up life as a woman. Many women saw her as an important role model in their lives. Since she wrote so many books about all different aspects and times of...

  Word Count: 807 From “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou “One crossed her eyes, stuck her thumbs into both sides of her mouth and said,“Look here Annie”. Grandmother hummed on and the apron strings trembled. I wanted to throw a handful of black pepper into their faces, to throw lye on them, to scream that they were dirty, scummy peckerwoods, but i knew I was as clearly imprisoned behind the scene as the actors outside were confined to their roles” (44) “Why couldn't she have come inside the sweet, cool store when we saw them breasting the hill? What did she prove?” (45) “Something had happened out there, which I couldn’t completely understand, but I could see that she was happy […] Whatever the contest had been out front, I knew Momma had won” (45) In the beginning of this story, we get to see the character of Momma, the narrator's grandmother. She is a very strict woman who expects respect and obedience. This is why once the white girls come up to antagonize ...

  Word Count: 522 From “Introduction” by Phyllis Rose In this introduction, the editor briefly traces the growth of female ‘life writers’ in history and their importance. The women whose texts she picked were bold and through their boldness they allow for more and more women to open themselves up to this hope that they never believed was possible.  As a young girl, she mentions she was seeking a role model but none existed that seemed to be worthy in their own right rather than worthy simply because of a marriage or because worthiness was given to them. Of course, these role models did exist however she simply did not have access to them like she would a male role model of the same qualifications. But she felt that the representation of women consisted of only what the public wanted to see of women, which was their proper side. She found she related to parts of it but she wanted to see wild women in action, because that is what she truly identified with.  The first text t...