Patriarchal Influences in Maryanne Moll’s Married Women

Patriarchal Influences in Maryanne Moll’s Married Women

Roland Raymond A. Roldan    LIT230   Prado     Ateneo de Naga University

Abstract:

The paper provides a reading of Maryanne Moll’s selected stories in Married Women to augment the intricacies of Bicol feminist thought in the early part of the twenty-first century. The short stories in Married Women add to the existing understanding of what it means to be women in a time when Bicol literature is in full resurgence. A third prize winner at the 55th Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature (2005), Moll reveals sensibilities that are colorfully her own, as a writer and as a person, as she finds her place in a society that has been thoroughly dominated by patriarchy. Maryanne Moll’s literary world is perceived as familiar to those who have lived similar lives as hers, a retelling of stories of grandmothers, mothers, aunts and neighbors in contemporary literature.

Among the stories of Married Women to be discussed here is “This House,” “Home Improvement,” “God is the Space Between,” “Hearth,” and  “Tepid Waters,”   All the stories feature women characters and setting that evoke the familiarity of various places in the Bicol region.  The stories’ narration, exposition of the characters and many other aspects of interweaving of stories   seen as a multifaceted whole, are able to depict facets of a literary universe as only an author would be able to give life—whether it be a vivid depiction of a house teeming with childhood memories, a husband and wife’s argument on how a bathroom should be renovated, portrayals in how one murders a spouse, or a woman’s retelling of marital infidelity as a way to get back at patriarchy.

The writer also assumes his view of reading these short stories regarding issues of feminist discussion in mind, particularly patriarchal assumptions about gender and gender roles that continue to oppress women,  alternatives to the current way on conceptualizes gender as either feminine or masculine,  the relationship between sex and gender (between the ways our bodies are biologically constructed and the genders to which we are assigned), and the relationship between sexuality and gender (between our sexual orientation and the ways in which we are viewed in terms of gender).

As Leah Fritz wrote in Dreamers and Dealers, a discussion of the current women's movement published in 1979: “Women's suffering under sexist tyranny is a common bond among all women, transcending the particulars of the different forms that tyranny takes. Suffering cannot be measured and compared quantitatively. Is the enforced idleness and vacuity of a "rich" woman, which leads her to madness and/ or suicide, greater or less than the suffering of a poor woman who barely survives on welfare but retains somehow her spirit? There is no way to measure such difference, but should these two women survey each other without the screen of patriarchal class, they may find a commonality in the fact that they are both oppressed, both miserable.”

Betty Friedan also writes about the unfortunate condition of women in a patriarchal world: "It is urgent to understand how the very condition of being a housewife can create a sense of emptiness, non-existence, nothingness in women. There are aspects of the housewife role that make it almost impossible for a woman of   adult intelligence to retain a sense of human identity, the firm core of self or "I" without which a human being, man or woman, is not truly alive."

Woman as Other: This House

The short story “This House” by Maryanne Moll seeks to ponder on a woman’s patriarchal oppression, its economic, political, social, and psychological effects wherein the woman is kept in her place. Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including this narrative, whether one is consciously aware of these issues or not, and here it is shown that the behavior of accepting or rejecting how one behaves “like a woman”  not because it is natural to do, so but because one was taught to do so.

This oppression is most apparent in the course of the narration, repeatedly favoring paternal qualities in her choice of words as well as use of metaphors. The narrator’s choice of the pronoun “you” when referring to herself is symbolic to a dogma where the woman is other: she is objectified and marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values, defined by what she allegedly lacks and that men allegedly have.

The pervasiveness of patriarchal ideology raises some important questions in the story. Indeed, patriarchal ideology influences identity and experience so powerfully in ones very modes of thinking and our emotions, can we ever think or speak in a way separate from it? 

In the story’s conclusion, the oppression is manifest and once again complete, as the narrator succumbs to the clutches of patriarchy, deeming her father as her ultimate savior: “You see him before you, as large and perfect as the as the days you spent running…on and on and on…knowing that you will never fall.”

Colors of Loss: Home Improvement

Maryanne Moll’s “Home Improvement” ponders on the strong hold of patriarchy even during times of change and loss. The bedroom argument between Greg and Susan regarding the color of their bathroom is first seen as a renewed exposition to patriarchy: the couple arguing which color to choose conceived as a retelling of the unending conflict between male and female.

The discussion of color ironically puts the argument in a perspective that patriarchy is a strong basis for the existence of racism. As the issue of black vs yellow is shown, the depiction of such a point of view suddenly unravels, revealing experiences that have somehow brought the couple to that particular moment: despite the tragedy, husband and wife are still together.

One then sees the loss of their son as a sort of deus ex machina to quell the avalanche of conflict—a sentimental yielding of patriarchy to honor a dead son.    The unborn daughter becomes a replacement, typical to a patriarchal tactic of yielding to the feminine when it cannot bear the responsibility of actual situations. The woman showing full acceptance of the soon-to-be-born daughter, even while yielding to a dark color blue,  could imply that the patriarchy still wins in the end.

Infidelity as Weapon: Tepid Waters

In the short story “Tepid Waters,” one sees the central character Pat, who is married to Michael, having a phone conversation with her lover Allan, a friend of her ex-boyfriend Bobby. “Allan was an offshoot of an affair Pat had once,” the story starts, referring to her relationship with Bobby, “…in that uneasy stage of rebounding,” which would refer to a post-break-up fling.

She later meets and has sex with Allan, and is filled with distaste, as she inwardly criticizes his undesirable looks and lifestyle. She goes home and takes a bath, and is rejuvenated by that cleansing ritual: “Smiling against the steady stream,” the narration describes at the end, “she felt Michael’s detached love, absent yet definitely omnipresent, and caressing her with constancy and indifference, bathing her in tepid water and retribution.”

The feminine concepts of bowing down to the patriarchy which is duly institutionalized in the establishment of marriage, the story here intimates that infidelity could be a silent weapon to defy the status quo. The powerful male is hereby undermined by resorting to unfaithfulness on the part of the female, as she asserts her power that it is she who has the freedom to choose her own sex partners. She replaces the powerful male with a weak one, and thus the powerful male is humiliated before her eyes, an enemy she can take care of, even in secret.

The complication of extramarital relationships as told in the story is thoroughly discussed by feminist bell hooks: “Usually adult males who are unable to make emotional connections with the women they choose to be intimate with are frozen in time, unable to allow themselves to love for fear that the loved one will abandon them. If the first woman they passionately loved, the mother, was not true to her bond of love, then how can they trust that their partner will be true to love…. This testing does not heal the wound of the past, it merely reenacts it, for ultimately the woman will become weary of being tested and end the relationship, thus reenacting the abandonment. This drama confirms for many men that they cannot put their trust in love. They decide that it is better to put their faith in being powerful, in being dominant.”

And yet, hooks also declares: “For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”

Male and Female as partners: Hearth

In the short story “Hearth”, Elmo, Clarissa, and their sons Tommy and Jimmy are on their way from a middle-class residence in Paranaque to an ill-maintained ancestral house in Tigaon, Camarines Sur. Their family suffered a terrible misfortune: the house that they thought was theirs is gone, and worse, Elmo is now on the run, evading arrest.  Elmo’s realization to this reality gives him an idea, that of living the simpler life at the countryside. His efforts to ensure acceptance to this idea led him to “sell” it to Clarissa and the boys. He first presents it as a summer vacation, and all seem fine, except that by not telling the truth.

This repression of reality, and the debilitating feeling that accompany it, would be viewed as evidence of patriarchy’s unrelenting control despite his utter failure to manage the household.  It was only much later that Elmo decides to tell the truth to Clarissa: they will be living there, from then on. Clarissa, very much angry by the deception, had this to say: “how can you do this to me, Elmo?’ Clarissa's initial inability of understanding the situation, as well as the fear of losing everything she held dear, opens the narration, with his husband saying, "...you just have to start accepting that we'll be living a different life out here."

The moment of illumination comes when Elmo decides to tell the whole truth regarding their predicament. That is still the best way to restructure society into a step forward in post-patriarchal status.

Feminism against Satan: God is the Space between

The short story “God is the Space Between” is   patterned after two sides of representations: an ideal world and a real world, separated by “a dark-colored, very ornate tapestry behind a door.” In this story one sees the falling of the heroine from an ideal world to the real.  

The narration, being told in the first person, is the tale of a woman finding her strength to finally end the years of pain and suffering in the hands of her husband by killing him in his sleep. It was told in almost mythical fashion: a forty-one year old woman coming into terms of a monster-like change within her so that she can rescue herself from “Satan,” her husband who has been abusing her for years.

The author furthers the story using words characterizing its veiled structure. “These are the stories,” the narration continues, “that hold no deep, numbing sensation, cause no smarts, create no stigmas, but stay on the heart like a bottomless hollow.” One can see that the story, far from being a romantic hero’s tale, is structurally also a tragedy, referred to as the mythos of autumn by Frye.

 According to Northrop Frye, The mythos of autumn is when “a hero with the potential to be superior, like a romantic hero, falls from his romantic height into the real world, the world of loss and defeat, from which he can never rise.” In the story one can see the ideal world briefly being described when the narrator opens a blue box, bearing the jewels that she usually wore daily. Her family’s bloodline presents a world of adventure, the blood of a patriarch, “a Spanish cartographer of German descent,” an ideal reference to her heroic lineage. The reference to her mother giving her an antique cross of St. Benedict, whispering “All you need to say is ‘Get thee behind me, Satan’” as a prophetic advice, reinforces the romantic bravery and virtue of such a world.

On the other hand, the real world is revealed when she sees herself in the mirror as a wife brutally battered for eleven years. The narrator, in true tragic fashion, falls from her romantic height into the real world, the world of loss and defeat, from which she can never rise. The real world which is the world of experience, uncertainty, and failure is thoroughly seen, as the gradual transformation of the innocent to the monster is exposed: she is her husband’s killer. Although her act seems heroic, in reality, it is not. She realizes it, even as she says the words: “It was done, I am free…” which are seemingly triumphant words, but end the sentence with “eleven years too late”. This fall, not victory, is also apparent in the final words of the story: “Yet some things will stay on…Like hunger.”

At this point, we see the third part of Frye’s quest-myth formula which is the irony. The husband’s death would be seen as similar to the archetypal emancipation of a powerful tyrant, like that of the beheading of Holofernes by Judith, the beautiful Jewess, where the quest of the good, and the desire for freedom is finally acted out in completion, where the closeness to the desired deity is achieved upon the demise of the abuser. However, in the real world, killing a person means imprisonment, a total emancipation to freedom. Irony is the real world seen through a tragic lens, a world in which the protagonist is defeated by the very act of liberation. Her realization of such a tragedy, as she moves from the ideal world to the real world, from innocence to experience, is apparent in the words: “There is enough of God and space to write a million epics of hurt and bestiality.”

In conclusion the stories of Maryanne Moll depict a post-20^th century condition where the quest from liberation from patriarchy is still far from over.  Benjamin Barber (1975) more or less places himself above the tray --   the real struggle should not be ""against nature"" but ""to reconstruct the polity,"" creating new institutions which will serve both ""our sexuality and our human aspirations""; personhood and maternity should not (as they often are today) be at odds.

Barber goes on to say, "Suffering is not necessarily a fixed and universal experience that can be measured by a single rod: it is related to situations, needs, and aspirations. But there must be some historical and political parameters for the use of the term so that political priorities can be established and different forms and degrees of suffering can be given the most attention."

                

References:

Moll, M (2011) Married Women: Short Stories Naga City Ateneo de Naga University Press

Tyson, L (2006) Critical Theory Today. New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group

hooks, bell (1984) Feminist Theory from Margin to Center.  South End Press

Fritz, Leah (1980) Dreamers and Dealers, Beacon Press

Benjamin Barber (1975)   Liberating Feminism, Seabury Press

Betty Friedan (1963) The Feminine Mystique, W. W. Norton Company