quotes on gender Flashcards
quote on gender (possersorship)
‘he contemplated her absorbed young face with a thrill of possessorship in which pride in his own masculine initiation was mingled with a tender reverence for her abysmal purity.’ chapter 1
quote on gender (free as we are)
“Women ought to be free— as free as we are,” he declared, making a discovery of which he was too irritated to measure the terrific consequences. (chapter 5)
Archer’s passion for Madame Olenska is beginning to develop here, although he isn’t really aware of it yet. But one symptom is that he’s starting to be much more liberal-minded when it comes to women’s sexuality. this view contrasts many of his other opinions and ACTIONS
quote on gender (factitious purity, snow)
‘And he felt oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.’ (chapter 6)
Contrast Archer’s changed attitude here to his pride in Quote #1, when he is tickled by possessing May.
quote on gender(criminal f the woman)
‘[…]all shared Mrs. Archer’s belief that when “such things happened” it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always criminal of the woman.’ (chapter 11)
Archer’s society holds women to a different standard: if men cheat, it’s a lapse in male judgment, but it’s always ultimately the fault of the woman.
quote on gender(feeling and ideas)
“You mustn’t think that a girl knows as little as her parents imagine. One hears and one notices— one has one’s feelings and ideas.” (chapter 16)
May constantly surprises Archer with her intuitions. Due to his sense of superiority over her, he never suspects what she’s up to until it’s far too late. he constantly underestimates may and has a warped perception of her in his head
quote on gender(greek goddess)
‘she might have been chosen to pose for a Civic Virtue or a Greek goddess […] her look of indestructible youthfulness made her seem neither hard nor dull, but only primitive and pure.’ (chapter 19)
May is constantly compared to a goddess, and one goddess in particular: Diana or Artemis, who in Greek mythology is associated with virginity and hunting. She also subjected a man to a gruesome death by his own hounds because he had caught a glimpse of her naked. Virginal and deadly— that’s our May.
quote on gender (not free)
‘There was no use trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free; and he had long since discovered that May’s only use of the liberty she supposed herself to possess would be to lay it on the altar of her wifely adoration.’ CHAPTER 20
quote on gender(pretty dresses)
‘as an opportunity to show off pretty dresses and graceful attitudes the bow and arrow held their own.’ (chapter 21)
quote on gender (20 inch waist)
‘Mary Chivers’s mighty feats of athleticism could not have been performed with the twenty-inch waist that May Archer’s azure sash so easily spanned.’ (chapter 34)
