The Female Gender
- Created by: Honor Burke
- Created on: 25-11-19 20:23
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- Identity
- Oranges
- 'Fruit salad, fruit pie … fruited punch'- colourful reworkings of orange
- Dismantles the fruit based doctrine further: J creates an 'orange peel igloo'
- Vivid matriarch: owns 'her husband', begets J without male influence (immaculately), neglects J at hospital: 'Why was she leaving me here? I started to cry'
- Monochrome doctrine of an evangelical matriarch ********* J of Rossetti's 'sweeter than honey' 'fruit globes fair or red', for the orange, 'only fruit'
- Discards mother's gospel: 'Thrill of excitement', Numerology and Swinburne, not the 'missionary child' but the 'eskimo', a being of her own creation; 'the breeding ground at last'
- The feminine presence is vital: Elsie Norris teaches about 'poets', 'ludo', 'numerology'
- J is isolated: in a 'tag match against the Rest of the World'. 'Nasty' entanglements like 'the Breeding Ground' and the 1960s revolution (1967 legalisation of homosexuality)
- Lancashire 'marred by activities of unpleasant people whose qualities are sad reflections of sadder environments' (Walter Greenwood)
- Bathos: 'The world service' vs 'the family life of snails'. Pokes humour at orthodoxy- reminder that J writing retrospectively has redesigned her identity
- Reimagining stories are forms of 'navigating our lives … making sense differently'; 'we are time travellers in our own lives' (Winterson)
- Bogus Nell Gwynn quote
- Non realist meta narratives- fluidity of the self
- 'Fruit salad, fruit pie … fruited punch'- colourful reworkings of orange
- The Map Woman
- 'Map'- 17th century male heroism and colonisation. Patriarchy a 'birthmark', 'tattoo', on her skin
- Fixed part of her identity: consistent 10 line stanzas show an unrelenting masculine dominance; the map is 'pressing into the bone'
- The absolutes of feminine identity assembled by The Man
- Fond nostalgia: 'Market square', 'St Mary's Church', 'Greengate Street' contaminated by the male invasion into 'veins', 'belly'
- Self construction
- Conflict of reform and tradition: free verse vs strict length of stanzas
- 'New skin' from the sacrifice of male expectations being 'sponged', 'scrubbed'. 'Waving goodbye' to these expectations
- Difficulty of eroding such cemented conventions: 'Itch'. The feminine , 'gloves', 'soft silk scarf' is merely 'chiffon', 'silk' against the male presence
- 'Map'- 17th century male heroism and colonisation. Patriarchy a 'birthmark', 'tattoo', on her skin
- The Long Queen
- Homage to Queen Elizabeth I. Immortal matriarch. Discards the patriarchy. Protector of all females
- Reclaims abuses of womanhood: pride in 'hags', beautifying tears and gossip
- Oranges
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