Set vs Malleable Female Identities (L136)

But that you so think with respect to me is the effect of your gentleness of temper, with a little sketch of implied reflection on the warmth of mine. Gentleness in a woman you hold to be no fault: nor do I a little due or provoked warmth—But what is this, but praising on both sides what what neither of us can help, nor perhaps wish to help? You can no more go out of your road, than I can go out of mine. It would be a pain to either to do so: What then is it in either’s approving of her own natural bias, but making a virtue of necessity?
But one observation I will add, that were your character, and my character, to be truly drawn, mine would be allowed to be the most natural. Shades and lights are equally necessary in a fine picture. Yours would be surrounded with such a flood of brightness, with such a glory, that it would indeed dazzle; but leave one heartless to imitate it.

2 thoughts on “Set vs Malleable Female Identities (L136)

  1. Debra

    Anna believes that they their identities are set: "You can no more go out of your road, than I can go out of mine. It would be a pain to either to do so: What then is it in either's approving of her own natural bias, but making a virtue of necessity." Nevertheless, they each insist on trying to get the other to change. Anna's refrain: "Marry Lovelace": Clarissa's "Obey your Mother." These are the canonical narratives of female identity which the novel both endorses and challenges.

  2. Rachel Gramer

    Anna and Clarissa do play out these cultural female roles, arguing (though politely) for each to listen to the other, to see reason. They are each so stubborn as to _resist_ their own roles while _insisting_ on the other’s role as if it were inevitable.It’s telling how much they perceive themselves as individual agents—there is always hope that Clary will escape her fate with Lovelace, always assurance that Anna can dangle Mr. Hickman forever—while imploring the other one to accept a more muted-down version of patriarchal reality.In this sense of their stubbornness, too, Clarissa's relationship with Anna is such an interesting foil to Clarissa's relationship with Lovelace, which is characterized by a stubborn refusal to see anything from the other’s perspective, entrenched as they were in their own points of view before the novel began and, so far, just as entrenched still. In both cases, there is also discussion of fear and love:In this letter, Anna writes, “for I _fear_ you almost as much as I _love_ you,” acknowledging Clary’s superior position to her in some ways (which Lovelace also acknowledges, praises and disparages, in turns). For Anna, too, Clarissa is the “model” for feminine behavior, an idol upon a pedestal from the very beginning. And her invocation of Clarissa to marry is, in one sense, knocking her down off the pedestal, having to acknowledge that she will be just another wife, another instructional tale of what happens to even seemingly 'perfect' girls. I don’t think that Anna _intends_ to challenge Clarissa's hope for independence, but she does seem to acknowledge that it is the only choice Clarissa has left herself with.

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