Women in Christina Rossettis Selected Poems and Jeanette Wintersons Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Coursework Example

?Explore the Representation of Women in Christina Rossetti’s ‘Selected Poems’ and Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’. In the of your essay show how your ideas have been illuminated by Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and other readings of both core texts. Women have always been represented as the fragile and the virtuous in most of the classical literary works. Be it a novel, poem or any other form of literary work, women are praised for their beauty, gentleness and sacrifice. Very few works have represented women with their intellect and follies without any exaggeration. Christina Rossetti and Jeanette Winterson are two great writers who bought out the deep desires for women through their literary works. Christina Rossetti was one of the renowned female poets of the Victorian times, who explored the forbidden territory through her work. Rossetti was born in 1830. She was one of the earliest women writers to express the unquenchable feeling of search in her poems. She put desires and mistakes of mankind in common to both men and women in an era where spiritualism as well as passion was reserved only for the male gender. Her poems were perhaps the first to claim women had more needs apart from being the heartthrob of a brave man and mother of many. One other writer who explored the world of women in a way no one else did before is Jeanette Winterson. “Oranges are not the only fruit” is more or less Jeanette Winterson’s autobiography. She expresses the confusion of modern day women on realising her own self and the rules religion forces her to follow. If Christina Rossetti’s poems are a mirror of the past century, Jeanette Winterson’s prose works are an exploration into the modern day woman’s position. However, there were a hundred years in the middle during when women evolved slowly through a harsh path. “A Streetcar Named Desire” written by Tennessee Williams with Blanche Dubois as the female protagonist is by far the best portrayal of women in that era in. Blanche, the heroine of the play is a person who explores her sexuality boldly with numerous people. She tries to protect herself from her own desires for the sake of maintaining sanity and social respect. The play portrays the dilemma of women in the transition era. Christina Rossetti published "Goblin Market and Other Poems" in 1862. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one of the most prominent female poets of the Victorian era had died the previous year. Rossetti was looked upon as her natural successor partly due to her good family background and its associations with numerous artists and writers. She started writing at a very young age and her first works got published when she was just 31. Rossetti explored the banned with her words in an era where women faced very strict confinements. Her poems were perhaps the first to claim women had more needs apart from being the heartthrob of a brave man and mother of many. Jeanette Winterson was bought up in a Pentecostal Evangelical family. She wrote her book in 1985 when the women writers were busy creating Harlequin romances. Readers bombarded by the Mills and Boon novels saw "Oranges are not the only fruit" as a fresh work done by a genius writer. She represents the confusion of modern day women on realising their own self and the rules religion forces them to follow. Rossetti’s works are known for beautiful rhyming and simile usage. Assonance and alliteration in certain verses of “Goblin Market” like “hoary roaring sea” and the picture it creates in our minds with vivid descriptions are wonderful. In the passage where the goblins smear Lizzie with fruit all over her body, she places her rhyming lines ‘distance’ and ‘resistance’ nearly nine lines apart. But, it still sounds perfect. Making the rebellious heroine like Lizzie and Lara ready to try the banned emerge victorious is a rare thing to find in the early 19th century literature. Plays like “A streetcar named desire” represented women like Blanche who are ready to explore their sexuality out of marriage and even with men younger than them. But they always ended by making the woman who dared to try all this commit suicide or suffer a great loss. The women in the play are shown to follow a double standard. Stanley Kowalski, the male lead in the play is shown as an embodiment of all the brutal forces which keep the women downtrodden. According to Blanche he is a mere animal.  He abuses Blanche as well as her sister in every possible way, rapes her and admits her to a mental asylum in the climax. The irony of such depictions was used to influence the female readers, particularly the feminists and the modern women receiving coming out to study in universities, indirectly on what will happen if they choose a different path, opposite to the traditional one. Even Jeanette does not portray herself as a very successful person till the end of the novel. She is shown struggling in her life, working odd jobs and living alone until she finds solace in writing. However, Rossetti was very different. It is said that the she particularly asked her brother to depict Laura and Lizzie as muscular and strong women in his art instead of fragile ladies as most of the Victorian art depicted women. She wanted her heroines to be remembered as strong individuals who were capable of doing their own mistakes and learning from the same. She gave them the chance to challenge the societies norms and showed women could still live with it, if other women supported them. “A street car named desire” shows women like Blanche who dares to fight with the society which does not approve, and dares to punish them rather brutally. Her sister character is a stark contrast to her created to prove traditional wives who worship men can have minimum safety even though they are subject to untold torture and domestic violence. The modern day women would seldom understand the trials and tribulations the ‘southern belle’ has to undergo in her life for the sake of respect. But, every lady who lived before two generations would identify herself in some way or other to Blanche. Rossetti’s works are combined with passion and distress together. It usually symbolizes the dilemma of a woman caught in between her own illusions and the norms of the society. The obsession towards their own habits and fantasies of her characters makes them unique. They are neither able to break the thousand societal expectations thrust upon them nor able to adjust to its controlling tentacles. Christina Rossetti published her first works in 1850. Most of Rossetti’s poems suits beautifully to a modern day working women’s life and her day to day struggles, though it was written before two centuries. Women are expressed as intellectual beings, helping each other and fighting to get what they desire in most of her poems, rather than being love ridden, dreaming about a knight in shining armour. Nevertheless they are ready to explore and undergo the gravest dangers in their journey seeking the truth. Her women are adamant as well as obsessed with their passion. She expressed this beautifully in another poem ‘Up-Hill’. Rossetti questions about all the facilities available in the way of climbing a hill. But, the reader can understand she will climb it even if there is no inn. It also stresses, the people who choose to travel their own path led by their obsessive passion will always be well taken care of, and not left waiting. The last line “Yes there is bed for all who come” symbolizes there are many such people and there is a distinct world which accepts all such people. Rossetti expresses this uncontrollable desire and the urge to fulfil it through the Laura character in her poem ‘Goblin Market’. If Laura is adamant in eating the forbidden fruit even though she knows people who had eaten it earlier will die in the winter, Lizzie is adamant to save her sister at any cost, even if she has to defy the Goblins by using her physical strength. The very portrayal of the sisters in the lines given below is striking. Golden head by golden head.... Like two pigeons in one nest Folded in each other's wings i She does not show motherly affection or sisterhood between them, but something much deeper, a connection only two souls with similar passion can understand is depicted through these lines. Jeanette Winterson also personifies two strikingly contrasting personalities in her novel with the same obsession. The main protagonist of the novel is her mother. She is a person trained to believe whatever religion says obsessively. Jeannette, her adopted daughter, whom she considers special in every way, is completely opposite to her. She tries to explore her sexuality at a very young age instead of adapting a holy life. She questions whether it is right to tune up ones thinking in a cult-like manner. Jeanette chooses to leave her family, her missionary life and the much yearned approval of her mother for the sake of a girl she likes. One other notable element in Christina Rossetti’s poem is womanly obsession and the philosophical nature. In her poem "Monna Innominata” she portrays an exceptional woman who chooses to love God over a man and a women who wonders why God had created her as a secondary creature rather in the world. Yet while I love my God the most, I deem That I can never love you overmuch; I love Him more, so let me love you too. She expresses the overwhelming love she feels towards the world and all its creatures instead of reserving her love for one single man through these lines. Women in Christina Rossetti’s poems are curious beings ready to explore whatever they have been banished from doing so. They have lots of questions and are in a transformation stage. They strongly believe they certainly deserve to be treated better. But, they still have a confusion regarding whether they are equivalent to men in every way. Jeanette Winterson’s women depict the modern day ladies in term of lifestyle. They live an independent life. They have an education and are free to work. They are actually living in the curious world which Rossetti’s female personas tried to explore. They know for full they are equivalent to men. They are not bounded by the thousand societal clutches. But, still they have a long way to travel. They are pressed down certain norms common to both men and women. In “Oranges are not the only fruit” it is about sexuality. The settings described in the novel were not that of a millionaire house but a simple middle class household and the poor neighbourhood a person sees in a day to day life. There are several motifs and symbols prevalent throughout the story. The pink ‘mackintosh’ or raincoat Jeanette is forced to wear, the oranges and the stone pebble, the references to death and many other symbols are used to portray the mentality of the characters beautifully. The orange is shown as a symbol for all that is common and repressive in Jeannette’s world. Her mother refuses to let have any other fruit than orange whenever she is depressed, stressing she has to live by norms. Melanie offers her an orange when they meet after separation, but Jeannette refuses to accept it because she does not want to accept homosexuality is wrong like Melanie. The pink mackintosh is seen by Jeannette as a symbol of everything feminine which she actually isn’t. She feels like a man with an iron mask while wearing it. All through the story Jeannette sees people who ignore their living spirit and worship dead martyrs. She had always felt she is serving the living dead. Hence, she takes up the job to work with the real dead without any hesitation. She even picks up flowers from the graveyard on her way back home. The flowers are like Jeannette, fresh and living among the many dead. The stone pebble is linked with the Hansel and Gretel story for bringing them home and as a powerful one in her dreams. In reality also it symbolically brings her back home after a long wandering. All these symbols are used to represent the mentality of a liberated lesbian woman and how she views the norms set by the mainstream society. Jeannette Winterson also portrays fear filled women, jealous women, corrupt and virtuous women in her work. The novel shows various characters starting from Jeanette’s first girlfriend who is week at heart, to the corrupt church ladies who betrays her mother’s trust. Jeanette feels she had done nothing wrong in loving a person from the same sex, while her lover admits committing a sin and flees. Jeanette is devastated at first, but learns that is the way of life in a harsh manner. Her women wonder at the double standard they have to follow. They are forced to lead a posh life, even though they know deep down in their heart, most of the customs they follow are at folly. They wonder where this will lead them. She expresses the mindset of her character beautifully through these words. Jeanette’s women mock the several layers of hypocrisy a lady has to undergo for the sake of being accepted. It provides as vivid picture about the obsession to get out for what is so suffocating and does not feels right, even if it is religion. She questions what would go wrong if all women choose to live life as per their heart and concludes no major damage will be done and the people will not necessarily burn in hell. The situation of women is much better now. But considering the time of Christina Rossetti and Jeanette Winterson, they simply took the first step towards expressing themselves completely. They did not hide behind any concealed values. They simply portrayed their characters with lots of flaws and errors. Winterson’s ‘The Green Man’ii is more or less similar to Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market’. Though it might look like the verse is talking about the ‘forbidden pleasures or homosexuality’ in general, the author refers to everything a modern day women are prevented to do in the name of religion, love and status. We can see both positive and negative representation of women in both these author’s works. Jeanette, Katy and Lizzie are symbols of self-confidence and they fight for what they believe is true strongly. Melanie and Blanche characters are weak representing the negative side of women. There are many other characters like Blanche’s sister Stella, Sister Maude and Laura who represent both strong and weak traits equally. Therefore we can see both Rossetti and Winterson’s heroines are mostly strong and clever women in their works. We conclude by quoting Rossetti’s words I tell my secret? No indeed, not I; Perhaps someday, who knows? But not today; it froze, and blows and snows, Meaning every woman’s heart has many more secrets and the day to let them all out haven’t come yet. The women in Rossetti and Winterson’s works represent the female fight for their equal rights.iii References 1. C Rumens, ‘Poem of the Week: Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti’, in the Guardian, 25 June 2012, viewed on 28 January 2013, < http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/25/poem-week-goblin-market-rossetti> 2. C A Arnell, ‘Earthly Men and Other Worldly Women: Gender Types and Religious Types in Jeanette Winterson’s “Atlantic Crossing” and Other Short Fiction’, in Journal of the Short Story in English, Autumn 2005, viewed on 28 January 2013, < http://jsse.revues.org/index457.html> 3. C Rossetti, ‘Winter: My Secret’, in Poets.org, 1997, viewed 28 January 2013, < http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23251> Read More