You Must Remember This - Book Report/Review Example

?Introduction Novels sometimes reflect society, and often they reflect society not how it is traditionally portrayed, but, rather, how society reallywas. Sometimes the traditional portray is also the realistic one. Regardless, collective society has certain stereotypes about certain eras, which may or may not be true. The 1950s, for instance, in the eyes of collective society, is an era of white picket fences, with fathers who knew best, and endless prosperity. The Victorian Age, in collective society, is an era of female oppression. The stereotype of the 1950s is clearly less grounded in reality than that of the Victorian Age, yet these are both portrayals that society has come to associate with these eras. Joyce Carol Oates’ You Must Remember This and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre both have commonalities, however - both novels challenge the conventional portrayals of their eras. You Must Remember This does this by showing the lives of the characters as being considerably coarser and more desperate than the standard portrayal. Jane does this by showing the life of the heroine as considerably better than the standard portrayal. Discussion You Must Remember This accurately displays the reality of the 1950s, as opposed to the idealized version of the fifties which is inherent in society’s collective consciousness. When one thinks of the 1950s, at least if one is to judge the decade by the movies and television which came out during that time, and are still a part of the nationwide collective consciousness now, one thinks of the Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best and I Love Lucy on television and Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies on the big screen. The reality portrayed by the television shows which have entered the zeitgeist representing the 1950s is that, well, father knew best. Father was kind, benevolent and wise, while mother wore dresses and aprons, baked cookies, and always deferred to father. The kids were spunky yet innocent, and would never think about a rebellious action which was more than staying a few minutes after curfew. On the big screen, Rock Hudson and Doris Day met cute, flirted and had innocent fun. Moreover, the 1950s are still looked upon fondly by many in our society, not just because of the movie and television portrayals, but because of the prosperity of the decade. Wages were growing at a faster pace than any other decade, before or since, and housing prices were low – just 15 to 16 percent of a median family’s yearly salary. Moreover, the decade was before pornography became prominent, according to Coontz (1997), the nuclear family was still the norm, 70% of kids grew up with a mother and father at home, and people were optimistic (Coontz, 1997). Although this is the idealized version of the 1950s, the reality was anything but. For instance, according to Stephanie Coontz (1997), the 1950s was actually a time of oppression for everybody who was not white and male. Women were by and large unhappy, according to Coontz (1997), because they were not only pressured by the demands of their husbands and children, but they were also discouraged to have a life of their own. This led many a 1950s housewife to turn to pills and alcohol, according to Coontz (1997). Many children who grew up during the 1950s stated that they would never want to have the same type of marriage that their parents had (Coontz, 1997). Therefore, one could say that, like Jane Eyre, You Must Remember This is, in many ways, antithetical to the traditional view of the time in which it takes place. From the second paragraph, when the narrator recounts tales of incest (the Buehl girl getting pregnant by her own father), murder (the GI cutting everybody’s throats with a butcher knife) and rape (the thirteen year old girl held hostage with a guy and his buddies, who did “all kinds of things to her), the reader is clued in that this novel is not going to look at the 1950s from the traditional point of view, but, rather, would show the 1950s world how it really was. The novel continues from there – where the 1950s traditional view was of suburban houses and white picket fences, the Stevicks lived in a rented duplex that was run down. Where the traditional 1950s view of love was that two people stayed happily married, this novel’s view of love, at least in the definition of a ninth grade girl, was a married soldier with his married mistress dying, through an apparent suicide pact, in each other’s arms in a car filled with exhaust. Where the traditional 1950s view of authority was that authority was to be trusted and not questioned, this novel takes the opposite view, as Mrs. Stevick tells her girls not to trust the police. This is because there was an incident where a retired policeman spied on her while she went to the bathroom in an outhouse. Perhaps Oates’ most powerful symbol, however, of the 1950s, which was not a part of the traditional view of the decade, was Felix, who was Mr. Stevick’s younger brother. Felix was everything a man should not have been during this decade – a man during the decade was supposed to be benevolent and wise, working a sound corporate job, and not at all rebellious. Felix, on the other hand, was a rebel, having been kicked out of the house at the age of 16 and making a living as a boxer. Felix also has an affair with Enid, who is his own niece. Incest of this sort is certainly not accepted in today’s society, let alone in the idyllic 1950s. More than this, the affair certainly started out as a rape. This is evident because Enid was less than 15 years old when the affair occurred in a seedy motel. The initial incident drove Enid to attempt suicide, which was the scene in the prologue. Felix also fathered young Enid’s baby, which ended in abortion. The book was written as if Oates intentionally wanted to show the looking glass version of the American 1950s ideal. The white picket fences are replaced by dilapidated duplexes, and the 1950s working class man, who makes more than enough to support his wife, 2.3 children and dog, are replaced by sad-eyed Lyle Stevick, a depressed furniture dealer. People were supposed to stay married in the 1950s, and, indeed, most children grew up in the nuclear family. Yet, in Oates’ novel, minor characters, such as Claudette, Felix girlfriend for a time, was divorced. Abortion was illegal during this time, and kids were not supposed to be having sex – who would ever imagine Wally Cleaver having sex? Yet, Enid is not only having sex, but she is having sex with her own uncle, and, although abortion was illegal, Enid had one anyways. Through it all, the rest of the dark side of the 1950s was portrayed in the background - McCarthyism, the threat of nuclear war, the Rosenberg’s execution. Nobody in this novel is happy, and nobody in this novel remotely resembles Donna Reed, June Cleaver and The Beaver. Therefore, it seems that Oates is consciously trying to disabuse the notion that the 1950s was an idyllic time, replacing the ideals of the traditional portrayal of the 1950s with a portrayal which is gritty, realistic and mean. While You Must Remember This turned the traditional portrayal of the 1950s on its head, Jane Eyre did the same for the Victorian woman. The Victorian Age was so named for Queen Victoria, who reigned over England from 1837 to 1901, and the Age was marked by the ethos propounded by this queen. Victoria was very much a domestic queen, focusing on the home and domesticity, even after her husband died (Abrams, 2001). The woman during this period was not an equal partner to the man, but, rather, had few rights - she could not own property, could not socialize outside the family home, and could not vote (Visweswaran, 1997, p. 598). In fact, the woman was more of a slave than a partner (Boos & Boos, 1990). However, even though the ethos of the Victorian era was that women had no rights, were expected to marry young, and give her entire life and property over to her husband, the heroine in Jane Eyre bucked these traditions. From the start, Jane shows her independence, in that she strikes out on her own to become a governess. While she is a governess, she meets Rochester, and falls in love with him. However, Rochester is already married, a fact that Jane does not discover until she is almost to be married to him, which causes her to flee. Jane ends up living with two women who become her close friends, and which revive Jane’s spirit. That said, Jane ends the novel with Rochester, although the power dynamic between the two have clearly changed – Rochester is no longer the patriarchal, condescending protector, but, rather, is destitute and deformed, having been in a fire set by his insane wife, Bertha. Because of this, and the fact that Jane now has money of her own, inherited by an uncle, Jane is able to have the upper hand in the relationship between herself and Rochester. In fact, this is how she wants it, for she makes clear that she loves Rochester all the more because of his deformities have made him humble. Thus, Jane manages to buck the conventional tide and the roles of women in Victorian society. While the Victorian lady was supposed to marry young and be subjugated to her husband, Jane did not do this. She takes in the world, in a way, before she ends up marrying Rochester in the end, in that she lives with the two women. It was during this time that Jane really seemed to be happiest. The two women and Jane read books together and discussed them, and this clearly delighted Jane – “I like to read what they like to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced…I devoured the books they lent me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly” (Bronte, 2000, p. 525). This was the idealized life that Jane lived, not the one with Rochester. Her life with Rochester was stifled, really, for Rochester was condescending, deceitful and rude. He attempted to dress Jane up like a doll, and had nicknames for her which tells the reader that Rochester thought of Jane as nothing more than a plaything, a woman to dominate – calling her “elf” “little girl” and “child.” Plus, Rochester never told Jane that he was married, and probably would have married Jane, and became a bigamist, if not for crazy Bertha interrupting Jane and Rochester on their wedding day. In the end, Rochester is humbled, and Jane is satisfied in coming back to him – on her terms. This, in and of itself, is a direct antithesis of the roles of Victorian women, for Victorian women had no rights and had to be subjugated to the man, yet Jane was having none of that. Having lived a happy life with two women, Jane would not settle for an unhappy life, like she had with Rochester before. It was only because Jane felt satisfied that Rochester would not control her, like he did before, and like Victorian men were expected to, that Jane would agree to marry Rochester again. Conclusion Both the 1950s and the Victorian Age have very specific portrayals in the minds of collective society. The 1950s is, in the collective consciousness, a time of prosperity, big Cadillacs, picket fences, benevolent fathers, mothers who always wore dresses and always kept the house perfect, kids who obeyed, and nuclear families. This was not reality. The Victorian Age is, in the collective consciousness, a time when women were oppressed and were treated as nothing more than property for men. This was the reality. That said, their portrayals, whether realistic or not, is what individuals think of, collectively, for their given eras. Both Jane Eyre and You Must Remember This challenge our collective views of the respective eras. You Must Remember This is a novel told, clear-eyed, about a decade of scandal – young girls impregnated by family members; people cheating on their spouses and dying together in a car; men who murder their families; and the lives of men which are not that of the happy, prosperous lives of the 1950s men of our imagination, but, rather, are lives lived in quiet desperation. Nobody is happy in this novel. Felix is successful, materially, but did not come by the success in the standard way – working at a corporate job. His success came from something more down and dirty, which is his boxing career. Lyle is not successful, and lives a life that is not only not prosperous, but filled with envy and regret. Thus, You Must Remember This challenges the view of the happy, optimistic 1950s. On the other hand, Jane Eyre also challenges the view of the Victorian Age, but works just the opposite of You Must Remember This. While Oates’ novel is darker than the standard portrayal of the era, Bronte’s novel is lighter, more optimistic than the portrayal (and reality) of the era. Women during this era were not supposed to be independent and happy, yet Jane was. Jane wasn’t going to suffer fools gladly, taking off in the middle of the night to leave the deceitful Rochester, instead of staying and being dependent upon him. Although Jane did not have means to live when she left Rochester, she landed on her feet, establishing a truly happy relationship with two women. Jane returned to Rochester on her own terms, and the reader is left with the clear indication that Jane would be happy, regardless of whether she ever married. Thus, Jane is clearly more independent than the Victorian lady of the times, both in portrayal and reality, and this is what makes it parallel to You Must Remember This. Bibliography Coontz, Susan. The Way We Really Are. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Abrams, Lynn. “Ideals of Womanhood in Victorian Britain.” 2001. 15 April 2012 < http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/staff/academicstaff/jonesc/jonesc_index/teaching/birth/wk11_victorian_britain_handout.pdf> Boos, Florence and William Boos. “News from Nowhere and Victorian Socialist-Feminism.” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 14.1 (1990): 3-32. Bordo, Susan. “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity.” 15 April 2012< http://www.unc.edu/~kbm/ SOCI10Spring2004/BORDO.PDF> Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Modern Library Paperback Edition. New York: The Modern Library, 2000. Oates, Joyce Carol. You Must Remember This. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1987. Visweswaran, Kamala. “Histories of Feminist Ethnography.” Annual Review of Anthropology 26 (1992): 591-621 Read More