Housekeeping and Mrs. Dalloway - Essay Example

Robinson’s first words are: “my name is Ruth. I grew up with my younger sister, Lucille, under the care of my grandmother, Mrs. Sylvia Foster, and when she died, of her sisters-in-law, Misses Lily and Nona Foster, and when they fled, of her daughter, Mrs. Sylvia Fisher” (Robinson, p. 3). The choice of introductory sentence is extremely telling as, apart from establishing this work as a female-centric narrative, it draws up a picture of a female-dominated world. Its blatant and explicit exclusion of reference to any males may be interpreted as a direct challenge to dominant patriarchal systems.

Indeed, it is even reminiscent of the exclusively-male genealogies outlined in the Bible, starting with the Book of Genesis. Within the context of the stated, the opening line may be interpreted as the narrative’s own genesis, the genesis of a matriarchal, as opposed to patriarchal, world. Patriarchy versus matriarchy is carried through in the novel’s expression of the themes of grief and loss. The protagonist, Ruth, has evidently lost both mother and father but the loss of the father and his absence is passed over as inconsequential, while the loss of the mother gives the novel its impetus.

Ruth is aware of the extent to which her mother’s loss has affected her and refers to the resultant grief as a “predatory thing,” a feeling which gnaws at her and deprives her of her very sense of self (p. 198). Her grandmother’s death, her “drowning in air” (p. 164) is recalled and with it her mother’s physical drowning; her abandonment by Misses Lily and Nona are told; and her sister’s departure/abandonment, cuts through her very soul like a knife but, never is her father’s death/abandonment/loss touched upon.

This clearly indicates that the world of this novel is a solidly matriarchal one in which males are, if granted any place at all, marginalized, semi-invisible and