Louisa - the Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams by Louisa Thomas
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Another Brooklyn by Jaqueline Woodson
Warning: These review have multiple spoilers in them!
It wasn't part of a plan to read these books, one after the other, that pose questions about women in an historical context. It started with Louisa. Louisa Adams was the only first lady, until the last election, that was not born in the United States. Her father was from Maryland. However, Louisa was born in London, England in 1775. Her family considered themselves citizens of the United States even moving during the Revolutionary War to France to avoid being left in a country they felt was hostile to their intentions. As a result Louisa learned to speak fluent French which would help her adapt to many social roles as an adult often softening the room for her husband, John Quincy Adams.
Louisa was a smart, social woman who seemed to know how to gently influence others. She was well travelled and respected. She longed for children and nature cruelly rejected her intentions multiple times. How she, or any woman for that matter, had been able to go on after so many great losses is a testament to Louisa's fortitude. Another example is she single handedly closed their home and arranged transport out of St. Petersburg, Russia. John Quincy was a diplomat of the U.S. and had left several months earlier to help with the treaty closing the War of 1812. Not only was in unheard of, a woman arranging such a difficult trip, but she did it while Napoleon military forces were headed back on the same roads she was traveling. The closer she came to Paris the more reports she heard about Napoleon's military march. Louisa had noticed the remains of Napoleon's first march, before he was removed to the Island of Elba. One can only imagine the scenes of battles still left bare in the fields where she traversed. Louisa had truly seen what few woman of her time had seen. It wasn't only war but the remaining scars on the landscape and the fear of a retribution heading her way. One particularly amusing story about herself was as Louisa was approaching Paris one of her hired hands heard a rumor, "that the woman in the large, expensive carriage who was rushing towards Paris instead of away from it (as any sane woman would) must be one of Napoleon's sisters."
Years later once back in the United States Louisa used her social skills again to help her husband gain the Presidency. One gets a sense that once John Quincy obtained the Presidency Louisa becomes agitated and a bit loss for ambition or motivation. First Ladies apparently didn't take that much of a role during those days. I think it's like when you have a goal that takes up many years of work and once you finally get there you feel a little loss as to what is next. At least John Quincy had governing.
Louisa seemed to continue to engage herself in learning and reading. She never directly addressed woman's rights. It really wasn't on forefront of any social movement at the time. However, I think had she been born a century or more later she might have been one of those woman who would have marched for women's votes. After all I think she was a very accomplished woman of her time who really never got her fair share of attention in a historical review of the early days of our country.
Moving from early 19th Century to the very end, a book that was written as the 20th century was unfolding was surprising. The Awakening starts out with the slow mundane life of Edna Pontellier referred early on in the book as Mrs. Pontellier. She has no identity except that of a wife and mother. She is an affluent woman born in Kentucky and raised on a horse farm. Edna is married to a man from New Orleans where she resides. There is nothing really separating her from any other woman of means at this time. Children, nannies, servants, summers spent at the coast or the country, absent and work centered husbands, and endless social gatherings. The book begins in the summer where Edna falls in love with Robert. Robert, as you may have gathered is not her husband. The summer winds on. At one point Edna learns to swim and goes out into the ocean far from the shore. I think she feels a certain mix of fear and freedom in the swim. At this point she describes herself as awakened. I believe that if you are floating in water, looking up at the sky, you can be aware of your presence among not only the earth but the universe. It's as if something is both grounding you and at the same time lifting you up higher to those clouds floating above.
Summer ends and she returns home from the coast. Robert has left to go to Mexico. Edna's unquenched passion leads her to an affair with an unlikely man Alcee. At this point though it's only a physical need being met for Edna. Edna's husband goes away on business for a long time. But not before, "he could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world." While Mr. Pontellier is away Edna gains freedom to be more herself. She begins to paint and becomes successful enough that with her earnings and some money she had from her family she decides to rent a small house down the street from her home. Robert returns and finally they both profess their love to each other. But, she was called away directly after this confusion to assist a friend who was having a child. This event thrust back into her mind her children that she loved.
She didn't want to go back to being Mrs. Ponteillier. But, ultimately that was the trap in those days. Woman, even of means, couldn't handle the pressure to leave their husbands. When Edna was at the coast during the summer she had a conversation with her friend, Adele Ratignolle. She said, "she would give us the unessential, but she would never sacrifice herself for her children." So, once awakened Edna couldn't go on anymore. If she stayed with her husband she would be miserable. It might be good for the children but to her it was an unacceptable sacrifice. Edna felt her only alternative was to walk straight in the ocean and never return.
(Note: Apparently this book was banned after it came out.)
The final book finishes off closer to the end of the 20th Century. It's the 1970s in Brooklyn, NY. The book is titled Another Brooklyn by Jaqueline Woodson. The story begins as the main character August is a child who moves with her younger brother and father from rural Tennessee to Brooklyn. You see young August grow into her teenage years with three girl-friends. It's a story about their friendship, August's deep suppressed history of her absent mother and her and her friend's fraught relationship to their sexuality and encounters with the opposite sex, both willing and unwilling.
The story is almost dreamlike in it's telling. August is remembering these memories with the knowledge that looking back she knew she wasn't staying there forever. Brooklyn was never going to be a part of her adult life. Reflecting back she guarded against anything that would make it permanent. Once when her boyfriend Jerome wanted to have sex August told him, "No. Everything but that." August didn't want to get pregnant. She knew this consequence would keep her grounded in Brooklyn and she had a future outside the confines of that borough. There is an unexpected tie in with the previously reviewed book, The Awakening. August finally acknowledges what happened to her mother, "When you're fifteen, the world collapses in a moment different from when your eight and you learn that your mother walked into the water - and kept on walking."
It's as if the childhood trauma of Another Brooklyn reached out from the almost century of time to The Awakening. In both the mother's only solution to their situation was to walk into that water.
What does any of this tell us about women? Louisa could have achieved more and Edna would have never felt like her options were so limited if they were born today. August's story however is stamped more in the present. Her story rings true for the time we are in currently. It does make you wonder though if we aren't doing all we can to help the Augusts of the world.
