“When it came right down to it…she [didn’t think she] could manage solely on her salary…it wasn’t enough for a person to live on. [She thought] how unfair it was, how women ended up trapped in their marriages with mouths to feed…or wearing a pair of trousers.” (259)
“Aren’t you gonna put on some makeup?” asked my grandmother.
- I wasn’t wearing lipstick
What is it about the 50s? Social norms. Secrets. Maintaining the status quo. Respectability. Status.
This novel had me thinking of my grandmother. She wanted social status, and knew that all she had to do was to follow “the rules.” Her “guidebook to life” - if you will. Telling her story on her terms, even if that meant bending the truth, because her version was socially acceptable. Being judgemental; yet scorning the judgement of others. I saw her in Vivian’s character, and perhaps, my mother as Charlotte; trying to put all the pieces together in a world that wasn’t her mother’s. Taking the guidebook, editing it, to fit a different life.
What I found the most disturbing, given our current political climate, was that this is where we may be headed. Segregated. Spiteful. Judgemental. Disrespected. Trapped.
No comments:
Post a Comment