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natural characteristic or an established fact,but a constructed experience category with its historical,social and cultural origins.Gender has constructiveness and maneuverability in the discussion of feminism andpost-structuralism,thus forming its open and uncertain features.

Chapter TwoEDITH’S DILEMMAS

2.1 Inheritance or Subversion in Writing

Edith believes that most women dream of ending up with an ideal fairy tale endingwhere Prince Charming rescues Princess from danger,buys her roses,and rescues herfrom the mundane life of a single woman.As Edith remarks to her agent Harold Webb,the fable of the tortoise and the hare is the formulaic story she is best at writing.

People love(that story),especially women.Now you will notice,Harold,that in my books it is the mouse-like unassuming girl whogets the hero,while the scornful temptress with whom he has had astormy affair retreats baffled from the fray,never to return.Thetortoise wins every time.This is a lie,of course...In real life,ofcourse,it is the hare who wins.Every time.Look around you.And inany case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoisemarket(Brookner 27).

Just as in the story of Cinderella written by the Grimms,the only way out for a womanlike Cinderella is to be patient and moral in order to overcome difficulties,and beshould wait for the day in which a man will come for her as a reward for her patience,thus,a woman is trained into dependency and should be“beautiful,polite,graceful,industrious,obedient,and passive”or she will always be in a low status andhard-working position.

2.2 Subject or Object in Desire

With Edith’s tortoise-like personality,she is like Cinderella waiting behind thedoor for her beloved to save her,so she is by default the passive party who waits,gives,and submits in her relationship with her lover David,standing behind the curtainwatching him walk away and waiting for the next meeting.Women,as individuals bornwith free will and the ability to act,exist in the world and inherently have the samedesire for conquest and transcendence as men.However,the passive,dependentsituation given to women by a patriarchal society prevents them from realizing theiremotional desires through autonomous action and free will,and instead relies heavily onthe illusion of passivity to gain the approval of men.This causes the woman’s emotional desires in male relationships to seek fulfillment in opposite ways and forms:she mustresist the temptation to become the subject of male desire,to think of herself as theobject of male desire,must ignore her inherent emotional values,internalize thestandards prescribed for women by men,and must extinguish the emotional demands ofthe self,transforming the demands of male desire for women into normal demands.However,Edith’s family,friends,and female guests at the Hotel du Lac compete to bethe subject when faced with their desires,such as her friend Penelope Milne’s belief thatmen are appendages to be conquered,and one of the guests in the hotel,Monica,doesnot behave as a married woman should.As Penelope,Monica treats men as playthingsand wants to use acts like a chaotic sexual relationship to humble her powerful husbandand,if not,to ruin his reputation.

Chapter Three CITATION OF GENDER NORMS...........................22

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