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“Three Cheers for Eve”: Feminism, Capitalism, and Artistic Subjectivity in Janet Fitch's White Oleander

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 37; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00497870802165460

1547-7045

Laura Callanan,

Feminism, Gender, and Intersectionality

Abstract Notes 1Ingrid's conception of home, closely related to her understanding of motherhood, emerges on a trip to Mexico. When Astrid and her mother go to Playa del Carmen, Astrid finds herself wanting to go home: Can't we ever go home? I asked my mother. We have no home, she told me. I am your home. How beautiful she was barefoot in a bathing suit and a table-cloth wrapped around her hips. My mother loved me. Even now, I could feel myself rocking in that hammock while Eduardo and my mother danced. You were my home. (116) Astrid comes to understand that her mother is right and that Astrid gets a sense of home from her. The difficult and ultimately devastating nature of this arrangement becomes when her mother decides to violate her own sense of behavioral and romantic boundaries and falls into the trap of killing her boyfriend. Then Astrid's mother, her home, is taken away abruptly and decisively. Astrid is alone. 2The dependence is mutual, as is displayed in her mother's letter describing an interaction with the prison chaplain. Ingrid finds herself begging Astrid not to abandon her. Her expressions of love come coupled with expressions of need: A chaplain just came by, I told him I'd rip out his liver if he bothered me again. I love you so much, Astrid. I can't bear it. There is no one else in the world but you and me, don't you know that? Please don't leave me alone here. By all the powers of light and darkness, please, please don't leave. (118) This moment of vulnerability is a rarity for Ingrid. Usually the tough, unsentimental, and often cruelly detached observer of other people's weaknesses, we see here that she is, ultimately, tied inextricably to Ingrid. The mother–daughter bond exists. 3See for instance the following: Jennifer Toth, Orphans of the Living: Stories of America's Children in Foster Care. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997; and Nina Bernstein, The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care. New York: Pantheon Books, 2001. 4Elizabeth Fox-Genoverse, “Placing Women's History in History,” New Left Review, No. 133 (May–June 1982), 19. 5I refer to the term “backlash” as described in Susan Faludi's classic Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991). Faludi asserts the following themes evident in 1980s backlash cinema: The backlash shaped much of Hollywood's portrayal of women in the ‘80s. In typical themes, women were set against women; women's anger at their social circumstances was depoliticized and displayed as personal depression instead; and women's lives were framed as morality tales in which the “good mother” wins and the independent woman gets punished. And Hollywood restated and reinforced the backlash thesis: American women were unhappy because they were too free; their liberation had denied them marriage and motherhood. (Faludi 113) 6Ingrid's mothering strategies and ideals come through strongly in the letters that she sends to Astrid in the various homes she lives in. Her mother's reaction to her relationship with Ray, the middle-aged lover of Astrid's first foster mother, with whom Astrid has a sexual affair, is quick and direct: Dear Astrid, Do not tell me how much you admire this man, how he cares for you! I don't know which is worse, your Jesus phase or the advent of a middle-aged suitor. You must find a boy your own age, someone mild and beautiful to be your lover. Someone who will tremble for your touch, offer you a marguerite by its long stem with his eyes lowered, someone whose fingers are a poem. Never lie down for the father. I forbid it, do you understand? Mother (94) The ideal set up of the young, admiring lover coupled with the critique of collaboration with patriarchal power systems creates a compelling picture of mothering. Obviously, Ingrid finds Astrid's search for some kind of alternative structure (religion, romantic love) with which to find some kind of security frustrating, especially since Ingrid's belief remains steadfastly on art as the most obvious structural ideology within which one should live. 7Italics in direct quotation indicate that the material is from a letter in the text. Fitch uses italics to indicate the letters Astrid reads. 8Interestingly, in the movie version of the novel Ingrid's release from prison and placement on an academic campus is dropped from the narrative. The movie simply ends with Ingrid's decision to sacrifice her release for her daughter's future, and Astrid works on her suitcases in order to resolve her traumatic experiences. The movie ending isn't exactly happily-ever-after, but it comes much closer to a redemption of Ingrid through her fulfillment of her biological maternal instincts as culturally constructed.