Angel of Death

Though I am not sure whether I should call this writing as an essay or a mere journal of one of my restless nights, I have to write this either way—as these ideas prevent me from going to sleep, turning myself tense like carrying tons of heavy thoughts over my head, and strangely my chest.

It begins when I finished reading the sixth page of Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic, for one of my subject in college. I never thought that I only have a microscopic size of knowledge regarding the issues about women in literature, I was too much of a hard-headed person to even realize that I do not know a thing about this particular discussion, nothing at all. I am not aware that this issue is much worse than what I think—worse in a sense that it confuses me even more than I imagined it would be. It traces back to the Middle Ages, as “mankind’s great teacher of purity was the Virgin Mary, a mother goddess who perfectly fitted the female role Ortner defines as “merciful dispenser of salvation”” (Gilbert and Gubar,2004: 814) and then to the nineteenth century where “the eternal type of female purity was represented not by a Madonna in heaven but by an angel in the house” (2004: 814). At a first glance, you may think that these sentences have nothing to do with any kind of issues relating to feminism, or women in literature—as I prefer to call it so—yet these are few of the most ironic remarks on the ideas of such issues. It seems harmless as female were connected with such aesthetical terms as ‘goddess’ or ‘angel’, but the fact that those terms seemed harmless is the main issue of this remarks. The word harmless subtly implies that it does not matter at all; it does not matter in a way that it does not have any significant influence for other subject. Even when we do acknowledge the existence of a woman, her voice will only be considered as one of the most reliable opinion in constructing the mightiness of her husband, her man; ignoring the fact that she actually did something significant, she did a “significant action” in the effort to signify her man. The situation becomes worse as “…based on the notion that “Man must be please; but him to please / Is woman’s pleasure” (2004: 816), scrutinizing women existence ever deeper into an exile. This is another irony to the idea of recognizing women as a human being as it is implied from the preceding sentence that women is not a human in a sense that she does not have any needs or desire or dreams or anything that a normal human would have; we don’t have to really pay any attention to those needs that she may (not) have. “The arts of pleasing men, in other words, are not only angelic characteristics in more worldly term, they are proper acts of a lady” (2004: 816), those remarks seem to be absurd and slightly ironic in a way that how can we say pleasing a man is an angelic thing when it is a process to satisfy one of men’s deadliest sins, Lust. Thus, is it an obligation for the women to become a place where a man, or men can vent out their ‘angelic’ lust, anger, greed, gluttony, and many other ‘angelic’ reasons?

“At times, however, in the severity of her selflessness, as well as in the extremity of her alienation of the ordinary fleshly life, the nineteenth-century angel woman becomes not a just a memento of otherness but actually a memento mori or, Alexander Welsh has noted, an “Angel of Death.” (2004: 817)

“Angel of Death”, a combination of two words which were or are closely related with the issues regarding women in literature. It is indeed intriguing, and also ironic, as the image of women was perceived to be this ‘divine’ being—yet did not considered as that much of a human—whose virtues are to be an epitome of ‘contemplative purity’ with all of her frailty, purity, submissiveness, and modesty, yet she possesses such intimacy with ‘death’. She is indeed an angel as she is responsible for her husband’s accomplishment—for which, she didn’t get any credit. But, she is also ‘death’, as in, she is the one who is responsible for the death of her own self. As it has been mentioned earlier, in following her path to the divine, she must sacrifice her own needs, desire, dreams and so on. However, in doing so, it is implied that she is slowly killing her own self as she’s destroying every single aspects which are the elements of her own existence, her own self. This condition seems to provide women with options where one of which is to follow the path towards the divine and the other is to ‘kill’ herself, but if we look at the options thoroughly, both path will lead to her own ‘death’.

In Jhabvala’s A Backward Place, we can see how Judy was given the opportunity to become the one who does the “significant action”, being compared to her husband Bal who was clearly the “contemplative purity” from the beginning until the middle part of the story, yet in the end, she had to encounter the options to either follow Bal’s plan to go to Bombay or to not follow her husband’s idea. Again, Judy seemed to have some options in term of choosing her path in life, but deep down, both options are not beneficial for her own sake. If she did choose to follow Bal, then she would only be sacrificing her life to follow his husband without having any second opinion in how their family should have been living, handing her “significant action” back within Bal’s hands. But, if she did choose to ignore Bal’s request, then she would also be ‘killing’ herself because that decision will only lead her away from the divine path which is believed within the society that surrounds her.

Or perhaps in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, as we will encounter Esther’s mind-boggling anxiety in choosing the path of her life while struggling with her own quarrel with the ‘demonic’ side that lies within her minds. Attempted suicides, yet in the end she was still miraculously living through every single mental torturing life of her own. Different with Judy, Esther encountered too many options, in a sense that she was the one who construct those plans and ideas for her own—wanting to put her education ahead of the rest, wanting to become experienced writer, wanting to become of a wife, having bunch of children—yet she was the one who also destroyed it as her own mind finally became nauseous of all the ideas, leading into the ‘death’ of herself, the death of her ideas and perhaps her common sense. Esther’s condition implies how hostile the mind of a woman is when she is trying to merely make her dreams come true. Hostile in a way that as her ideas has been suppressed for such a long time, it becomes her own time bomb, her own disease, which carried her through so much mental and physical tragedy—suicide attempts, mental instability, etc.—while slowly devouring every single sanity that she had before.

And from Poe’s The Oval Portrait, a direct example for the concept of how women were killed and ‘killed’ in the process of becoming an art. The dead woman of the painting would have encountered the overrated options as well, as she could either choose to rebel against her own husband’s command to become the object of his marvelous painting, yet she would suffer the shame and guilt—‘killing’ her own self—from the deviance when the we’ve all awareness about what kind of ideas about women that may present at that particular period of time; and she could obey her husband’s request to become the object of his painting, hoping that she would become closer with the ‘divinity’ as she was doing one of the thing that a woman should do, pleasing her man, yet in the end—after enduring weeks of foodless, drink-less, selfless situation—she finally came to her ‘death’, the literal death. Making us wonder, whether her husband’s painting of herself was really worth it.

It is terrifying, to think that there are so many limitations for the women to really fight or to put an effort for her own existence, not only as a female, a woman, but also as a human being. All of those hurdles, ironically, were made by a mere envy that men have in terms of control of his own life—referring to the fact that we all come from a womb of a woman. It is a pity to see that such controversial debate of ideas emerged as a manifestation of one’s desire, men’s desire, upon power and the idea of having a greater value than the others. Do not worry, these preceding sentences confuse me as well, perhaps more than it confuses your own perception and understanding.

These whole ideas influence me to be grateful that things are not that cruelly gruesome for women writers these days—at least that’s what I make myself think—while hoping that it is indeed that the matter for women in literature are not too much worse, compared to the situation which I have explained before. And it helps me to become more cautious and aware about such matter, in a way that I have something more to refer to as if I am talking, thinking about this type of issue. Even though, there are still countless inquiries that I may have, or will be having about this idea as I only have limited sources, state of mind, perception and all that, not knowing what may come to my mind in the near future.  

  

Works Cited

Gilbert, Sandra and Gubar, Susan. 2004. “The Madwoman in the Attic” in Literary Theory: An Anthology ed. Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael (2^nd edition; pg. 812-825). United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing.

Jhabvala, Ruth Praver.2005. A Backward Place, paperback edition. London, England: John Murray (Publishers).

Plath, Sylvia.1996. The Bell Jar. London, England: Harper Perennial.

Poe, Edgar Allan.1842. “The Oval Portrait” in Barry, Petter. 1995. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (pg. 220-3). Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester University Press.