Author: Taryn Tyler

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How Little Red Riding Hood Warns Girls to Be Wary of Meeting a Man in the Woods

Man or Wolf?

Photo in the public domain. Originally published in The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang in 1889.

A young girl is walking alone in a forest. Shadows fall against the forest floor, darkening her path. She is miles from home and miles from her destination when she comes across a wolf.

Her mother told her not to speak to strangers, especially wolves and not to stray from the path, but the wolf seems quite kind and even charming. He tells her where some pretty flowers are and asks her where she is going. “To my grandmother’,” she says. Ignoring her mother’s warning she leaves the path to pick the flowers.

When the girl arrives at her grandmother’s house her grandmother doesn’t seem quite right. Her mouth and ears and nose are all too big, but as the girl gets close enough to be sure of this, her grandmother –who is really the wolf from the woods — gobbles her up.

So many of the older versions of fairy tales have dark themes. They were not necessarily meant to be fun, escapist tales like the tamer Disney versions audiences are more familiar with today. Rather, they were meant to help prepare children for a harsh world using metaphor and fantastic elements to help soften the unsettling truths.

The story of Little Red Riding Hood is a warning to children and young girls in particular, not to stray from the path or be distracted by pretty things. It is a warning to listen to one’s parents, and above all, not to talk to strangers in the woods.

Perhaps one reason Little Red Riding Hood has not been made into a Disney film is that its theme of stranger danger is rather difficult to sanitize. Even the 1966 rock song by Sam and Sham and the Pharaohs acknowledges the predatory sexual nature of the Big Bad Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. The Big Bad Wolf is a potent metaphor for a man with a beastly nature. The confusing and deliberate predatory behavior he exhibits is more like a human than a wild beast. He wants to eat Little Red Riding Hood but he draws the process out. He doesn’t simply attack her. He charms her first. He tricks her. His behavior is predatory, yes, but it is also calculated and deliberate. He distracts her with pretty flowers. He pretends to be a loving member of her family.

Screenshot HQ’s TikTok asking women if they would rather meet a man or a bear alone in the woods was a catalyst for a discussion about women’s safety, but the topic is not new. Society has been discussing ways for women to stay safe since the 1600s and before. Women have always been afraid of meeting the wrong man alone in the woods and caregivers have warned their children to be wary.

While both men and women can be the subject of violence at the hands of men, women are chosen as victims far more frequently. Men who are the victim of violent attacks are also more likely to be attacked by a man than a woman. It’s no wonder that seven out of the eight women who were initially queried by Screenshot HQ chose the bear. A bear doesn’t pretend to be a friend if he’s not. He doesn’t scheme and deceive. It’s not that all bears are preferable to all men, it’s that the worst possible bear is better than the worst possible man.

The Grimm brothers added the woodsman to come save the day in 1812 as if to tell their readers “not all men”. The older version, however, recorded by Charles Perault in the 1697, had no woodsman. Little Red Riding Hood didn’t listen to her mother and death was her consequence. She allowed the wolf to charm her and paid the price for it. There is an element of victim blaming in this. Her safety is considered her own responsibility. Even the title suggests that she is drawing too much attention to herself by wearing red. Perhaps she was asking for it, leaving the house in that. The story warns young girls to be wary and protect themselves instead of warning young boys not to become wolves.

Fairy Tales offer us a unique peek into the collective consciousness of society. The things we tell stories about tell us a lot about who we are as a society and the stories we choose to continue to tell help us shape who we could become. Society has always known dangerous beastly men exist or folklore wouldn’t have so many stories warning children about them. Not just the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, but Bluebeard and so many more. Where are the folktales teaching young boys not to become wolves or how to expose them for what they are? If men like the woodsman are women’s protectors, why is her safety dependent on whether or not she wears red or strays from the path? 400 years and more since the writing of Little Red Riding Hood, why do we still have so many wolves in our woods?

It only took one wolf to destroy poor little Red, and it only takes one man to destroy a woman’s life if it is the wrong man. A man with a beastly nature can destroy her trust in goodness, her faith in not just men specifically, but mankind. The fear is not that it is all men, but that it could be any. Trying to guess who are the wolves and who are the woodsman is difficult because the animals are so good at disguising themselves in order to get close to their prey.

Women have always been afraid to meet a man alone in the woods. We have warned our daughters to be careful for centuries. It’s not a new discussion at all but I wish it were old. I wish this were an issue that was relevant in the olden times. An archaic seventeenth-century danger like cholera and the black death that education and the progress of society has stamped out with time.

Alas, it is not so. There are still enough beasts masquerading as men that women and men alike are at risk when they meet an unknown man alone in the woods. We still warn our children about talking to strangers. In human society friend or foe is not as simple as it is in the animal kingdom. Whether bear or wolf, a wild beast can feel like less of a threat than the risk of the uncertainty of a charming but untrustworthy human.

Perhaps it is time to stop warning young girls to be wary and time to stop arguing about whether or not women have a right to feel fear. Perhaps it is time to start fighting the human beasts who are more frightening than a wild animal, the wolves hiding in men’s clothing.

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Can AI Create Art?

Intelligence

A flickering screen with words typed from

knowledge in a chip.

My mind’s  ability seems  obsolete

compared to its hip,

quick clicks, and artificial information

made of binary

synthesis, but machines will never learn

to write poetry.

I wrote this poem many years ago in college (2010 I think).  AI was already in use, but it was not nearly as prominent as it is today. AI can do a lot of things, including mimicking poetry and other art forms. But is it really writing poetry?  

There are many discussions on whether or not the use of AI is ethical. It takes jobs from human creatives. However, even apart from the ethical concerns, AI simply cannot create poetry or any other form of art. 

What is Poetry?

“Poetry”, according to romantic poet William Wordsworth, is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” (Lyrical Ballads, Preface) Poetic devices such as rhyme, alliteration, and meter patterns have fallen in and out of fashion over the years but, at its core, poetry is human expression.  The poet is expressing a piece of themselves to the reader or listener and the reader or listener finds something meaningful in sharing that experience with the poet.

Art is not merely an image or words strung together in a certain way. Art, from the Latin artem, is a skill or a craft. Skill and craft are both words referring to the process not the end result.  

This is why nineteenth-century French philosopher, Victor Cousin coined the phrase “L’art pour l’art” or “art for art’s sake”.  True art has never been about the end result.  It has always been about the process.  

There are many ways to define art, but intention and expression are always an integral element. The act of creation cannot be separated from the creation itself and the act of creation cannot be separated from human emotion. 

According to D’arcy Hayman, “Art is the essence of that which is human; it is the embodiment of the human experience and goal.”  (The Arts and Man, A World View of the Role and Functions of the Arts in Society).  Ultimately, Art reaches beyond the body and physical needs of the human race in search of a deeper existence.  It is the scream of humanity. Pieces of ourselves reaching out to be heard. 

To put it in simpler terms “We read to know we are not alone.” (Shadowlands, 1994) We experience art in order to experience one another. 

Can AI Create Poetry?

How then can a poem written by an unfeeling computer mean anything at all? There is no connection to another human being (or lifeform or even consciousness), no emotion pouring out from one soul to another.  It might have all the same pieces as a poem, but it is essentially meaningless. A computer cannot feel or express. It can produce a product, but it cannot create art

That isn’t to say a poem assimilated by AI cannot invoke emotion.  On the contrary, many do. A reader might not be able to even tell it apart from a poem by a living (or once living) poet. And if it is indistinguishable from art is it not art? 

In a way, everyone who experiences a piece of art is part artist because we each experience it in our own way and thus participate in its creation. We bring our own experiences to the art and interpret it accordingly.  In that sense, art is a catalyst for feelings and the reader, the viewer, or the listener, is the true artist.  Cannot art -poetry- by a computer be used in this way? A bridge that connects people without needing to be created by anyone at all? It still invokes feelings.  It still shows us that we are not alone. Could AI be the scream of humanity?  An imitation of ourselves that we now strive to imitate? 

Not every poem assimilated by a poetry program, however, can invoke emotions. The poems assimilated must be sorted through and gleaned for meaning. In that sense, they could perhaps be called pieces of found art. Something a human found meaning in and chose to showcase.  It can still connect us, and it can still enrich our lives, but the computer is never the artist.  It is only a tool like a paintbrush or a blender.

A computer can be programmed to imitate art but it will never be the artist.  It could be argued that the programmer is the artist but the programmer only assimilated the tool. The program itself requires the works of hundreds and thousands of past writers.  Anything created by AI was created by every single artist whose work was used to create the program. All it can do is mimic what has come before. It cannot create anything new. 

Creative Innovation and Imagination 

Art will suffocate if nothing new is added to the mix. According to Phillip Sydney and many other philosophers, Art is a teacher. We create from imagination in order to envision what could be.  This is both why art is so important to society and a big reason why it cannot be created by a computer. A computer can only copy patterns.  It can only mimic what is. It cannot innovate. It cannot dream of things that have never been. 

Art is an important tool to escape conformity and improve society ( Hayman) It is the genetic variation in the evolution of society.  True art is born of chaos. How then can an orderly program be expected to create it? Without innovation, it will only ever be a pantomime of art. 

AI might be used to help create poetry, but it cannot replace the poet. It has no investment in or comprehension of what it is assimilating. If the computer never feels or understands the words it is stringing together it cannot be true expression or creation. It cannot be poetry.  It cannot be art.

AI does not necessarily need to be abolished in the creative world, but it is important that we use, and more importantly consume, it ethically.  A computer does not need to be fed but an artist -a poet- does. An artist (or multiple artists) is still needed to create. There just isn’t a substitute for human emotion and imagination in creative work. A human (or feeling entity) will always be needed to create art.

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The Little Mermaid: A Tail of Belonging

Why Hans Christain Andersen’s Darker Version of the Fairy Tale May Be Better Than The 1989 Disney Adaptation

Portrait of Hans Christain Andersen

Hans Christan Anderson’s The Little Mermaid

In Hans Christian Andersen’s original dark fairy tale, The Little Mermaid, the unnamed little mermaid longs for a soul. She rescues a prince and leaves him at a temple to heal. Curious, she asks her grandmother about the lives of mortals and learns that the only way the merfolk can gain a soul is through marriage to a mortal. She decides her greatest desire is to marry the prince she rescued so that she can have a soul. 

The little mermaid bargains with a sea witch for legs so that she can woo the prince. In exchange, she must give up, not only her voice but her comfort and potentially her life. Every time she takes a step on her new legs, she feels pain like daggers shooting up her feet and if the prince does not marry her, she will turn into seafoam and die.

The little mermaid finds the prince, but he does not love her. He sees her as a cute, childlike friend rather than a potential bride and becomes engaged to another princess who had nursed him back to health inside the temple. On the day of the wedding, the little mermaid’s sisters bring her a magical dagger they bought from the sea witch with their hair. They tell her that if she kills the prince with the magical dagger she can turn back into a mermaid and return to the sea. 

The little mermaid cannot bear to harm the man she loves even after he has wed another. Instead of following her sisters’ advice and freeing herself from the sea witch’s curse, she throws herself into the sea, accepting her death. Because of her sacrifice, she is granted a soul. Her body turns to seafoam but her soul lives on forever. 

Meaning of The Little Mermaid

At its core, The Little Mermaid is the tale of someone who is willing to take risks to be true to themselves. It’s the story of a literal fish out of water, desperately wanting to belong in a world not meant for them. Any reader who has ever felt they didn’t quite fit in can relate to the little mermaid’s quest to belong. She longs for a soul — something her family doesn’t care to understand — and is willing to sacrifice her own comfort to obtain one. Hans Christain Andersen may have been writing about his own longing for acceptance when he crafted the fairy tale.

Hans Christian Andersen was bisexual. Living in the 1800s he would have often had to hide his liaisons with lovers. Hiding who he was may have felt like he was being forced to give up his voice and walk on knives. Meanwhile, the objects of his affection often saw him as a friend rather than a lover, and he would be required to attend their weddings. 

Hans Christain Andersen is also speculated by some historians to have been an undiagnosed autistic person. The mermaid heroine shows quite a few autistic traits. She has an intense interest in the human world and a lack of awareness of the danger involved in making a pact with the sea witch (Jessica Kellgren on Autism tropes). In this interpretation, the little mermaid’s loss of voice and dagger-sharp steps are an apt metaphor for autistic “masking” or hiding one’s true self in order to be accepted by society.

The story of someone longing to change their body in order to find their true self can also be a very elegant metaphor for being transgender. Unlike the other merfolk, the little mermaid is not satisfied with her life in the sea and is willing to risk the pain and awkwardness of transitioning to become her true self. (For a more in-depth analysis of the transgender themes in The Little Mermaid watch this video by Lindsay Ellis).

Whatever Hans Christain Andersen’s intent, anyone who has ever felt like an outsider trying to find acceptance can relate to the themes in The Little Mermaid. The almost universal craving to belong may be why it is still such a beloved fairy tale almost 200 years after it was written. 

Disney’s 1989 Adaptation of The Little Mermaid 

The intense feeling of longing in The Little Mermaid is beautifully expressed in the classic song “Part of Your World” from the 1989 Disney adaptation of the fairy tale. In this song, the little mermaid expresses her desire for more. For a world that accepts her the way she is. Despite its siren musical score, however, the 1989 Disney adaptation of The Little Mermaid makes a lot of changes to Hans Christian Andersen’s original story. 

Disney names the little mermaid Ariel and changes her desire for a soul to a deep curiosity for human life. She falls in love at first sight with the prince who Disney names Eric. In Disney’s version, the prince’s bride is actually the sea witch in disguise. Rather than sacrifice herself to the sea, Ariel rescues Eric from the sea witch’s deceit and marries him herself.

On the surface, this Disney adaptation appears to be much more satisfying. Everything is ultimately restored to the little mermaid. She lives happily ever after in wedded bliss instead of turning into seafoam. In Hans Christian Andersen’s original fairy tale, however, despite turning into seafoam, the little mermaid does obtain what she wanted all along — her soul. 

The Little Mermaid’s Sacrifice 

In Hans Christain Andersen’s original, despite the tragedy of her sacrifice, the little mermaid doesn’t need the prince to have her desire for a soul granted. She gives her life to save him, but obtaining her heart’s desire is dependent on her own actions rather than who will or won’t choose her as a bride. Her soul is her own, earned by her own innate goodness, not borrowed through marriage. It shifts the narrative from a love story to a story about finding one’s true self, which more accurately fits the themes of seeking belonging embedded into the story from the beginning.

The older, darker version of the fairy tale resonates with more hope than Disney’s “happier” ending because it is when the little mermaid is her truest self, regardless of the acceptance of others, that she ultimately transcends her pain and becomes all that she desires to be. She actualizes herself with her own agency rather than earning the love of others. Hans Christian Andersen’s little mermaid pays the ultimate sacrifice in order to be herself and, in the end, that was all she ever needed.

You can learn more about Taryn Tyler’s dark fairy tale retellings here

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The Cauldron of Story: Tropes, Cliches, Archetypes, And Tolkien’s Take on The Origin of Stories

Perusing a bookstore these days you are likely to see titles grouped by “Enemies to Lovers”, “Discovering Magical Powers”, or “Found Family”. More and more readers have been describing books by the tropes they contain. This trend is reflected in book recommendation sites, marketing strategies, and general conversations about books.

Categorizing stories based on well know story devices and patterns is not new. Folklorists have been keeping a catalogue of common patterns and motifs for centuries.

Carl Jung wrote about what he called Archetypes; types of characters that repeat, specifically in mythology. Joseph Campbell wrote about what he calls The Monomyth, a pattern he claimed all stories follow that is still used as a basis for script writers of major motion pictures. In his famous essay “On Fairy-Stories” J.R.R Tolkien speaks about The Tree of Story or Story Cauldron and how different elements of story are added to and expanded on over time, drawing from both history and the general human experience.

“The pot of soup,” Tolkien states, “the cauldron of story, has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty.” (52)

Tropes are the brick and mortar of storytelling. A teller cannot lay the foundation of a story without them. Audiences often find comfort in a certain amount of predictability and familiarity. Even a subconscious concept of the structure of a story or type of character allows them to feel a sense of satisfaction and “rightness” when things follow the expected pattern. On the other hand established patterns and tropes also allow audiences to feel more surprise and satisfaction when a story deviates from them.

The “rule of three” is a common structure in western folklore that is also used in modern comedy. In this structure things happen in groups of three. The first two events set up a pattern but the third subverts it. In many folklore stories, for example, we follow two siblings who make the same mistake but the third sibling behaves differently and triumphs.

Most audiences enjoy this balance between the familiar and the unexpected. In order to subvert an audience’s expectations, a writer must first set up those expectation. Tropes can make this set up easier. Tropes by themselves, however, are not enough to carry a story. There must be enough texture and richness in the specific details to keep the audience engaged.

According to Tolkien “It is precisely the coloring, the atmosphere, the unclassifiable individual details of a story, and above all the general purport that informs with life the undissected bones of the plot, that really count.” ( 46) When those rich, intricate details are forgotten the trope becomes cliché.

A cliché is a literary device or phrase that is tired and overused. It is different than a trope because, while cliches should always be avoided, the use of a trope is, by itself, neutral. A trope can be used poorly or effectively just as an ingredient can be prepared well or not depending on the cook. A trope in the hands of an unskilled storyteller becomes cliché but in skilled hands it becomes part of a delectable meal.

Tolkien states that “It is easy for the student (of folklore) to feel that with all his labour he is collecting only a few leaves, many of them now torn or decaying from the countless foliage of the Tree of Tales, with which the Forest of Days is carpeted. It seems vain to add to the litter. Who can design a new leaf?” (76).

It may appear on the surface as if there are no new ingredients and that every story has already been told, but that is ultimately missing the point of storytelling. It’s in the richness and texture of the details that make a story enjoyable.

“We do not, or need not, despair of drawing because all lines must be either curved or straight, nor of painting because there are only three ‘primary’ colours.” ( 76) We may be able to recognize and name the pieces that make up a story but that does not mean every story that uses those pieces is the same. Two drawings are not the same because they both use lines or because they both use the color yellow.

The use of a specific trope cannot determine if a story is good or bad. The trope itself is simply an ingredient. What determines the quality of a story is how the ingredients are prepared.  Each cook has their own unique set of spices, their own voice and experience to breathe life into a story.

Tropes are only the bones of a story, not the story itself. No two books with the exact same set of tropes will ever be the same. Describing books by their tropes is a fun way to categorize them. It might even increase our chances of finding the kind of book we are in the mood for but it is a bit like describing a recipe by its ingredients alone. It can tell us its nutritional value and any allergens it may contain, but without knowing whether those ingredients are baked or simmered or fried or left raw we cannot know the full experience of the story we are about to enjoy. We can never know for certain if we will enjoy a book or not until we have begun to read it and experience all the rich texture and specifics the author is offering us.

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Anne Boleyn: The Hunted Hind

Queen Anne Boleyn has been equally demonized and romanticized throughout history. The sordid temptress who broke England from the church. A witch with six fingers. A cold, calculated opportunist. A determined defender of the protestant faith. The victim beheaded for having a daughter instead of a son. The woman who could make even a tyrant like Henry VIII fall in love. Rumors and exaggerated truths about her life abounded during her lifetime and have only been expanded on through fiction and propaganda since her unprecedented execution.

But what is it about Anne Boleyn that truly makes her any more villainous or glamourous than Henry VIII’s other five wives?

Anne was born to Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn in the early sixteenth century. Her and her sister Mary were both sent to the French court to serve Queen Claude. In Tudor times a courtier’s duties were to charm, entertain and ultimately influence the rulers at court. They had official tasks such as managing the royal wardrobe but their true purpose was to be decorative and represent their families at court. .

Mary Bolyen was moved from the French court to her home court in England to serve Queen Catherine of Aragon where she began an affair with King Henry VIII, her mistress’s husband. Henry VIII seemed very much to treat his wife’s ladies like his own personal harem. Both his known mistresses and three of his wives were selected from the ladies serving at court. Considering the power dynamic these women were hardly in a position to refuse him.

Anne Boleyn soon joined her sister at Henry VIII’s court. By all accounts she was a very skilled courtier, well known for her dancing and wit more than her beauty. She was briefly betrothed to Sir Henry Percy but the king would not approve of the marriage.  Poet Sir Thomas Wyatt was also infatuated with her despite being married and soon he himself.  He wrote in a poem that he could not catch her.

 There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,

This meaning that Henry VIII had already made claim of her 

It is interesting that while Anne is called a harlot for eventually accepting Henry’s advances, she is also called a vixen for initially refusing him. She is simultaneously shamed for saying “yes” and for saying “no”. Her first reaction at being pursued by the king was to leave court. Henry had by this time been speaking to Cardinal Walsey about replacing Queen Catherine with a younger woman who could produce heirs but there is no historical evidence to suggest that Anne had any knowledge of this. If her initial response was to leave court it is more than likely that she was not, initially, interested in the king.

Anne had numerous reasons to be wary of

Henry’s advances. Loyalty to her sister. Perhaps she had observed how Mary had been treated. She might even have been concerned that being the king’s mistress would make her untouchable to other suitors. 

Henry VIII wrote Anne letters while she was away from court but there is no record of her responses. The assumption that her cryptic replies and hasty removal from court were a game of chase meant to entice him even more is rooted in the misogynistic myth that “no” is a challenge. We do not know how often she replied or how encouraging she was but her refusal does not imply that she was planning to become queen or even saw that as a possibility. Presumably she would need to be careful not to offend the king to protect her family. She could not be forceful in her replies. She would need to flatter him regardless of her feelings or intentions. Her “virtue” may very well have been the only excuse she thought he might accept. 

Perhaps Henry VIII did eventually wear her down with his attention and she developed an affection for him. Perhaps she saw an opportunity to enact the religious reform she believed in similar to Catherine Par, Henry’s last wife who never wanted to be Queen but believed God called her to be. Perhaps she realized that no one else would risk upsetting the king by marrying her. Perhaps she always meant to refuse him and was simply out of excuses when he said he would divorce Catherine. Whatever the reason, Anne eventually agreed to marry the king.

Once she had accepted the King’s proposal, Anne She moved back to his court and accepted special rooms and gifts but refused to be his mistress until the annulment was certain. Their engagement lasted six years. The pope continually denied Henry an annulment. Anne is said to have gifted Henry a book that outlined radical protestant beliefs including a King’s sovereignty over the pope. Henry, who had previously written works defending the Catholic church, founded the church of England and granted his own annulment.

Once she was queen, Anne Boleyn used her authority to further the protestant movement. She was a direct and assertive politician despite still being called “the King’s whore” by most of the court. Anne’s unapologetic assertiveness as queen may very well be what sets her apart from Henry’s wives who came after her. Henry is reported to have told his next wife, Jane Seymour, when she dared to assert her opinion on a subject “Remember Anne”. Catherine Par, his final wife,  also angered him by contradicting his decision but escaped trial by begging for his forgiveness.

 Anne began to find herself in conflict with Arch Chanceler Thomas Cromwell more and more frequently and Henry, now bored with her, ceased indulging her authority. 

 In 1536 Anne was arrested for adultery, witchcraft, and treason. She was tried on May 15 and executed four days later. Henry VIII hired an executioner from France who could behead her with a single blow of a sword rather than the several chops of an ax Henry’s third wife ,Catherine Howard, later endured. He already had a new queen lined up. Jane Seymour who had served both Anne and Catherine of Aragon as a lady in waiting.

There is no historical evidence to suggest that any of the accusations Anne was executed for were true  Almost every man she had a friendship with was arrested for having “carnal knowledge” of her but only one confessed; the only commoner who could thus legally be tortured. In contrast when Catherine Howard was later accused of the same crimes there were detailed accounts of secret communication with the men she was accused of having affairs with.

Perhaps Henry VIII believed the accusations. Perhaps they were merely an excuse to get rid of a wife who asserted herself without another lengthy ordeal to obtain an annulment. It is odd that Jane Seymour is painted by history as the saintly wife when she followed so closely in Anne Boleyn’s footsteps. Jane too said “no” when Henry first pursued her as a mistress. She too agreed to have sexual relations with him only if she were queen. She too took another woman’s place. The woman Jane usurped, however, was not merely divorced and sent away as Catherine of Aragon was. She was beheaded.

So much of what we associate with Anne was told through the eyes of a lover who had grown tired of her and her political and religious enemies. There is very little information written in her own lifetime and even less, apart from her execution speech, of her own words. 

Because she was a woman who, for a brief moment, wielded power and wealth there is no end of criticism heaped on her despite her many similarities to Henry’s other wives. Even her political ruthlessness is barely commented on in her male contemporaries such as Thomas Cromwell who are by contrast admired for their cleverness and efficiency.

Anne Boleyn was not much different than Henry VII’s other five wives. She was chosen by him and ultimately had little choice in whether or not she would marry him. She made the best of the situation and was an assertive politician but fell out of the King’s favor and was executed on false charges. The sensationalized, demonized, and romanticization of her story is based on rumor, exaggeration, and in many cases novels and films created many years after her death. 

Jodie Turner Smith as Anne Boleyn in 2021 mini series

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Jane Eyre was the Original Not-Like-Other-Girls

She’s pretty but she doesn’t realize it. She’s smart but she doesn’t realize it. She’s into cool, practical things, not silly, frivolous ones. She would never use her charms for her own gains because she doesn’t realize she has any. She’s respectable. She comes from humble beginnings. She’s kind and capable and more than a little lonely. She’s a rare jewel in an ocean of flashy skin deep baubles. She’s . . .

Not Like Other Girls.

Bella Swan. Alina Starkov. Katniss Everdeen. YA fantasy is bursting with so many manifestations of this heroine that she is now a cliche but where did she originate and why did she become so prominent?

The rise of Dark Romance as a genre in YA fantasy began largely with Twilight in the early 2000s but if you remove the supernatural element the genre bears a striking resemblance to the works of the Bronte sisters way back in the 1850s. The brooding bad boy who is able to see the Not-Like-Other-Girl’s worth bears a striking resemblance to the Byronic hero of the Romantic Era. Manifestations of the Byronic hero are found in both Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff and Charlotte Bronte’s Rochester. 

The Bronte sisters were unique in their time because they wrote from an underrepresented woman’s perspective. Because of this, their heroines were not the picture perfect paragons of beauty, warmth and goodness that the male gaze of the time expected them to be. Instead of the flawless but unobtainable Estella of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations or Mina, the lovely damsel in distress from Bram Stoker’s Dracula we have the wild, pragmatic Catherine of Wuthering Heights and, of course, the small, plain, practical Jane Eyre.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre is a textbook Not-Like-Other-Girls. She comes from humble beginnings. She’s satisfied with little and doesn’t expect much. She’s not stunning. She has no special skills or abilities. She doesn’t spend time chasing men or thinking too much of herself like her first rival Miss Blanche Ingim or have dangerous fits of violence like poor Bertha in the attic. She’s moral and would never dream of becoming someone’s mistress like her pupil’s mother, Celine Varens. When Rochester confesses his love for Jane he compares her to all his past lovers, declaring that he had given up finding a woman who could make him happy until he had met her.

Jane’s first obstacle between her and Rochester’s affections is Miss Blanche Ingram. Blanche is written as a walking stereotype of everything a high class woman was meant to be at the time. Beautiful. Refined. Elegant. Rich. Charming. In contrast to Jane, however, she is also superficial, vain, and calculating. Jane herself expresses compassion for her, recognizing that she was raised to be that way, but the narrative itself paints her as less desirable and silly. Even as far back as the 1800s women like Jane were made to feel lesser for not meeting the feminine ideals of the time while women like Blanche were simultaneously villainized for meeting them. 

Rochester’s apparent affection for Blanche, however, turns out to be a ruse. He casts her aside once he is convinced that Jane is jealous. Jane rebukes him for playing with Blanche’s feelings but he convinces her that she never cared about him anyways. The narrative appears to accept his statement as fact but there is no way he could actually know it to be true. A similar attitude is taken toward Miss Rosamond later in the story when her romantic hopes are dashed. The man who chooses not to marry her despite loving her shrugs it off, saying she is pretty and will have lots of options. From a practical standpoint this may be true but it is callous to both women’s feelings and suggests that Bronte believes women who fit the beauty standards of the time more closely were necessarily more shallow and less deeply hurt by rejection.

The real obstacle standing between Jane and  Rochester is, of course, Bertha Rochester, the wife he is hiding in his attic.Jane herself shows compassion for Bertha when she learns of her. She tells Rochester “It is not her fault that she is mad.” but the narrative still frames Bertha as  monstrous and unnatural. Rochester swears he never loved her, that he was pressured into the marriage, that her ailment was concealed from him. He even goes so far as to call her a “demon”. It is never once questioned that locking a woman with poor mental health in the attic is the obvious thing to do. 

Blanche and Bertha are the primary obstacles between Jane and Rochester but they are not all the other girls that Jane is not like. There is also Adele’s mother, the actress Celine Varens along with his other mistresses he has taken since his marriage to Bertha. Rochester expresses nothing but contempt for these women and even the usually compassionate Jane does not rebuke him for this. His complete lack of respect for these women is why Jane decides that she absolutely will not live as Rochester’s mistress and flees.

Ultimately Rochester does not go unpunished for his poor treatment of the women in his life. While Jane receives an unexpected inheritance Rochester’s house burns down. Even though Bertha dies and he is free to marry Jane he is blinded by the fire. Jane marries him not as the powerful employer that she had fallen for but a humbled older man who is dependent on her for basic needs. It is not unremarkable that a story that is so focused on the male gaze ends with the man in question unable to see. It could be argued that the narrative is more aware than it first appears of how much of a villain Rochester actually is. His sins are not unpunished and he must repent before he can be allowed to have happiness with Jane. 

Despite this retribution, the reformed Rochester still presents a dangerous message. In the narrative Jane is not like all these other women in his life. She is special enough to cause him to  repent. The fantasy that a woman can be kind and good and wonderful enough to tame a monster is an old one. It makes an enticing and powerful story but not only can this narrative encourage women to stay in a relationship with a chronic abuser it also perpetuates the idea that the women who came before deserved the abuse in one way or another. Because they were shallow. Because they were crazy. Because they were sluts. Don’t be like those girls. Behave and everything will work out in the end. 

Jane marries Rochester. She says she is happy but is she? Is it not only a matter of time until she becomes Bertha, trapped in her husband’s home while he pursues a younger upgrade? 

All girls are not like other girls. The paragon of feminine perfection does not exist. The reason this trope has become so prominent is that it is relatable. All girls feel they fall short of the standards of perfection they are constantly compared against. 

Jane’s ordinariness is what makes her such a badass heroine. She doesn’t have to be pretty to be amazing. She doesn’t have to have special talents or good fortune. She is worthy of love and she knows it. This is what makes her so iconic and why she is a stronger character than later Not-Like-Other-Girls. From the very beginning she defends her own worth.

Still, there is a danger in the way Jane is constantly compared against the other women in her story. It is satisfying to see the underdog win but there is still that undercurrent of competition between women rather than support. Jane sees her worth from the beginning. Does she really need Rochester to validate it? Could she not celebrate herself while also celebrating Blanche, Bertha, and Celine? The paradox of the Not-Like-Other-Girls is that rather than free women from unrealistic expectations she represents a different set of expectations. 

Ultimately whether someone is Like or Not-Like Other-Girls is irrelevant. People of all genders should be free to express themselves and enjoy themselves the way they choose. We could all learn something from Jane and choose to own our worth regardless of others’ expectations of us but perhaps we can learn to do so without pitting ourselves against each other and trading one kind of comparison for another. 

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Cottagecore and Transcendentalism. How Photos of Girls in Flowery Fields Have Roots in a Gentlemen Only Philosopher’s Club.

The cottagecore aesthetic has taken the internet by storm. Our feeds are teeming with photos of flowers, picnics, baking, rolling fields, and girls in flowy summer dresses. The images are a lovely break to the constant onslaught of stressful articles and distressing world events but where does this new craze come from? Why do so many of us seem to be craving the quiet simplicity of nature and stillness right now? 

It is commonly said that the stress of the covid 19 pandemic combined with the necessary stillness it has required of us has awakened this longing for an idyllic, comforting stillness. This may be part of what has allowed this trend of romanticizing a past that never existed to blossom but it’s roots go much deeper.

Historically artistic trends have always flowed back and forth between the two extremes of structure and form to feeling and wildness. Neoclassicism fades into Romanticism which fades into Realism which fades into Impressionism. Each generation gets tired of what the previous generation’s preferences and swings back in the opposite direction. The same could be said for historical periods of music and literature as well as visual art. We constantly teeter back and forth between the extremes of Reason and Emotion. Our efforts as human to balance Reason and Emotions go back as far as Plato in western traditions.*

One major literary and artistic movement that favored emotion took place on the British Isles during the industrial revolution. Romantic Era combated the utilitarian mindset of factory owners and an increasingly prominent urban lifestyle with ideals of beauty, feeling, and a return to nature. It was an antithesis to the rigid utilitarian mindset brought on by industrialization. 

Just as Romanticism began winding down on the British Isles, the colonies experienced a literary and philosophical renaissance of their own. Transcendentalism shares similar characteristics to Romanticism such as appreciating nature and rejecting an overly industrialized life. However, while Romanticism focuses primarily on emotions, art, and aesthetics, American Transcendentalism focuses more on political discourse, simplicity, and rejecting worldly goods. 

The most prominent and well known piece written on Transcendentalism, which unlike Romanticism was conscious of being a movement, is Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. In it he reflects on his time living in simplicity in a place called Walden Pond. Some other writers from the movement include Nathaniel Hawthorne who wrote the House of Seven Gables, a gothic novel in which a girl from the country brings a dreary village back to life in manic-pixie-dream-girl fashion and Ralph Waldo Emerson whose poetry collection Leaves of Grass celebrates nature, contemplation, and quiet. Margaret Fuller, a prominent feminist writer was the only woman amongst them and worked several years as editor and writer for their Magazine The Dial.

A lesser known writer who belonged to the Transcendentalist movement is Amos Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott the author of Little Women. Louisa, however, was critical of her father’s philosophy. His commitment to poverty and simplicity left her, her mother, and her sisters to fend for themselves to make an income in a male dominated world. This suggests a lack of awareness of the practical ramifications of his intellectual purism.

Similarly, while Thoreau wrote Walden in a period of isolation from society he did so at a wealthy friend’s cottage. Food was brought to him while he wrote and his mother continued to do his laundry. Both scenarios show the limitations of the movement as it was cultivated by those who had the means to survive comfortably at a slower, simpler pace rather than those who needed to work constantly to survive.. 

Similar criticism has been applied to modern movements meant to counter the constant pressure of hustle culture in a data driven society similar in many ways to the industrial revolution. The criticism is valid. Not everyone is able to slow down and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. However, that does not negate the value in taking things slow when possible.  Recognizing that one does not always need to achieve more and taking time to experience and appreciate what one already has fosters gratitude and contentment rather than stress and anxiety. 

Another criticism of cottagecore is the supposed hypocrisy of appreciating nature and savoring the moment while posting about it online. However, an aesthetic that represents a state of rest and appreciation of simple things can allow its participants to post about those moments if they enjoy doing so. That enjoyment is part of the appreciation.

In this way allowing these images to exist in a digital space suggests more awareness than the original Tandensendalist movement. The idyllic world flowers and picnics and homemade bread does not claim to actually exist. It’s a place for one’s tired mind to rest before returning to nine to fives and frustrating phone calls with automated voice systems. Society now exists in digital form and in order to interact with it we all must eventually return to that reality in some form or another.

While the popularity of cottagecore may be partially brought on by the isolation of the pandemic and the mental fatigue and stress of an international crisis it is also influenced by the desire to escape the rapid change of the digital world, the collective stress of globalization, and the data driven push of hustle culture.  It cannot be a coincidence that the onset of both Romanticism and Transcendentalism were also preceded by a massive change in technology and push towards standardization and optimization. The natural counterbalance to such utilitarianism is a craving for simplicity and stillness and appreciation of beauty and purposelessness. 

*Presumably other traditions of thought also grapple with the seeming disconnect of Reason and Emotions but, unfortunately, I am less familiar with specific writings of those traditions and would not like to comment on them without further research. If you know of a non-western writer who wrote of this subject please share! I would love to learn more about how other cultures have explored this topic. 

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Bisexual Representation in Fantasy Literature

Bisexuality is a largely underrepresented and often misrepresented identity in fiction. At first glance it’s easy to pass judgement on writers for not writing more bisexual characters. In some cases that judgement might even be warranted but how easy is it to depict bisexuality in the short span of a story? Is it possible to represent bisexuality accurately and avoid harmful stereotypes?

Bisexuality is hard for a lot of people to wrap their minds around. We tend to want to see things in definitive terms. Having a fuzzy answer like “Sometimes” to questions like “Do you like girls?” tends to make people uncomfortable. People assume that either you haven’t figured out what you like yet (rude) or that you’re polyamorous or hypersexual. There is nothing wrong with being polyamorous or hypersexual but those two things do not necessarily coincide with bisexuality. A person can just as easily be bisexual, monogamous, or demi sexual. These same assumptions made about bisexuals in real life are likewise projected onto bisexual characters in fantasy novels. 

The very first fantasy book I read with an LGBTQ+ protagonist was Wolfcry by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. In this novel Olizia, heir to the throne must choose a pair bond but there are a lot of political considerations that make the choice difficult. Lots of men are vying for her attention and the throne when she meets Betia and falls in love. It turns out a marriage to a woman with no possibility of an heir takes a lot of the political pressure off of the decision and allows her to choose her pair bond for love.  Still, it takes her some time to realize that the deep friendship she has formed with Betia is romantic love because she has never considered falling in love with a woman. 

 I loved this book. It was well written and had an underrepresented protagonist. Looking back it was probably the first positive exposure I had to lesbianism. I think I was seventeen when I read it. I distinctly remember thinking that I was supposed to be weirded out by it but actually quite liking it and that was a big step in discovering my own sexuality. Unfortunately, however,  stories like Wolfcry where a protagonist must discover their sexuality can contribute to the idea that a bisexual character is a “confused” character who hasn’t completed their story arch yet. That’s not to de-validate the experience of discovering your sexuality. In a heteronormative world a lot of us assume we’re heterosexual before we’re old enough to have a preference. But, for some, on the other side of discovery is an attraction to both genders and the “gay discovery” narrative does not always address this possibility. 

A well loved fantasy series that features mostly bisexual characters is Ellen Kushner’s Riverside books, Swordpoint, The Privilege of the Sword, and the Fall of Kings. It’s an exciting series, brimming with duels, affairs, decadent parties, and strange ancient magic. The first book, Swordpoint, follows Richard as he fights duels for hire. He is a dangerous, charming swashbuckler who appears to have had many lovers of both genders throughout his life. His current lover is a mysterious and somewhat rude man named Alec whom he appears to be especially besotted with. Their romance is not the central plot but it is very well written with a lot of nuance and complex character development.

Alec appears in the next book, The Privilege of the Sword, as the uncle of the new protagonist Katherine. He is no longer with Richard but instead has many lovers including an actress who is impregnated with his child.  Katherine, a young adolescent girl, challenges a horrible rich man to a duel for raping her friend and while she is training for it learns some things about her own sexual desire  She has a brief crush on the aforementioned actress  and ends up fooling around with her best friend Marcus. It’s unclear whether this relationship lasts. Katherine appears as a minor character in the last book in the series, The Fall of Kings, unmarried with Marcus nearby as an old family friend. This book is full of sex positive messages as well as caution against too much naivety.

The Riverside series depicts a lot of bisexual characters but most of these characters are also hypersexual and many of them have multiple partners at once. Polyamorous representation is great and so is destigmatizing hypersexuality but coupling those two things with bisexuality does reinforce the the idea that bisexuals are more promiscuous than those attracted to a single gender.

A book I read recently featuring a bisexual protagonist is The Wolf and the Hawk by Julian Greystoke. In this book the plot focuses on a heterosexual romance but it is mentioned in the narrative that the protagonist has slept with women in the past. Her sexuality is not a part of the plot at all, just a minor detail about her character. I actually really liked this casual, underwhelming approach to bisexual representation, but it could be argued that reducing that part of her character to a throwaway comment about her past could be read as dismissive. She ends up with a man after all. Doesn’t that mean her dabbling with women was just a phase?

The same could be said of Rose in my own Snow Roses. She ends up with Snow but she is bisexual. Yes, she is using Boris as a distraction because she and Snow are drifting apart, and yes, he ends up being a horrible monster, but her attraction for him is genuine. Unlike Snow who has no attraction to Otto even when she agrees to marry him for political reasons  It’s surprisingly hard to make sure that comes across in the narrative. Something we often forget when we talk about tropes, stereotypes, and representation, is that readers project their preconceived biases onto characters. Unless the writer takes a lot of care to subvert certain assumptions most readers will see them as if they were written into the narrative.

This makes bisexuality particularly difficult to represent. The focus of any romance story is going to be on the end game couple. Any distraction from them getting together can be read as a mere dalliance or experiment if the reader is predisposed to see it that way. On the other hand if a bisexual character does not have an end game partner it reinforces the idea that bisexual people are necessarily more promiscuous than those attracted to exclusively one gender.

Bisexuality is hard to represent for the same reason it’s hard for a lot of people to wrap their minds around. People don’t like their definitions of people to be hazy and inconclusive, sometimes one thing and sometimes another. Bisexuality is by definition two things at once and that ambiguity not only makes some people uncomfortable it is difficult to convey to those who aren’t looking for it.

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What is a “Penny Dreadful”? The Origins of Sweeney Todd and Victorian “Shiping”

A “Penny Dreadful” or “Penny Blood” is a sensational story published in serial pamphlets and newspapers and sold for a penny during the 1800s and early 1900s.They share the dark, thrilling themes of many famous gothic novels such as Dracula and Frankenstein and the same serial format as popular fiction of the time such as Great Expectations and Tess of D’Urberville. but were considered much less literary and often blamed for causing crime due to their violent and sometimes sexual content.

Humans have always been fascinated by their own darker nature. Tales of murder and mayhem have been whispered in the dark since the very first campfire. The forbidden can be as intoxicating as it is frightening. Before “Penny Dreadfuls”, however, most of these dark tales were told orally. Printing books was costly and reserved only for the elite. As a result, literature from the enlightenment age was largely philosophical and moralizing. This changed when the printing press became industrialized. The stories people had always whispered to one another on a cold winter’s night could now be printed and serialized in mass to be clutched by a maid in her room after dark or a stable hand between chores.

Novels of all kinds were serialized in the 1800s. Classics such as Tess of D’Urberville by Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations were published one chapter at a time in popular newspapers. People would anxiously await the weekly installments and discuss them with strong opinions. It was said that hosts of dinner parties would make sure not to put certain guests next to one another for fear that an argument might erupt over whether or not Tess from Tess of D’Urberville was a lady and Dickens rewrote the ending of Great Expectations when there was public outcry that Pip did not marry Estella. These serials, however, were much more costly and read mostly by the upper and middle classes.

Novels featuring the sensational and supernatural were nothing new. What is often regarded as the very first novel, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, was a parody of such romances (here meaning a long tale of adventure popular in the renaissance) such as The Faerie Queen by Edward Spencer, La Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory, or Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto. Dracula and Frankenstein both came from a resurgence of such tales during the romantic period (see more on romanticism here). These gothic novels have stood the test of time but many other novels of the genre such as The Mysteries of Udalpho are less acclaimed and regarded as inferior literature.

Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey is a parody of gothic novels. Unlike the rapturous beauties in  a gothic novel the heroine, Catherine, is described to be quite ordinary. The hero, Mr. Tilny, is not drawn to her out of any unbridled passion but simply because she was pretty, relatively level headed and seemed quite fond of him. The story takes a humorous turn when  she  spends page after page wondering what the origins of a mysterious slip of paper is only to discover that it is an old laundry list.

However much derision gothic novels and romances received for their sensational content and less sophisticated themes it did not compare to the derision heaped upon the “Penny Dreadful”. The earlier “Penny Dreadfuls” focused mainly on “true crime” but then began to focus on fictional criminals such as the Barber of Fleet Street. Soon more fantastical stories began to join them such as the Vampire Varney and Wagner the Weir-Wolf. These stories featured riveting beauties who both killed and required rescuing, murders, kidnappings, love affairs, duels, robbers, vows, lies, and nobles in disguise. They were violent melodramas focusing more on plot and device than themes or character development. Literary critics called them “trash” and they were cited in police reports as the cause of murders and suicides. There was more than one attempt made to have them banned but they continued to be written and circulated in droves .

Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, wrote more “Penny Dreadfuls” -or “Blood and Thunders” as they were more often called in the states- under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, than polite novels about young girls. Her novel A Long and Fatal Love Chase was commissioned by a publisher but ultimately rejected for being “too sensational” and not published until 1995, more than a hundred years after her death. It is often suggested that her “Blood and Thunders” were written for money while Little Women and her other similar stories were her true voice.. However, quotes such as an admission that she had grown “tired of providing moral pap for the young” after the success of Little Women suggests the opposite or, at the very least, that all her stories were written for money.

Much like today, sex, as well as violence sold in the Victorian era. Sexual content was less direct than it is today but it was very often implied. In A Long and Fatal Love Chase the heroine lives with a married man not knowing he is married. When she learns the truth she flees in horror of what she has done, implying that their relationship had not been a chaste one. Nicida, the murderous lover of Wagner in Wagner the Weir-Wolf is kidnapped by pirates and almost “possessed”  by the pirate captain before she is rescued. She and Wagner then live together on the Island for months and the narration refers to them as “husband and wife”, again implying that their relations are not chaste.

The public’s craving for thrilling, sensational stories has never gone away nor has the critic’s assesment that such stories are inferior literature. In later years “Penny Dreadfuls” and “Blood and Thunders” gave way to “Pulp Fiction”, mass produced paperbacks made with cheap pulped paper. A modern equivalent to a “Penny Dreadful” might be a  TV show such as the True Blood or Supernatural. It’s not meant to be high quality storytelling. It’s not meant to make it’s consumers reflect on social issues or come to terms with pieces of their own nature. It’s pure entertainment meant to provide escape and an outlet for the natural human fascination with darkness. It may never take the place of more sophisticated and meticulously crafted stories but it will also never stop being popular.

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A Spirit of One’s Own -A Contemplation on Virginia Woolf and What One Needs to Create

Virginia Woolf is known for her contributions to feminist literature as well as her lesbian relationship with Vita Sackville-West. She has written many famous essays and novels, including her provocative magical realism novel Orlando, which chronologizes the life of an immortal gender-fluid writer throughout British history. In her 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf writes about the conditions necessary to create works of art. ,

In this essay, Woolf is specifically concerned with why there have been so few women writers throughout history. According to Virginia Woolf, it is not, as some men of the time suggested, because women lacked talent or intellect, but because they lacked the material resources needed to create, specifically a steady income and a physical space to create in — a room of one’s own.

Creation requires a certain amount of leisure time. It is often when the mind is most at rest that it is able to be the most creative. According to romantic poet William Wordsworth poetry is “intense emotions recollected in tranquility”. Other types of art are much the same. Extreme conditions and traumatic experiences can inspire beautiful creations, but tranquility is needed to turn that experience into something to share with others. Leisure time is required — time that is not only free of hard work, but also free of worry and distress.

Productivity is highly valued in our modern society. We are addicted to being busy and constantly producing “results”. We have apps to track our “progress” and surveys to compare our stats. This constant need to be moving and doing as if one were a machine can be detrimental to anyone’s mental health, but it is especially detrimental to creation.

Creativity is not the same thing as productivity. Both require mental, emotional, and physical energy and self-discipline, but while productivity is about what a person does, creativity is about who a person is. Creativity cannot be manufactured. It cannot be reduced to a formula or measured on a chart. It cannot be replicated with AI nor can it ever be guaranteed. One might be able to force oneself to be productive despite poor energy levels, but one cannot force oneself to be creative. When the well is empty ideas become stagnant.

Creativity requires the reflection of oneself. It requires giving the mind the freedom to wander aimlessly from thought to thought. It requires letting go of the utilitarian desire to “optimize” or “utilize” everything and embracing the richness of the moment. Creativity requires experiencing things for the sake of the experience alone. It requires the luxury of being still — a luxury that is almost impossible to obtain without the basic necessities of life.

Those who do not enjoy much leisure time cannot create as easily or as often as those who do. Throughout A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf stresses that physical needs must be met in order for the mind to find the time needed to create and imagine. Meeting physical needs gives creators the ability to preserve and protect the energy they need to create art. Mental, emotional, and physical energy can be drained in a variety of ways. While it may seem as if free time alone can give writers the pathway to creativity, that is not always the case.

Virginia Woolf states in her essay that “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” These needs represent the physical necessities of survival as well as freedom from worry about how one is to survive. “Leisure time” is not simply time. It is time to be at leisure — time without worry or stress when one can be alone and reflect.

The iconic image of a starving artist has long been cemented in our minds. A poet alone with nothing but their pen and parchment, crouched beneath a leaking roof in their one-room apartment, using their last candle to create their greatest masterpiece. But does this iconic image hold up to fact? Virgina Woolf says not. The majority of successful writers throughout history, according to Woolf, have been university men. Men who were granted the time and means to study in an era when resources to do so were rare. These men did not have to cook or clean, or in some cases, even shop for themselves. Some did not even have secondary professions. Their minds were free to explore and wander, to weave fascinating stories and brilliant philosophies with paper and ink.

Women, on the other hand, were tasked with the more mundane duties of housekeeping and child-rearing. They were not given books to study. They were not allowed to hold most professions and could often not even inherit wealth from their brothers and fathers. Any money they did earn for themselves belonged to their husbands. They seldom had the time or energy to scribble sonnets and craft novels and discover great philosophical truths. The women who were able to create works of art in spite of these obstacles were exceptional and often privileged in other ways. Virginia Woolf herself was born into a family with money and highly privileged in comparison to many other women of her time. Despite her family’s wealth, however, she had little control of it, and was even denied entrance into university libraries if she did not have a chaperone.

Conditions for women are much better today, but many of Woolf’s observations are, unfortunately, still relevant. For many families, an unequal amount of responsibility is placed upon women in the home and, although a woman’s wealth no longer belongs to her husband, there is still a large pay gap between what a man is paid and what a woman is paid even when they are performing the same work. To this day a woman’s time is not valued as much as a man’s by most of society.

Women, of course, are not the only ones who have faced and still face such challenges. Many have struggled throughout history to obtain the basic necessities required to survive, whether because of their race, sexuality, gender, mental health challenges, or economic status. Meanwhile, the wealthy elite have enjoyed the luxury of time and resources to create works of art and shape the larger narrative of their time. A few outliers have managed to create despite these obstacles, but most of the classics we read today were written by a minority of privileged men.

The fact that so many struggle to obtain the resources required to create, means that many creative voices are not being heard. The drive to create can so easily be thwarted by a lack of finances or time and space to create in. No matter how passionate an artist is about their work it is still work and requires the use of mental, emotional, and sometimes even physical energy. A creative needs resources to protect that energy and keep their spirit alive.

Virginia Wool is correct when she says that in order to write one needs money and a room of one’s own. Income and time and space to one’s self is needed to protect one’s energy, but more than that, it cultivates a sense of agency and independence that allows for original ideas. Virginia Woolf is not stressing the importance of these material means for their own sake so much as for their ability to protect a creator’s spirit and independent thought. While it may be more difficult for a woman to procure these necessities, any creator be they man, woman, or anything in between needs to protect and cultivate a spirit of one’s own.

Protect your spirit, my creative friends. It is the most valuable thing you own. All of our voices deserve to be heard.

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