by Steve » February 26th, 2006, 10:42 pm
Chris - Sehoy on here - has interesting things to say about gender in the book and I agree with her; I think that there are no decisive female characters because I think that Orual is essentially a man, with a man's feelings, who never really explores her femininity (to use an awful modern phrase :)). You have a wanton, a goddess, a man in woman's clothing and a woman's body .. that's all. I think that that's typical of many of Lewis's books, in which women fall into one of those categories (or that of the 'saint', like Lucy in the Narnia books).
Interesting idea. Did Sehoy say this on this thread, or somewhere else?
I remember once some years ago (maybe in the chatroom, not on the forums?) whether Orual was a realistic female character, and being assured by a female that she was realistic.
So what is the lack of femininity on her part? She obviously doesn't do the traditional marry and mother children feminine role, and she goes to war, which certainly seems rather unfeminine. But I would think that her longing for relationship with Bardia is a "traditional" feminine trait. A stereotypical male boss would just want Bardia to be "in the office" at all hours, and not feel jealous when he needed to go home. And such a boss would "comfort" the widow by talking about how proud she should be of what he accomplished, and be totally oblivious to how much Bardia's wife wanted him to be home.