I've been rereading Miss Read's Gossip from Thursh Green, and little Miss
Fogerty has got me thinking about romantic relationships between women in
literature. No one would argue that she and her fellow teacher, coworker, and
friend Miss Watson love each other, but when I started thinking about the ways
they speak to and think about each other, I see no other way to interpret it than
as romantic love. The clearest bit is when Dorothy Watson begins speaking of
retirement. Agnes FOgerty is a bit depressed, assuming that if Miss W. retires and
loses the school house (a house provided to a school principal) she would have to
go back to living alone. When Miss Watson makes it clear she wants to keep living
together, Miss Watson is elated. "How do I feel about it? Just let me get my
breath back and I'll tell you exactly how I feel about you." If that's not a
prelude to a staement of love, platonic though it may be, than what
is?
And speaking of platonic love, I was going to put in a disclaimer
that when I say romantic love, I am not necessarily implying that the characters
have sex. Really, though, my urge to say that is based on the fact that last time
I wrote anything on the subject, it was in a post to my L.M. Montgomery list, a
gorup of women who are squeamish on the subject, at least partly because of
multiple encounters with scholars who insist all loving relationships between
women in old books necessarily implies that the women are lesbian. My hunch is
that it varies; I can't imagine Miss Read's little Agnes Fogarty having sex with
anyone. On the other hand, Dorothy Sayers has a couple of charcters who are
clearly lesbians in that they are married to each other for all practical
purposes. In the end, as with people in real life, I find I don't much care who
characters sleep with (and in the case of most of the people discussed below, they
probably don't, anyway). I'm more interested in how they feel about each
other.
By that rationale, Miss Watson and Miss Fogarty are in love,
and very happily so. They don't idealize each other much, but enjoy time together,
forge a lifetime committment to each other that takes precedence over any other
friends and relatives, and find no greater pleasure than in taking care of each
other. It's really as happy a marriage as can be seen anywhere in life or
fiction.
Looking at Montgomery's characters, Pat of Silver Bush feels
about her friend Bets in a way that's equally romantic, but is more of a
schoolgirl infatuation. Then again, Pat's obsession with her house doesn't leave
her much room to have mature human relationships with anyone except maybe Judy,
and it's Judy who sets the tone for that one since it begins in Pat's babyhood.
One of LMM's strengths is the individuality of her characters (though mostly only
the female ones. Pat contrasts beautifully with Anne Shirley (Anne of Green
Gables). Anne's feelings for Diana start as schoolgirl infatuation too -- Anne
loves Diana with a passionate intensity and idealizes Diana with ruthless
disregard for her actual strengths and shortcomings. But then. Anne is an orphan
at the beginning of the books; she doesn't know anything about love or the
different flavors love comes in. As she learns how to love in different ways (from
Marilla, Matthew, Gilbert and Diana herself, her feelings for Diana mellow into an
abiding but less intense friendship. She does conceive a romantic appreciation for
Leslie later on, but that has something to do with the romantic tragedy of
Leslie's life. Still it's worth noting that Anne's feelings for Leslie seem far
more intense than those for her new husband Gilbert, even while they are
newlyweds.
Jane Austen shows the same sort of pattern, where friendly
relations between women are deeper and more mature than romantic ones -- compare
the feelings Jane and Elizabeth Bennethave for each other with Harriet's
schoolgirl crush on Emma Woodhouse.
In Louisa May Alcott, too, the
love among women takes precedence (maybe a tiny bit of revenge for the way her
father kept messing up the family's life for his various causes?). I always
identify with Jo March myself (doesn't everyone?) but she's a bit of a mess as
she grows up. In her teens, her family is the center of her life and she loves
them intensely but in a filial/ sororal sort of way. As she grows up, she starts
mooning over Meg ("Sometimes I'm half in love with her myself ... I wish I could
marry her and keep her in the family.") Then she as she moves into a more equal
relationship with her parents, she falls sort of in love with her mother. (Don't
tell me you haven't been stopped by the line, "Mothers are the best
lovers," even after she continues with "Though I don't mind confiding to Marmee
I'd like to try the other kind as well.") And then she marries a classic father
figure. This is also a contrast to Polly (the Old Fashioned Girl) who falls for a
man she initially seems to mother but then waits for him to grow up before she
will marry him, and to Rose (In Bloom) who rejects the man who needs a caretaker
for one who is her equal. Still, probably Alcott's best depiction of love among
women, romantic and otherwise is in her adult novel Work, one of those not
well known but easier to find now. Christie is married to a man briefly, but in
the end finds (and says so explicitly) her most satisfying relationships with
women.
I thought most of this out in the shower, and no doubt it's
not nearly as profound as it seemed in there. Still, though, I find it very
satisfying to see Miss Fogarty and Miss Watson acknowledge the depths of their
feelings for each other. I like seeing that in the same book, Jenny doesn't ditch
her happy life (a friendship, but neither egalitarian nor romantic) with Mrs.
Bailey when a man comes a-calling. I like knowing that Agnes Fogarty will never
have to go back to lonely lodgings and that she will always have someone to care
for. And I find it artistically pleasing that all these different relationships
exist in the same book, and one type isn't better than another. I'm not claiming
Miss R is a better writer than Miss A, LMA, or LMM -- that would be silly. But the
easy acceptance of difference in her world (though only some kinds of difference,
admittedly) is one of the things that makes it so comforting.