Peter's Room

[jackmerlin]

Peter's Room is probably my favourite AF and I've reread it many times, but I've never properly thought this thought through before, why when they invent their fantasy world do all the female Marlows choose to be male characters? It's not just the era, although I know the Marlow 'boys are better than girls ethos, women can't join the navy' must

Comments

[biskybat]

All the Marlows seem to see the male as the 'standard' or 'default' human being. Therefore, it would be natural for them to choose to be male in their fantasy Gondalling and would never consider there would any advantage/interest in being female. A female character in this narrative could only be a passive or waiting-to-be-rescued person and there would be no fun in that!

We see Rowan gradually turning into a masculine, whisky swilling, gloomy old farmer because she unconsciously models herself on the only farmers she knows about. Sad.

[lizarfau]

Interesting point about Rowan.

I find it sad the way the Marlow girls one by one change from being potential high achievers (Lois's "illustrious Marlows"!) to drop-outs/non-achievers. First, Rowan drops out of school to run Trennels and becomes unhappy, yet resigned to her role. Then Karen drops out of university to marry a much older guy and look after his motherless kids. Ginty comes close to expulsion in Attic Term, and Forest's plans for the book she never finished involved Ginty running away from Kingscote to be a stable girl - and her long term plan was for Ann to become a nurse (great) but die (why?). Who knows what she'd done with Nicola and Lawrie's potential to do well in life had she written more books?

The other thing I find fascinating-but-sad is how Ginty, the least clever of all the sisters according to Autumn Term, initially tries to establish an identity within the Marlows by being the 'bad' girl, and eventually becomes one (albeit unintentionally) in Attic Term.

[jackmerlin]

Where did you see that the plan was for Ann to die?

[lizarfau]

In Hilary Clare's essay in Celebrating Antonia Forest: "Antonia thought that Ann would indeed train as a nurse, and go out to Africa, but would die young while working in a refugee camp."

[colne_dsr]

Peter's Room was published in 1961, so essentially was set in the 1950's. Women's Lib hadn't happened. Any women that went spying, adventuring, torturing, fighting, etc. would have been pretty odd. There weren't, for example, lady jockeys in horse racing; show jumping and perhaps eventing were all they were allowed to do. Girl soldiers didn't exist; the WRENS, as Nicola pointed out, were just typing in uniform. We'd hadn't quite got away from the idea that a woman teacher who got married had to give up teaching.

I think it would be normal for girls to pick male characters to go adventuring in. Male adventurers are normal; female adventurers, unless they fall into it accidentally, are oddballs.

[anonymous]

I think Rowan and Karen could turn out well - just because they ditched more conventional paths to success doesn't mean they will be life-long flops. for Rowan it probably will depend a bit on who to/ if she gets hitched though, because I do think being farm manager at Trennels forever would get very stale.... Again, Karen could recreate herself as the children get older - and I've never thought Edwin was that bad, he might well like a wife who is actively intellectual in her own right, and encourage Karen in that direction. In ReadyMadeFamily he expects her to be involved in his work, rather than to take care of the children.

Straightforwardly successful people can sometimes be a bit dull...a little adversity can make people more interesting...

[jackmerlin]

Yes, I've always seen Rowan diversifying into racehorse training or show pony breeding, and meeting and marrying someone very sexy in an outdoorsy way. Someone very strong probably - I remember a comment at the end of Cold Comfort Farm about strong-minded women liking very dominant men because it was so 'restful'. And I can quite see Karen as a successful childrens' author writing historical novels for children. Or a lecturer at the local adult education college.

[rekraft]

Straightforwardly successful people can sometimes be a bit dull...a little adversity can make people more interesting...

Spot on - the very point the Marlow books make, right from the first chapter of Autumn Term! And if Rowan and Karen, both marked for success then, have both proven capable of walking away from that and taking such different paths in the two and a half years since, there's no reason why they should stay where they are for the rest of their lives.

[biskybat]

Agreed about the adversity. But I still think Rowan and Karen don't reach their potential as far as the books go - we simply don't know what they might have done next. The only things we know are that Karen gives up Oxford to look after Edwin and steps (nowadays she would just continue her degree) and to help Edwin with his academic work and Rowan leaves school early to manage the farm because there's no-one else to do it. Nothing actually wrong with either of these choices but it does smack of Doing One's Duty which is a bit grim and 1950s

[anonymous]

Maybe AF is also countering the tradition in girls' school fiction, where all the old girls go on to have super careers? Dimsie, for example - full of authoresses, prime ministers assistants, journalists, etc. On the other hand, maybe she just needs to have the older girls close to home so she can create intimate domestic dramas with them.