{"id":2357,"date":"2023-10-02T18:20:54","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T22:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=2357"},"modified":"2023-10-02T18:20:54","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T22:20:54","slug":"the-pea-vs-the-patriarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2023\/10\/02\/the-pea-vs-the-patriarchy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pea vs the patriarchy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Louise\u2019s grandmother, the Pea, though present for less than ten pages, is an extremely interesting character. One of the most interesting things about her is the way she is introduced. She lives with Louise\u2019s mother, and although she had a steady hand, she liked to spill because \u201c[i]t made work for her daughter\u201d (164). From this description, I assumed the Pea was a jerk. However, we later learn that Louise\u2019s mother is even more of a jerk, which in turn, makes the Pea a lot more likeable. Louise\u2019s mother, I think, can be seen to represent or at least be a product of white, heterosexual, patriarchal, British (even though she\u2019s Australian) society. She is very concerned about appearances and propriety (165) and she knows more about England than her mother (ie. The fact that they do not have a Disinfectant Department [165]). She also talks very formally, calling the Pea \u201cmother\u201d, while the Pea calls her \u201cKitty\u201d which I assume is a nickname (165). <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of this, the Pea being a pain in her ass is comparable, I think to taking digs at the patriarchy. This starts even before the Pea has Louise\u2019s mother. The Pea had \u201cover one hundred proposals of marriage in the 1920s\u201d from high society men, like bankers, but she \u201cmarried a sheep farmer\u201d (167). Which goes against the classism of British society as well as capitalistic society. The Pea moved out to the country with her husband where their \u201cnearest neighbour had been a day\u2019s ride away\u201d (167). In class we talked about \u201ccottage core\u201d and the idyllic nature of being away from society and escaping from patriarchy, which is particularly relevant to people who do not fit society\u2019s idea of \u201cnormal\u201d. The Pea also strays from societal norms with her crudeness. While Louise\u2019s mother puts on a polite and proper front when the narrator visits them looking for Louise, the Pea does nothing to hide her personality and try to fit into British society\u2019s idea of \u201cnormal\u201d. She uses slang, contradicts Mrs. Fox, has no reserves about bad-mouthing Elgin, and makes a racket \u201cscreaming\u201d and \u201cbanging her stick\u201d in a way that reminds the narrator of a \u201cknife thrower in the circus\u201d (166).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Associating the Pea with the circus is an interesting choice, because the circus often houses \u201cqueer\u201d things for \u201cnormal\u201d people to observe and be entertained by. The \u201cqueer\u201d people in the circus are an interesting contrast to queer people in society, because in society, few queer people are as open about their queerness, and even fewer invite \u201cnormal\u201d people to gawk at them. We established in class that there is something queer about the narrator and their relationship with Louise, and by presenting the Pea as queer too, the narrator creates a sense of community there, which is kind of reassuring; even if the narrator does not have Lousie, they have the Pea.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Louise\u2019s grandmother, the Pea, though present for less than ten pages, is an extremely interesting character. One of the most interesting things about her is the way she is introduced. She lives with Louise\u2019s mother, and although she had a steady hand, she liked to spill because \u201c[i]t made work for her daughter\u201d (164). From … Continue reading The Pea vs the patriarchy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346798],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}