COMPLETE The Story of a Modern Woman (version 2) by Ella Hepworth Dixon - dc

Solo or group recordings that are finished and fully available for listeners
Sunrise2020
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Post by Sunrise2020 »

beeber wrote: March 21st, 2021, 9:05 am Chapter 12 is ready for PL.
Bruce
Chapter 12 is okay.
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Susanne
beeber
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Post by beeber »

Chapter 13 is ready for PL.
Bruce
Sunrise2020
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Post by Sunrise2020 »

beeber wrote: March 22nd, 2021, 4:06 pm Chapter 13 is ready for PL.
Bruce
PL is okay
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Susanne
beeber
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Post by beeber »

Chapter 14 is ready for PL.
Bruce
beeber
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Post by beeber »

Chapter 15 is ready for PL.
Bruce
Sunrise2020
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Post by Sunrise2020 »

beeber wrote: March 25th, 2021, 9:31 am Chapter 15 is ready for PL.
Bruce
PL of sections 14 and 15 is okay.
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Susanne
beeber
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Post by beeber »

Chapter 16 is ready for PL.

Bruce
Sunrise2020
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Post by Sunrise2020 »

beeber wrote: March 26th, 2021, 12:16 pm Chapter 16 is ready for PL.

Bruce
PL of Chapter 16 is fine.
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Susanne
beeber
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Post by beeber »

Chapter 17 is ready for PL.

Mary has two uncomfortable meetings, with representatives of (a) the medical establishment and (b) the literary establishment. In both cases, she is frustrated by men who are holding things back, instead of moving forward into the new world.

Progressive women, at this time, were wary of doctors, because doctors — men, of course — were warning against women's efforts to engage in careers and public life. Doctors argued that that kind of activity was too great a strain on the delicate nervous systems of women.

There was also another reason for women to be suspicious of the medical establishment, and this will creep into coming chapters. There was suspicion of many doctors' double standards when it came to sexual relations. Men's illicit relations were excused as the indulgence of understandable natural "appetites," while women involved in those relations were supposedly causing the moral decline of civilization. Furthermore, doctors often failed to make clear to married women the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases that their husbands were bringing home. (That kind of conversation was deemed too "indelicate" for women's ears.)
Last edited by beeber on March 28th, 2021, 7:26 am, edited 2 times in total.
beeber
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Post by beeber »

Chapter 18 is ready for PL.

There are a couple of things to note about this chapter.

Dunlop Strange gives Alison and Mary a tour of the hospital. In Britain at this time, "hospitals" took care of the poor only. If you were middle or upper class, you wouldn't be in a hospital — you received medical care in the comfort of your own home or in a doctor's private office. For Alison and Mary, this tour is like visiting an alien world.

Also, the author is pushing up against the limits of what she is allowed to say in a novel of this time. The only disease that is named for patient #27 is tuberculosis ("consumption"), but there is an unspoken — or barely spoken — suggestion of prostitution and sexually transmitted disease. The patient's lung troubles started "last summer", but since then, the nurse tells us, other things have happened — "she must have sunk very low." Alison takes the hint: she realizes that #27 has fallen into "the awful whirlpool of vice." Other girls in this ward are described as "the battered leavings of the lust of a great city." And that's about as specific as the author can get.
Sunrise2020
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Post by Sunrise2020 »

beeber wrote: March 27th, 2021, 4:17 pm Chapter 17 is ready for PL.

Mary has two uncomfortable meetings, with representatives of (a) the medical establishment and (b) the literary establishment. In both cases, she is frustrated by men who are holding things back, instead of moving forward into the new world.

Progressive women, at this time, were wary of doctors, because doctors — men, of course — were warning against women's efforts to engage in careers and public life. Doctors argued that that kind of activity was too great a strain on the delicate nervous systems of women.

There was also another reason for women to be suspicious of the medical establishment, and this will creep into coming chapters. There was suspicion of many doctors' double standards when it came to sexual relations. Men's illicit relations were excused as the indulgence of understandable natural "appetites," while women involved in those relations were supposedly causing the moral decline of civilization. Furthermore, doctors often failed to make clear to married women the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases that their husbands were bringing home. (That kind of conversation was deemed too "indelicate" for women's ears.)
I had meant to write this morning to tell you that I'm missing your insights. Et voilà, comments for Chapter 17. Thank you!

Fortunately, attitudes have improved much since 1894 and women have so many more options and respect nowadays. But having worked in a male-dominated area for my whole career, I know that there is still scope...
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Susanne
Sunrise2020
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Post by Sunrise2020 »

beeber wrote: March 28th, 2021, 7:21 am Chapter 18 is ready for PL.

There are a couple of things to note about this chapter.

Dunlop Strange gives Alison and Mary a tour of the hospital. In Britain at this time, "hospitals" took care of the poor only. If you were middle or upper class, you wouldn't be in a hospital — you received medical care in the comfort of your own home or in a doctor's private office. For Alison and Mary, this tour is like visiting an alien world.

Also, the author is pushing up against the limits of what she is allowed to say in a novel of this time. The only disease that is named for patient #27 is tuberculosis ("consumption"), but there is an unspoken — or barely spoken — suggestion of prostitution and sexually transmitted disease. The patient's lung troubles started "last summer", but since then, the nurse tells us, other things have happened — "she must have sunk very low." Alison takes the hint: she realizes that #27 has fallen into "the awful whirlpool of vice." Other girls in this ward are described as "the battered leavings of the lust of a great city." And that's about as specific as the author can get.
This was a very interesting chapter and she describes vividly the sad state of the women and their unspeakable illnesses. I thought it interesting that the editor had told Mary that novels mustn't be too close to real life, only newspapers fill that role and can be explicit. The vagueness of the hospital staff certainly observe that decorum.
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Susanne
beeber
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Post by beeber »

Chapter 19 is ready for PL.

Notice that the focus of the novel, for a while, shifts to Alison. This started with the visit to the hospital. That had been Mary's idea — she wanted to research for a chapter in her book — but when Alison sees patient #27, we start following her consciousness, and that continues in this chapter. (Mary is present, but we don't pay her any attention.) From the beginning, Alison has been interested in helping poor women, but this commitment now seems renewed. As she says to Dunlop Strange, in different circumstances she and that girl might have been friends, she might have helped her, saved her.

That's actually a pretty significant thought for the women's movement of this period. An important element of their program was the importance of women building solidarity with each other, cutting across social class lines. It's an idea that will be developed more fully in the next chapter. Alison's mother, obviously, is baffled by this commitment. She thinks her daughter simply ought to be paying attention to "society" — by which she means "high society," not all of "society."

And this is connected with a subtle but sharp barb on Anglo-Irish relations. There were plenty of poor, hungry, and sick people in Ireland (as well as in the East End of London), and the scandalous handling of the Irish Famine did get debated in Parliament. One of the guests at the dinner party is the Viceroy — the Queen's representative — for Ireland. He agrees with Lady Jane that her daughter's attitude towards the poor and suffering is incomprehensible. But I think what's really clever is that, if you read very carefully the few times that the Viceroy is mentioned, it's clear that his main concern at this party is getting fed. Surely that's ironic considering that he's the well-fed symbolic head of state for a people who were famously starving?
beeber
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Post by beeber »

Chapter 20 is ready for PL.

This chapter is the one where the author sounds most "activist" — clearly laying out in Alison's words a kind of manifesto for women. She speaks of the importance of solidarity — women working together to achieve a new and better world. This is reminiscent of the language of trade unions, and that's no coincidence. The trade union movement was surging at this time, and there was cross-fertilization of ideas and rhetoric between the labour movement and the women's movement.

Such ideas put them at odds, of course, with the Conservative establishment, and that puts Alison at odds with her mother. First of all, of course, there is a generational difference: Lady Jane, we are told, has the ideas of someone who was young in the 1850s.

But there's also a specifically political difference alluded to in this chapter. Precisely at the moment when Alison is at home declaring her manifesto of female solidarity, Lady Jane is out of the house because she's at a meeting of the "Primrose League." The Primrose League was a huge club, including both women and men (founded in the 1880s, with more than a million members by the 1890s), supporting conservative ideas and the Conservative Party. It was a rare opportunity for women to participate in public discourse, which is good, but the purpose was to fight off dangerous new ideas — ideas like trade unionism and the changing role of women. Nothing could make more clear the difference between mother and daughter.
Sunrise2020
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Joined: August 28th, 2020, 5:41 am
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Post by Sunrise2020 »

beeber wrote: March 30th, 2021, 8:02 am Chapter 19 is ready for PL.

Notice that the focus of the novel, for a while, shifts to Alison. This started with the visit to the hospital. That had been Mary's idea — she wanted to research for a chapter in her book — but when Alison sees patient #27, we start following her consciousness, and that continues in this chapter. (Mary is present, but we don't pay her any attention.) From the beginning, Alison has been interested in helping poor women, but this commitment now seems renewed. As she says to Dunlop Strange, in different circumstances she and that girl might have been friends, she might have helped her, saved her.

That's actually a pretty significant thought for the women's movement of this period. An important element of their program was the importance of women building solidarity with each other, cutting across social class lines. It's an idea that will be developed more fully in the next chapter. Alison's mother, obviously, is baffled by this commitment. She thinks her daughter simply ought to be paying attention to "society" — by which she means "high society," not all of "society."

And this is connected with a subtle but sharp barb on Anglo-Irish relations. There were plenty of poor, hungry, and sick people in Ireland (as well as in the East End of London), and the scandalous handling of the Irish Famine did get debated in Parliament. One of the guests at the dinner party is the Viceroy — the Queen's representative — for Ireland. He agrees with Lady Jane that her daughter's attitude towards the poor and suffering is incomprehensible. But I think what's really clever is that, if you read very carefully the few times that the Viceroy is mentioned, it's clear that his main concern at this party is getting fed. Surely that's ironic considering that he's the well-fed symbolic head of state for a people who were famously starving?
PL of Chapter 19 is okay. I'll listen to the chapter again tomorrow because I didn't paid enough attention to the bit about the Viceroy, except for noticing his growling stomach. I found the conversation between Alison and Dunlop fascinating. Especially because I had thought of Alison is being a bit superficial and doing the socially acceptable and expected things. But now she appears much more thoughtful and shocked about injustice.
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Susanne
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