Everyone Has a Madame Ratignolle in his/her Life

This post may seem a bit random, but today I'd like to discuss a character from Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," Madame Ratignolle.

This character struck me as particularly annoying because I know several people just like her in my own life, and I think everyone knows such a person.

Madame Ratignolle serves as a good foil to Edna - Edna has gone down the root of a typical privileged housewife, but found no fulfillment in such a life or the duties accompanying it, particularly housekeeping, socializing, hosting, and secondary child rearing (many of the primary duties were performed by servants). Madame Ratignolle, on the other hand, has adjusted very well to the role and indeed enjoys it.

Before I proceed any further, I want to make it clear that as a feminist, I am not what one might call a "hyper feminist," "pseudo feminist," or, for the extremely politically incorrect (and often insensitive) "feminazi." By this I mean I am for true equality in opportunity, and not for women to keep the privileges of chivalry but still receive the benefits men receive. If you want to be a female CEO, then open your own doors and pay for your own dinner. I also mean that I acknowledge the differences between men and women, and thus there must sometimes be differences in our roles simply due to the fact that we are different.

I bring this up because I want to make this very clear: I have nothing against mothers, housewives, homemakers, whatever.  I was raised by such a person, in fact most of us were. Being a mother can be a very noble calling. What I don't like are the politics associated with it, and by that I mean the social (to be frank) bs that goes on between rich housewives. Their lifestyle is pathetic; I'd almost call their lifestyle a constant state of paranoia. They constantly run in circles looking at each others possessions, primarily cars, houses, and boats in today's age, and try to outdo each other. The people from Edna's time called on each other to maintain proper social relations and to make sure they were of proper standing with each other. They bragged of their associations with cultured people, avoided uncultured people, and so on and so on. These exercises, in my opinion, are shallow, petty, and a waste of time. It's no wonder Edna was so miserable always; she found no joy in the "exercises," and it seems she wasn't cut out to be a mother either, so she felt purposeless.

However, Madame Ratignolle seemed to enjoy being a housewife quite a bit, and to me, it seems she enjoyed the "politics" more than the actual duties of homemaking and motherhood. This is where housewives disgust me; I see them so entrapped in politics that their actual duties, being a good mom and wife, become secondary. Suddenly it's all about looking good to the neighbors, having the best car, getting plastic surgery, making your kids be what you want them to be instead of what they want to be, etc. and before you know it, your kids become far less important than your politics.

Madame Ratignolle reminds me of such people. I've met many a Madame Ratignolle. Women who are all about gossip, are "weak" and have to rest constantly, and are always complaining they are sick to get attention. Women who are all about the drama of being a socialite rather than being a useful career woman or a loving mother. Women who, in my opinion, are a big fat waste of space.

So I commend Chopin for including Madame Ratignolle in her story, because I feel that she serves as an excellent foil to Edna.

She Killed Herself? 😱

Just a quick post today - primarily because I am out of time 😞

I just realized that in the end of "The Awakening," the main character kills herself. I never understood this because I think there was a glitch in my software which caused me to think the book had ended before it had, so I did not read the ending.

This obviously changes my whole attitude on the story - instead of finding liberation, Edna instead finds despair. I had previously thought that Edna had finally broken away from her misery, from being confined to her societal role, that of a homemaker. Perhaps the reason Edna was so miserable was because she was not supposed to be. She was married to a wealthy man, had two children and should have wanted for nothing. However, Edna didn't really love her husband, and had no interest making useless conversation with social elites for the sake of nothing but reputation. She found the whole practice of being a socialite futile. She was not even a mother, truly; someone else raised her children and she had no true purpose in life. One might say Edna had it all, that she had nothing to ask or want for, but being a woman who sought purpose, such idleness and meaninglessness brought her no joy.

Perhaps if she had needed to struggle to earn what she had, or fight for it, she would have been satisfied, but life was presented to her in such a way that she could not find fulfillment.

She tried painting, moving out, and finding love with someone who returned that love, but when that love left her, I suppose she had no more strength and found that death was the only escape.

It's a shame, because before I viewed her as inspiring, as she managed to break free from her societal role and live life for herself, but it seems loneliness overtook her and she could not find any way out.

Character is Everything

So cold out here...*sniff*

Today will be final post about Crime and Punishment *so sad*

Before I get to the main topic, a quick update on the Death Note/C&P relationship: I was indeed right, Raskolnikov's pride did indeed land his sorry person in the Gulag xD It's cold up there in Siberia...

The main similarity is indeed the philosophy of the two protagonists. Later on in the book, Raskolnikov formally discusses his philosophy with Razumihin by means of a paper; two months before the murders, Raskolnikov had written a treatise about his philosophy, which was published. In this treatise, he stated that there are ordinary classes of men, which morals tame and keep in submission/order, and there are extraordinary classes of men, (Napoleon is his chief example - Khan would be another good one) and morals only inhibit extraordinary men. Both Khan and Napoleon, even Charlemagne, could be considered mass murderers- but this is not how they are remembered. They are remembered as great men, because, as Raskolnikov puts it, they did not let morals "inhibit" their designs.

The key difference is that Light fits into the category of "extraordinary" men, as Raskolnikov puts it, and Raskolnikov himself does not. Light can execute without clouded judgement, remorse, or feeling, but Raskolnikov cannot and he realizes this eventually. He realizes he is not an extraordinary man and it depresses him quite a lot.

The other key difference is that Light never confesses, but fights till the very end and dies a tragic, rather lonely, early death. Raskolnikov eventually sees the error of his ways after confessing (he confesses because he knows he will be caught) and decides to change. 

Whether their common philosophy was right or wrong is really a matter of perspective. I know that fans of Death Note intensely debate whether Light was right or wrong. Either way, people who choose to live Light's life style and follow his philosophy, right or not, will live a difficult life without love, and this was made obvious in the end. Raskolnikov instead found love in Sonia and in religion and decided to make a change in his life at the end, since he was not in the class of "extraordinary," men.

Okay enough of that. 

Today I will be focusing on characterization. Now, I know that sounds boring, but think about it for a minute: why do we love stories? Why are we so addicted to television and movies? Half of the time, we love stories for their characters. We watch Ellen Degeneres for Ellen and we watch the Daily Show for Jon Stewert. We love Harry Potter for Harry, Ron, Hermione and even Neville. We love our stories because of their characters, more often than not, and we don't like stories with flat/cardboard characters.

Twilight is almost universally hated because its characterization is so poor, and the characters have no personality. The few who like the series like are tween girls who see the story as a way of living personal fantasy (who doesn't like to pretend they're a bland characterless girl who has every hot man/supernatural creature in existence after you? Even when you do nothing to merit such attraction? 😒)

So characterization is everything.  One of the most appealing things about Crime and Punishment are the characters: Dostoevsky weaves beautiful, complex characters who serve as foils to each other and provide interesting contrast as well as dialogue.

Here are some basic character relationships which I found to be engaging:

Dunia vs Raskolnikov

These two are siblings, and here, Dostoevsky does an amazing thing and breaks traditional gender roles. Raskolnikov is portrayed as indecisive, is prone to bursts of ill health and fainting, irrational, short tempered, and is often a burden to his family.

Dunia, on the other hand, despite being a female, is portrayed as level headed, selfless, rational, and most of all, she has self respect. She is portrayed as a strong, intelligent woman, which is very unusual for literature of the period.

Dunia loves her family enough to marry Pyotr Petrovich, who annoys her, so that he can financially support them. But when Pyotr proves himself to be a user, and a disrespectful man who only wants her subservience, she has enough respect for herself to turn down the marriage, and uses her quick thinking to find another way to save the family's finances. 

Razumihin vs Raskolnikov

The classic foil of "good" vs "evil" but a little more complicated. Raskolnikov is portrayed as selfish and cunning, but intelligent, using the ends to justify the means. Razumihin is Raskolnikov's friend, but he is very honest as well as completely positive. He acts selflessly and tries to help others, though he isn't the brightest, and his good will often ends in him being taken advantage of. This is a classic contrast which I often experience in my own life; there are the intelligent ones who often aren't the most charitable, but often make out with better situations for themselves/are never made a fool of or taken advantage of, and there are the hopelessly selfless who often find themselves being used, but are always loved and fairly satisfied.

Dunia vs Luzhin (Pyotr Petrovich)

This is an interesting case. Luzhin is a senator or a lawyer, something along those lines, and quite rich. He eventually reveals to Dunia that his dream is to marry a beautiful, intelligent, but poor girl, as a poor girl would always be indebted to him and would do anything he wished/be completely subservient. Dunia, however, is her own woman and has respect for herself, and does not go along with Luzhin's plans. Luzhin is later shown to be selfish, petty, and just a general jerk.

Dunia instead finds love with a man who respects her, Razumihin.

Well those are some basic character analyses, hope you enjoyed this series on Crime and Punishment. Try reading it yourself! It's a pretty good book :)

THANKS FOR READING

Russian Names and the Associated Headaches

Last post I discussed the similarities between "Crime and Punishment," and the TV series "Death Note."

I have now finished the novel and I can tell you there are many other similarities, but today's post will focus on something else, that may seem a little random: Russian names.

One of the most attractive features of "Crime and Punishment," is the character development. Dostoevsky creates diverse, complex, interesting characters who interact with each other in meaningful ways, and I will discuss this next post.
However, as diverse as the characters may be in personality, they are not at all diverse in name.

Russian names make me feel like this:

I suppose in English we have a pretty simple system: you have your own, first name, and your last name is your family name or surname. Many people have a middle name.

In Russian, however...

Not only are their names impossible for English speakers to pronounce (ie: Svidrigailov, Zakharovich, Lebezyatnikov) each person has five billion of them, and they are called different names intermittently...okay, I may be exaggerating, but keeping track of the characters gets frustrating at times. Very frustrating.

I liked Linus' attitude about it: (here he is reading from another Dostoevsky novel, "The Brothers Karamazov.")

However, the Linus method doesn't work too well after a while because there are so many names and if you don't keep track of them, you have no idea who Dostoevsky is talking about when he describes someone.

Here is my piecemeal understanding of it:
In Russian, you have a family name,  your own first name, and a middle name (I think) but one of your names, the middle one, is taken from your father's name and therefore isn't fully yours.

For example, the main character's name is Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.  The first name, "Rodion," is his own name. The last name is a family name. The middle name is taken from his father's name - it works like this:

Boys:

Take father's first/ "original" name + ovich

Therefore, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov's father must have been called Roman. Rodion's own sons would be called "Rodionovich."

(Remember "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch?" Ivan's father must have been Denis.  And if Ivan ever escaped the gulag, found a woman and made some babies, their names would be Ivanovna or Ivanovitch. )






Girls:

Take father's first/ "original" name + "ovna."

Rodion's sister, Dunia (Or Advotya- but we'll get to that later) has the middle name "Romanovna," since her father was also Roman.

Also, last names very often end in "ov" (Raskolnikov, Marmeladov) but not always (Luhzin, Razumihin).








So it still seems kind of simple, right? Wrong.
It gets worse because each person has their own nickname as well -_-

Romanovitch is also called "Rodya," by his mother, and his sister,  Advotya Romanovna Raskolnikov, is also called "Dunya."

This is further complicated by the fact that Dostoevsky will call his characters any of their names, often in conjunction, and that his characters will call each other different names depending on their relation to each other. For example, Raskolnikov is most often called Raskolnikov by the author in narration, but will often be called Rodion Romanovich by Dostoevsky as well. His sister and mother will call him Rodya, and other men commonly call him Rodion Romanovich and some of them just call him Raskolnikov.

Now compound that by every character in the book -_-

To make matters worse, many of the characters have the same name! The woman who was murdered was called Alyona Ivanovna, but another large character is Katerina Ivanovna, and the two have nothing to do with each other.

More confusing is the distinction between Porfiry Petrovich (Detective who psychologically questions Raskolnikov- Raskolnikov's "L") and Pyotr Petrovich (Dunya's jerkface suitor/fiancée sort of) who have very similar names but very different roles in the story. However there is also Ilya Petrovich who has a similar role to Porfiry Petrovich (both are law enforcement) but is not blood related to him.

Anyway it becomes a major headache, and since I want my next post to be about character development, I thought I'd save you the annoyance of sorting out the characters now (and if you want to read the book, this should be even more helpful). Below I have created a "relations" chart and provided my own, single name for each of them, which I will be using in the next post, so that it's easier to sort them out in your mind.  Any time Dostoevsky talks about someone and you don't know who he is referring to, just refer to the handy chart below. I have the easy name I chose for each character, and a below that is a list of their full names.
(Sorry it's hand drawn- I'm on the road and my ipad has surprisingly poor capability for making this kind of chart -_-)

1) Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov "Rodya"
2) Advotya Romanovna Raskolnikov "Dunia"
3) Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikov
4) Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov "Sonia"
5) Semyon Zakharovich Marmeledov
6) Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladov
7) Marfa something or other (I forgot 😞)
8) Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov
9) Pyotr Petrovich Luhzin
10) Dmitri Prokofych Razumihin
11) Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov
12) Zossimov
13) Porfiry Petrovich
14) Alyona Ivanovna
15) Lizaveta Ivanovna
16) Zametov
17) Ilya Petrovich

Nastasya Petrovna (Forgot to draw her in-Raskolnikov's maid)


I suppose it must be difficult simply because it's foreign to me- I'm sure a Russian person would feel annoyed reading an English book.

Well, that is it for this post. I think understanding the names is essential to understand the book.

A few more fun facts:

1) If this book is accurate about Russian culture (which I'm positive it is) the stereotype is not false!

Russians drink vodka for breakfast and cannot survive without it. I swear, they treat vodka like water in this book.

2) "Crime and Punishment," employs an interesting anonymity system- while it states the city (St. Petersburg), whenever Raskolnikov goes somewhere, Dostoevsky will say something like "Raskolnikov turned onto X-------- street," to keep the true street name anonymous.

3) If I had read this book before my 7th grade spelling bee, I would have won, because the word I lost on was "Samovar," which is a Russian tea kettle and is mentioned about 120382019 times in this book.