Wardsbury, Grayshead-on-Heath, England, 1914-1918
Mum starved herself for suffrage, Grandmother claiming it was just like Mum to cause a cause too far. Mum said she had no choice. Besides, she said, starving made the world bright, took away the dull edges, the disappointment. She said this in the hospital, the place not entirely unpleasant—a private room, windows ammonia-washed looking out to a tree branch on windless days, an ivy-covered wall.
The author has indicated in numerous interviews that the opening clause of that opening sentence to the novel was the stimulus behind the entire enterprise. It is a great line, filled with resonance and a stunningly immediacy of imagery and metaphor that actually moves into the sphere of the literal. The truth is that the struggle to attain the vote for women took a terrible physical toll upon many in the movement. A hunger strike is an extreme example of masochism in the service of a greater good, but don’t overlook at the broken bones and crushed psyches that came with patriarchal abuse of the suffrage movement. It is a starting point that is basically as good as any other one can imagine. That image of such commitment tells you about the family here, not just the mom and the grandmother.
The soldiers keep Dorothy in view. She carries the tripod, unsteadily, and an extra poncho for a big. That they have let her come this far might be due to the weather or possibly the kinds of amusements of which she remains unaware. Still, she assumes that they watch, tracking her as she stops along the fence and positions herself by the sign that clearly states: No Trespassing, Government Property, Photography Forbidden.
Evelyn Charlotte Townsend is the narrator of the first chapter. The above quote begins the third chapter, obviously told by a different narrator at a time far in the future. So what is going on here is quite clearly a family epic of sorts that extends beyond even the mum, grandmother and narrator of the above excerpt. Dorothy Townsend Barrett is the daughter of Evelyn Charlotte’s brother, Thomas. Aside from these two narrative voices, the book is told from the perspectives of another four different members of the Townsend clan and the names can get a little confusing. the addition of the dates of the narration come in quite handy when trying to keep track of Dorothy Trevor Townsend, Dorothy Townsend Barrett, Dorothy Trevor and Dorothy “Dora” Louise Barrett-Deel. And that’s not even including a Caroline and an Elizabeth. The attentive reader will hopefully have noticed a glaring omission among the names of those who narrate this book in passages ranging from 1898 to 2007: where’s Thomas? It is girl’s only party going on here, a story of the empowerment of women told by women. As it should be, of course.
“By the time my grandmother was admitted, the college had seen many extraordinary women pass through its doors and yet none were granted University degrees. They were awarded `certificates’ instead, certificates that amounted to little more than paper. The spring in the year my grandmother arrived a vote was called in the Senate to grant women degree. Chaos erupted in the streets. Effigies of female students were hung from various college windows. It should not surprise you that the proposal was defeated in the status of the women of Gurtin remain unchanged.”
There is, of course, a method to the madness of writing a book divided among so many different narrators sharing a version of the same name or similar-sounding names. The various incarnation of women named Dorothy, Evelyn and Elizabeth and even Caroline, the odd one out, serves a very specific thematic purpose having to do with the march of time and the slow progression of change. In 1896, there was rioting in the streets simply over the suggestion of awarding women something that would be called a degree rather than a meaningless piece of paper called a certificate. The date of the chapter itself is 2004 and when one considers that there is actually a little more than a full century between those two dates and yet the “women’s movement” did not really grab hold in America until the 1970’s, well, the mind boggles at just how slowly progress was made. Just two generations skip between the woman who starved herself for the right to vote and the person relating this story. Take a moment to consider the full implications of that.
