All we woman are so incredibly dependent on other people. It’s absurd that we don’t know how to do anything useful
Alison helps miserable and poor women to cope with their problems and become independent. But she hates to be thought philanthropic; she considers that her care about these women brings her more good than it brings them. Women cannot live outside the society, they always are looking for approval and want to know that there are people, who will understand and support them. But it is also hard for women to do something useful. “The only real slavery nowadays is the slavery for luxury”, adds Alison, women are vain, this is their nature, and they don’t care about anything but themselves that is why men run the world. Men always try to do something useful for other people because it will bring them power and glory, and women just don’t need that because they have inborn power which, unfortunately, they don’t use.
Schools of cooking and not schools of art are what we want. You may leave your painter genius to find his way to the front whereas boiled potatoes are daily necessity
This quote represents pragmatism of a modern woman. She has to work hard to achieve something, and beholding the art and other abstract notions is not interesting for her anymore. A modern woman thinks about the future, she needs stability and security and that is why she is looking for something that will make her confident and independent. She is not looking for man’s help anymore, because she understands that she can achieve what she wants only by hard work.
My dear child, life without health and happiness is not worth having
Mary looks terrible; she hasn’t had a rest for a long time. She is exhausted but she is not going to stop working because in work she finds forgetfulness. And why should she look after herself, she doesn’t have anyone to care about: she doesn’t have parents, her brother will marry soon and will care about his family, her ant Julia thinks that Mary “is given over to the evil” since she became a journalist, and Vincent… he is married with another woman, he is not her lover anymore. Maybe the doctor is right, but as long as she has her job, as long as she can do it well, she will be alive and happy and will get through all the troubles by herself.
You are above the prejudices of our false civilization, you are capable of being a true woman, of giving up something for the man you love
Vincent loves Mary and wants to be with her, but he is married and it would be problematic for them to be together. He comes and asks her to go far away and be happy together, because she is a modern woman who doesn’t care what the society will say, she will go with him and they will be happy. But Mary refuses to be with him, she understands that it may be her last chance to be happy with the man she loves but she couldn’t act differently. He has a wife and a child, and Mary doesn’t want his daughter to grow up and hate her: “All we modern woman mean to help each other now”, she says. And the “false” civilization triumphs, Mary couldn’t overstep her rules and as a result, she stays alone – the modern woman, the true woman who never gives up.
