"...she drew her head back and held his away gently that she might go on speaking, her large tear-filled eyes looking at his very simply, while she said in a sobbing childlike way, 'We could live quite well on my own fortune--it is too much- seven hundred a-year--I want so little--no new clothes--and I will learn what everything costs'" (762).
It breaks my heart that the only thing Dorothea would think to mention about not spending money on is new clothes. Is this all that women wanted to spend money on? Their lives' accumulation of reputation and the right marriages for... new clothing? What about cottages, the cost of blueprints, lumber, books on architecture? What about language books for learning Latin? For a heroine who in the beginning of this novel was not concerned about her dead mother's jewelry... why is she talking about clothes? I understand that she's abandoned her inheritance from her dead husband, as well as the estate that went along with it, just to marry Will, but something is missing; her dreams are missing. It seems those are the real cost of marrying Will, or marrying at all, for that matter.
I think that, like everyone else, Dorothea's dreams change over the course of her life. That's not to say that she wouldn't enjoy building cottages, but dreams and priorities change over time.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting! I think so too that Dorothea's dreams of cottages has been replaced with dreams of Will. I find this really sad. I think women today still replace many of their dreams with the dream of marriage (think Charlotte from Sex and the City) But I guess if its their own choice, that's all that matters. We're still told by society, however, to place marriage and children above all else so I'm not really sure how much of it is actually our choice.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the substance of your point, Katy--that Dorothea does abandon her big dreams from the beginning of the book. I read her comment about clothes differently, though: I think she's pointing out that she is *different* from other women who *would* care about clothes. She doesn't see this as any kind of sacrifice.
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