Eastern news

the Eastern News is the meeting of ten Nouvelle S of Marguerite Yourcenar: published initially separately, they were worked over again before constituting a collection. The adjective “Eastern” is justified by the fact that the author took as a starting point the cultural funds Mediterranean or native of the Far East.

Images of the woman in the Eastern News of Marguerite Yourcenar

In its large novels, Memories of Hadrian and work with the black , as in all its other narrative works, Marguerite Yourcenar forever made of a woman her main character. However, many are the female figures which frame the heroes. In the Eastern News , their presence is quite as secondary, which does not mean however that they do not have a crucial role in the narration. The multiplication of the faces, of an account with another, reveals the interest that the author grants to them. Thus côtoient themselves poor women, the holy ones and seductresseses, developing the complexity of the female identity consequently.

mediocrity of oppressed the

  • poor the

As a woman, Marguerite Yourcenar does not seek to improve in a systematic way her colleagues and is authorized some tried portraits of mediocrity. Thus in “the Death of Marko”, a former mistress of the character éponyme is described in all the ugliness of old age; as for the unhappy one Lady-of-village-of-flower-which-fall, his/her old lover does not have to remember that which was a concubine of most banal. Characters without relief, they do not obtain from it less the recognition of Marko for the first and the narrator for the second.

  • cruel the

Exceeding the only mediocrity, certain female figures are truly negative, which appears by a deployment of cruelty. To be avenged for her lover, the widow in love with Marko Kraliévitch is able to require the worst torments. In “the Milk of dead the”, the beggar condemns her child to the suffering and blindness to only make sure of the financial incomes. The cruelty of Kâli is only one demonstration of its despair. However, if the women act in a cruel way, it is also to express their existence in a patriarchal company which oppresses them and makes them aggressive.

  • oppressed the

Indeed, several women appear in group, so that the number can give them some force. Néréides, or the American ones which is their during modern, are indicated in the plural and only one man is enough to make them run the risk to die. In “the widow Aphrodissia”, the women of the village oppose heroin massively. They are here carrying the word of Doxa, social suitabilities and the destroying prejudices of all the village. Erased in their individuality, they represent nevertheless at Marguerite Yourcenar the most harmful force.

Of obliteration to holiness

  • devoted wives

Other women appear in the Eastern News with one will have positive. Some are wives devoted, but unobtrusive with the point to seem invisible. Genghi is accompanied in its last moments by an attentive concubine and the wife of Ling prefers to commit suicide rather than to make obstacle with the new passion of her husband.
  • the mothers
Among the various female figures, the young wife of the “Lait of dead the” is a devoted mother. She sacrifices her life, but made her death a miracle of maternity: its body nurses its small two years, whereas it is immured. As for the sacrifice of Aphrodissia child murder, it seems to be the only solution vis-a-vis an intolerant company.
  • holy the
Mother among the mothers, Our-Lady-of-Swallows brings to the Eastern Nouvelles a face of maternal perfection, since it seems to be the protective one of any thing, and in particular of the animals and the nymphs. The purity seems well with the wire of the texts being a data to define femininity.

the desire, danger and hello of the man

  • femmes fatale

Lastly, let us notice that the women are defined by their complexity. It is true that the access to the divinity is done by the women, that it is with Our-Lady-of-Swallows, nymphs or Néréides, but that induces a mortifère presence impossible to circumvent. If Néréides make insane, Aphrodissia does not save his/her lover of dead and disappears with him, as the wife of Ling or the widow in love with Marko.
  • the seductresseses
As wants it the medieval tradition, the attracting woman is carrying a destroying evil that the man must face if he wants to be with the height of that which it wishes. Kostis the Red is an example and Marko escapes from little from the death which its mistress wants to impose to him.
  • the safety of the men
However, most courageous know that they can find an exit with the violence of the world by the love and the desire. It is a dancer of most tempting who saves Marko by posing her handkerchief on her smile, it is a concubine in love who makes happy the last hours of Genghi and are Néréides which made of an young man happy in front of the graces of nature. Had a presentiment of like dangers, the women are also the safety of the men.

If the female faces are multiple in the Eastern News , it is that they draw indefinable contours of femininity. No caricatural diagram is proposed, but, while being faithful to the traditions of cultures machists, Marguerite Yourcenar refuse to reduce femininity to stereotypes. Cruel, holy or tempting, the woman remains a mystery, in which the man must lose himself for better finding himself.

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