Re: JCO: Marya: A Life

Oh, I neglected to note one other threat to the intellectual career that
Marya desires, and perhaps it's the most important threat of all: if she allows
herself to have sex with her ex-Marine boyfriend, she might enjoy it so much
that she will surrender her college ambitions and attempt to live a life deemed
"normal" for women at that time: marriage & children. If she does manage to go
to college later, it will be to become a public school teacher -- which is a
lot less than than the career young Marya wants for herself.
Canadian writer Alice Munro delt with this this problem very memorably in
LIVES OF GIRLS AND WOMEN, a novel-in-the-form-of-stories from the early 1970s.

In a message dated 1/6/2005 9:59:08 AM Eastern Standard Time,
CoonHollow@aol.com writes:

<< Cyrano, thanks for the input (sorry, I don't agree that Marya had a "hot"
relationship--I don't think she even slept with him). I'm actually looking
for
an interpretation of that particular scene with Imogene when they are
looking
at the pictures of Dickie on Imogene's bed. The question arises as to
whether
Marya's attachment to Imogene is repressed lesbianism; Imogene's invitation,
if it was one, would have been for other reasons, imho. My classes have
spent
several sessions hotly debating this scene, so I'm interested in input from
those who have studied the text.

Anne D'Arcy, Ph.D.
Solano College
Suisun, Ca.


>>
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