|
The Maid's Tragedy:
Absence of
Identity and Inversion of Gender
|
Jillian Gleave
Westminster College
Salt Lake City, Utah
The early
modern period is characterized by the mobility and individuality
allowed in its population. Social and even sexual mobility
became a possibility in the fluid world of the Renaissance. An
individual’s identity was no longer constructed by one’s
relationship to the church, or even (at least as much as it had
previously been) by occupation. This period however, was not
modern and liberal enough to allow unrestrained
self-fashioning. The tension in creating an identity is
exemplified in Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Maid’s Tragedy.
The characters in The Maid’s Tragedy each occupy a sphere
of existence that is completely oppositional, transcending their
conventional and expected roles. The females are masculinized,
the males are feminized, and the King is unjust and tyrannical.
The characters are forced into an ambiguous realm of
personhood. The identities they attempt to create become flawed
by social constraints, and they are forced into unfamiliar
roles. The gender roles (the binary opposition between male and
female) are reversed; the male becomes the “other” as compared
to female. This situation however, is tenuous. It is a
confusion of identity in a changing and uncertain world, and as
a consequence most of the characters suffer death.
With
Protestant Reformation and the emergent market economy, the
early modern period presented new possibilities for humanity.
People no longer had to define themselves by their association
with the church, or by their social and occupational standing.
This new liberation, however, created a tentative social
sphere. If people did not have traditional points of referents
to define themselves, then exactly how were they supposed to
self-identify? The formerly stabilizing and constant
self-characterizations of being, (i.e. aristocrat, blacksmith,
Catholic) became simply one aspect among many.
In The Maid’s Tragedy
Aspatia, a young maid, attempts to define herself by her
impending marriage to Amintor. She expects her life to be that
of a traditional wife married to a man she cares about. When
this fails to actualize, Aspatia is not just heart-broken (which
would be expected from any such sudden and drastic breakup), but
lost in devastation and unable to view any kind of future. Her
visualization of herself, the definition of what she has created
as ‘Aspatia’ has crumbled. The referent by which she defined
herself (her husband) has abandoned her, and now she has no
identity. Without this identity she cannot comprehend living,
and begins to chronically imagine and anticipate her death, even
beginning enactments of her funeral. When she sees a grove of
flowers she “make[s] her maids pluck ‘em and strow her over like
a corse” (1.1 97). Eventually, the only identity Aspatia can
appropriate is that of the masculine.
Evadne’s
attempt at self-fashioning is opposed to Aspatia’s conventional
outlook. She assimilates a proto-feminist stance with her
strength, attainment of desires, and rejection of the
traditional subjugated women in the patriarchal renaissance.
Evadne is active; she can be cruel and manipulative, and she
goes after what she wants—status and power. She endeavors to
create her identity (her desire for power) by giving sexual
favors to the King. However, Evadne’s modern construction of
self-fashioning by doing whatever is needed to attain her goals
is foiled, just as Aspatia’s self-definition is.
Neither
attempt at identity is fruitful. Aspatia who follows the
traditional path, the desire of wifehood and motherhood, of
servitude and obedience, is not able to create this conventional
identity. Evadne, attempting to be an empowered, strong woman,
intent on self-fashioning (no matter how radical that may be) is
similarly prevented from creating an identity. Neither the
conventional nor the modern attempt to define the self is
successful.
Amintor
expects to delineate his selfhood by his subjection to the
King. He desires to be a loyal and obedient royal subject. He
unquestioningly reneges on his wedding promise, to fulfill the
King’s desires. Melantius, likewise, imagines his identity as
both a loyal subject to the King and a soldier.
The King, who
should be the pinnacle of the characters self-referents,
operates antithetically in that he is the main reason that none
of them can obtain a desired identity. He prevents Aspatia’s
marriage to Amintor. He allows Evadne some measure of power,
but in placing her with a strong-willed man, endangers the
security of their affair. He takes Amintor’s identity by
revealing his own unworthy, and immoral status, which Amintor
realizes is not worth his devotion.
In an attempt
to recreate themselves in this contradictory and indefinite
world, the characters create new possibilities for themselves.
As the play progresses the females begin to enter into the
masculine realm, and the males begin to occupy the feminine one.
Evadne and Aspatia begin to act in a masculine fashion,
concordant with what is typically viewed as a patriarchal male.
Lisa Hopkins
argues that language within a patriarchal society is controlled
by men and that it is inherently misogynistic (44). Loomba
agrees that the “all women have suffered some degree of speech
impediment in trying to communicate female experience with a
phallocentric tongue” (112). She admits that language belongs
to men, and that women are inarticulate and unable to
communicate with men’s language. In the society of Rhodes,
however, with women moving into the masculine arena, this
paradigm reverses. Men within The Maid’s Tragedy lack
skill and ownership over language, and the women, as well as the
men often speak in derogatory terms towards males (rather than
towards females). Within the play, the men often admit to being
inarticulate, thus denying ownership over the realm of language
and of the patriarchy. Melantius repeatedly admits his
inability to articulate and possess language. He fully
acknowledges that he is “poor in words” (1.1 126), and that he
is as “slow to fight with words as he is quick of hands” (1.1
126). Melantius admits that because he does not possess
language (as men should be able to within the patriarchy) he
will use his body instead. Replacing a control of language with
temporal strength signifies the ephemeral nature of his
possession of the masculine. His youth and strength will leave
him with time, as will his masculinity with the progression of
the play. Melantius lacks skill over language; he cannot
manipulate it and cannot use it even to express his most basic
feelings. When he greets Amintor after returning from the army,
Melantius is unable to communicate his love for Amintor. He
admits that his “mouth is much too narrow for [his] heart . . .
[his] disordered speech” is incapable of conveying his thoughts
(1.1. 114). It is significant that throughout the play the
women are never at a loss for words. Aspatia is more than
capable of articulating her grief. In fact, she seems to never
be able to express it enough. She bemoans her loss repeatedly,
consistently demonstrating her suicidal thoughts, even repeating
a song to Evadne that communicates her sorrow.
Evadne,
similarly, is strong and certain in her speech, confidently
proclaiming that she will maintain abstinence with Amintor. She
asserts “tis not for a night or two that I forbear thy bed, but
ever” (2.1 206). She further demonstrates her surety by
swearing by all things holy “never to be acquainted with [his]
bed, and then asks if he is still in doubt over her decision
(2.1 238-9). This certainty contrasts Amintor’s doubtful
speech. He is so unsure about the situation and the harsh
language Evadne is berating him with that he is not even certain
he is awake, proclaiming “I dream—Awake Amintor” (2.1 208). He
continues to disbelieve her and asks for her pity, forcing her
to become more authoritative and firm over her resolution.
As Hopkins
states, the language of a patriarchal society is incessantly
anti-feminist. In “The Woman as Emblem,” Hopkins reveals these
gender stereotypes as degradation of the gender system ─ a
conglomeration and confusion of the masculine and feminine
within the context of the play. Furthermore, not only are the
gender lines confused and distorted but reversed. In The
Maid’s Tragedy, however, the language is more misanthropic
than misogynistic. Aspatia, who is a timid and docile woman, is
so disgusted with men that she disparages their gender, swearing
that they only flatter and forswear: “oh, that beast man” (2.2
25-7). She also states that “there is a vile dishonest trick in
man, more than that in women . . . Men are harsh and rude, and
have a subtlety in everything” (5.3 22-5). Amintor, on the
other hand, has a notable lack of misogynistic discourse. In
fact, he degrades men more than woman: “oh, we vain men, that
thrust all our reputation to rest upon the weak and yielding
hands of feeble women” (2.1 262-5). Within this lamentation
women are described as weak and yielding (certainly not
masculine qualities); however, Amintor blames men for being
foolish enough to place their identities within these unstable
referents. According to Amintor’s logic, men are losing their
identity (their masculinity within a patriarchy) because they
are defining themselves by a comparison and a dependence upon
women. When women are unable to support this definition, men’s
identities are lost, they must be found within the feminine.
Evadne, unlike
Aspatia, does not degrade men in a misanthropic discourse. She
does however, disparage women. If a typical male member of the
patriarch “insists on the inferiority of women” with every
sentence (Hopkins 44), it is fitting that Evadne, an incipient
member of the patriarchy, would similarly degrade women. She
compares women to “cozening crocodiles, false women [that] reign
here like those plagues, those killing sores men pray against”
(4.2 247-9). This is undoubtedly sexist and caustically
disapproving of women.
The females
within the play become masculinized in other avenues than simply
the control of language. Aspatia and Evadne are connected with
the symbol of the phallus—the transcendental signifier of power,
according to Jacques Lacan. Before the reader encounters
Evadne, Lysippus describes her as a female that “strikes dead
with flashes of her eye” (1.1 75). This description is
immediately reminiscent of Medusa, the serpent goddess. The
correlation to medusa intrinsically relates Evadne with snakes,
and a symbol of the phallus. Medusa is a threatening emblem to
masculinity. She represents a woman overstepping the bounds of
femininity; her hair ─ a slithering miasma of venomous and
death-dealing snakes ─ creates an image of a woman overcome with
phallus desire (Cixous 315). Furthermore, the myth of Medusa
operates as an admonition to male rule. She is a woman with
hair made of snakes, who transforms men into stone if they dare
to look into her eyes. She is powerful, mysterious, and
dangerous, a warning to men of what women are capable of
destroying and conquering. Evadne is undoubtedly aligned with
this feminine power, the possibility of conquering men, and the
phallus.
Evadne is
again associated with snakes, and therefore with the phallus,
when she declares to Amintor that she would sooner lay with
snakes than with him (2.1 209). Hopkins confirms that “Evadne
from the outset is ruthlessly phallic . . . she associates
herself with serpents (59). Hopkins further notes that Aspatia
similarly aligns herself with snakes. She advises her waiting
ladies that if they take a lover they would do better to “take
to your maiden bosoms two dead cold aspics” than a man (2.2
24). Later in the play, Evadne refers to herself as “the
foulest creature, most poisonous [and] dangerous” (4.1 229-30).
This reference to poison recalls Aspatia’s association of men
with poisonous snakes and therefore links Evadne to the
masculine. Hopkins glosses these two instances of female
association with the phallus to prove that the play is pushing
aspects of “gender-bending” (61) and that the lines between
female and male norms are nebulous or even nonexistent—that
gender values are socially created facades. The gender
oppositions within the play, however, are not simply blurred,
but reversed. Evadne and Aspatia are intrinsically
masculinized, and the men are unambiguously feminized.
Initially,
Aspatia plays a feminized role. She is exceptionally maudlin
over Amintor. She “walks discontented with her watery eyes, she
carries with her an infectious grief” (1.1 89-98). This grief
would seem appropriate (perhaps slightly excessive) for a woman
just refused by her fiancé. The “intensity of her
disappointment” (Huebert 609), however, is what causes her to
lose her identity and begin to identify with the masculine.
Huebert notes that a grieving woman in the Renaissance “is
always a woman cut loose from her social moorings and set adrift
in a vortex of pathos” (602). Her extreme grief disassociates
Aspatia from her society; she becomes incomprehensible and
separate. The image she had of her life in marriage lay in
tatters. She is now “cut loose” from both her society and her
feminized self. She has no relation to her former society and
identity, and eventually begins to associate with the
masculine.
Not only is Aspatia
emotionally ostracized, but she is also abandoned as a victim.
Aspatia has no male defender; no man is willing to take up or
fight for her cause, including her father (Liebler 364). As the
play progresses, she “can wait no longer for a male champion to
take up [her] grievances” (Liebler 364), and is forced to do so
for herself. In so doing, she is forced into a position of
masculinity.
It is
significant that as Aspatia abandons her grief for action,
Amintor occupies the obverse position; he becomes more passive
and more grieved. Evadne’s flagrant infidelity leads Amintor to
a state of grief that is parallel to Aspatia’s earlier sorrow.
He mourns and weeps, crying “alas, I am nothing but a multitude
of waking griefs . . . compare my injuries and they will well
appear too sad a weight for reason to endure” (3.1 256- 61). He
later continues in the same vein, lamenting that he is “so
o’ergone with injuries unheard of that [he] lose[s]
consideration,” (3.2 107-8). Their grief leads both Amintor
and Aspatia to suicidal ideation. Amintor asks Evadne and
Melantius to kill him, to cease his pain, and Aspatia fantasizes
about the prospect, having her maids cover her in flowers. As
Aspatia moves away from the feminine (as defined by her distress
and suicidal thoughts) Amintor shifts towards it.
Aspatia
chooses a position of transvestitism to assert her agency. She
puts on male dress and takes up a sword to attain what she
desires—death. In cross-dressing, Aspatia is more than just
symbolically taking on the male order; the action she asserts
furthers that masculinity. Heubert adroitly states that a
Renaissance woman could “take decisive action only by assuming
external masculine qualities,” explicitly, male dress (610).
Liebler similarly remarks that Renaissance women felt “they had
to look masculine to be ‘free’” (366). A cross-dressing woman
was a threatening concept to the Renaissance patriarchy, because
she “threatened a normative social order based upon strict
principles of hierarchy and subordination” (Howard 419). Jean
Howard is accurate in suggesting that a female transvestite is
subverting the hierarchy of gender constructions by
subordinating or denying her female identity. Howard, however,
conceives of cross-dressing females as eventually participating
in and pandering to the patriarchy, because a woman dressed as a
man simply reveals and stresses what “the disguised woman cannot
do” (439). Aspatia’s period of cross-dressing, though, is not
characterized by any lack of ability. She is successful in
initiating her murder, in dying.
As Aspatia
gains agency and masculinization through transvestitism, Evadne
reverses this paradigm by metaphorically cross-dressing the King
and emasculating him. Liebler remarks that in “one way or
another, all the major figures in The Maid’s Tragedy
adopt a form of transvestism” (367). At his death the King is
forced into the position (or metaphoric dress) of a woman, when
Evadne ties him up. He is vulnerable (she is on top), and it is
an ostensibly female pose. “The King meets death in a supine
position” (Liebler 367), in a female positioning of sexual
disadvantage, and is feminized.
Evadne further
feminizes the King through her commodification of him.
Renaissance women were typically seen as possessions, objects
for men to trade and barter with, and then to own. Hopkins
recognizes that male relationships were created and maintained
by the “possessing and othering” of women (46). In The
Maid’s Tragedy, Evadne exploits the King for his status.
She has no love for him as an individual, but uses his position
to gain power and eminence. She reduces him to a commodity,
recognized only by his value on the market economy. He is a
material possession, almost a stepping stool to Evadne, and he
has no intimate or personal value to her. She is blatant in
reminding him that it is not him she covets, but his position,
and she would “forsake [him] and bend to him that won [the]
throne” (3.1 186). His value is not personal or sentimental,
but simply material; he is commercialized. The gender codes
that characterized the Renaissance ─ man as possessor, woman as
possession ─ have been reversed. Not only is Evadne
unpossessible, but she takes on the patriarch’s role of
commodifying and materializing the other sex.
The King is
objectified, and in turn, the King objectifies Amintor. Amintor
is forced into a marriage to Evadne that he originally has no
interest in. He does not have a choice, and even though he is
upset at the prospect of hurting Aspatia, he laments that it is
“the King first moved [him] to’t,” and he has no choice.
Amintor’s position is that of a typical Renaissance woman, being
forced into a marriage for the profit of the male. The King
commodifies Amintor so that he may continue his relationship
with Evadne. In a sense the King is “strengthening the
male-male bonds through the exchange of women” (Hopkins 46). If
Evadne is masculinized, then theoretically the King is
strengthening his bonds with her (albeit sexually) by
manipulating Amintor into a marriage that is profitable for
him.
The position
that the King forces Amintor into is not the only situation that
feminizes him. Melantius’ relationship with Amintor furthers
Amintor’s alignment with the feminine. Melantius uses
feminine-gendered language when speaking with Amintor, and by so
doing, he ‘others’ Amintor, placing him within the sphere of the
feminine. Melantius pacifies Amintor’s grief by repeatedly
telling him not to be womanish, to “dry up thy wat’ry eyes, and
cast a manly look upon [thy] face” (3.2 197-8). Furthermore,
Melantius takes on the role of protector and defender of Amintor.
He tells Amintor that he will “never cease [his] vengeance till
[he] find thy heart at peace” (3.2 201). By taking up the
position of his defender, Melantius forces Amintor into a
defenseless (and womanly) position. Melantius is a support,
both emotionally and physically, to Amintor. Once Amintor
reveals his marital secrets to Melantius, Amintor becomes too
weak to support himself and must physically lean against
Melantius (3.2 254-5). The few instances when Amintor does
attempt to take an active defense against the King, Melantius
prohibits him, pacifying him by reminding him of the divine
royalty of the King. He is able to “charm the sword out of [Amintor’s]
hand,” leaving him “shaking” (4.2 314-16). Mollifying Amintor
is not just a plot device on Melantius’ part. Melantius feels
obligated to be Amintor’s champion, and sees him as too womanish
to be able to defend himself.
It is notable that while
“the women are left to fend for themselves” (Liebler 366), as
men would be expected to, Amintor is defended and protected (as
women were expected to be guarded). Moreover, Melantius does
not attempt to hinder Evadne’s action against the King, but
instead forces it upon her, stating “come, you shall kill him”
(4.1 155). Melantius more than encourages Evadne to take
action, while repeatedly hampering Amintor’s attempts.
Furthermore, rather than associating Evadne with female-gendered
language, as he does Amintor, on the contrary, he connects
Evadne with masculinized language. As Hopkins notes (65), he
asseverates that she is “valiant in [the King’s] bed, and
bold enough . . . thus far [she has known] no fear”
(4.1 149- 55; italics added). Melantius protects and feminizes
Amintor, while masculinizing Evadne and forcing her into the
male sphere of violent action.
Melantius’
othering and protection of Amintor places Amintor into a
position of metaphoric transvestitism. Melantius sees Amintor
as dressed in women’s attire, as mentally a women, and
therefore, as occupying the feminine. Amintor is now
metaphorically a woman, and an object of desire. Denise Walen
argues that cross-dressing was often employed in the Renaissance
to “signify the representation of same-sex attraction” (411).
Amintor’s actions (or lack thereof) and his relationship to
Melantius compels him into a figurative transvestite. This
‘disguise of dress’ “presents [an] ambiguous sexual tension that
allow[s] an audience to perceive the homoerotic attractions as
benign” (Walen 412). Amintor’s association with the feminine
permits the ostensible homoerotic tension between Melantius and
him.
The sexual
tension between the two is indubitable. Amintor is often
described as ‘gazing’ at Melantius in admiration (1.1 34; 3.1
45-8). When younger, Amintor would ask to see and hold
Melantius’ sword, which can be seen as a symbol of the phallus
(1.1 34). Also notable, Melantius tells Evadne that she “looked
with [his] eyes when [she] took [Amintor] (1.2 113). Melantius,
then, sees Amintor in terms of a possible sexual partner.
Hopkins asserts that this kind of relationship ─ the non-brother
male-male ─ is a threatening affiliation, “since the strong
emotions generated, not contained within any named or formalized
relationship, may so easily tremble on the brink of eroticism”
(53).
Amintor can be further
aligned with the feminine because of his duplicity. Ronald
Huebert notes that all women in the Renaissance were assumed to
be deceptive and duplicitous in matters between flesh and
emotion (603). The desires between the two were divergent, and
women, in attempting to fulfill both longings, maintain two
separate facades. Amintor, in an attempt to maintain his public
honor and remain loyal to the King, pretends to have a happy
marriage. He elicits a promise from Evadne that she will “be
careful of [her] credit, and sin close” (2.1 350). Amintor is
confident that he can “bear [his] grief hid from the world” (3.2
47-8). In his lack of action, his gendered language, and his
para-sexual relationship with Melantius, Amintor is not a man,
but something strongly associated with the feminine.
In the face of
Amintor’s fragility and passivity, Evadne’s strength and
confidence become a glaring fact. She is strong, assertive, and
autonomous—all definitive masculine traits. She is loyal to her
word, and keeps all oaths. When she has forsworn not to sleep
with Amintor, she is committed to keeping that oath. Later,
when she swears to Melantius that she will kill the King (4.1
169), she again fulfills her oath. This loyalty is opposed to
Amintor’s lack of loyalty, in reneging on his marriage
arrangements with Aspatia.
In fact,
Evadne is so committed to maintaining her promises that she is
offended when the King accuses her of fulfilling her marital
(i.e. sexual) obligations with Amintor. She replies that she is
“no man to answer with a blow” (3.1 203) ─ seemingly proclaiming
that if she were a man she would defend her honor with violence
(a customary tradition within the aristocracy). Yet
eventually Evadne does take an active and violent pose in
defending her honor against the King’s defamation. She does
more than simply give him a blow, but murders him. By her own
logic, violence in defense of honor would define her as a man;
she later does just that, and thus becomes associated with the
masculine.
Moments before
the murder, Evadne flatly denies her womanhood. She proclaims
that ‘she is not Evadne, nor does she bear in her breast so much
cold spirit’ (5.1 65-8). She is not a woman, but a “tiger,
anything that knows no pity” (5.1 68). Seconds later she tells
the King that she is “as foul as” he is, and “can number as many
such hells” (5.1 75-6). She is confirming, in word and action,
that she is capable of anything that men are (especially
cruelty). By her own logic, and her own words, Evadne is
repositioning herself further away from what is feminine towards
the masculine.
Evadne
continues to be an active and mannish figure, one that easily
asserts her identity. In fact, “Evadne emerges as the play’s
primary active principle” (Liebler 369). Once she has killed
the King, and then been rejected by Amintor, she is at a
suicidal loss. She declares that “Evadne . . . will die for [Amintor]”
(5.3 169), and then immediately kills herself. She does not
vacillate over the decision, nor does she wane over the fear of
death.
Evadne’s and
Aspatia’s effective deaths contrast Amintor’s and Melantius’
fearful and unsuccessful attempts at suicide. Amintor is
hesitant and apprehensive about killing himself. He considers
that “ther’s man enough in [him] to meet the fear that death can
bring, and yet would it were done” (5.3 103-4), as if he cannot
bear the thought of actually slaying himself. He is effective
in murdering himself, nonetheless, which brings about a torrent
of grief and tears for Melantius. This anguish leads to
Melantius’ attempt at self-destruction, but he is foiled. His
brother prevents the suicide, and then declares: “how unmanly
was this offer” (5.3 278). Instead of effectively killing
himself, Melantius promises to “never eat, or drink, or sleep”
(5.3 278). Death by starvation was associated with a typical
suicide by women. Melantius’ death contradicts his masculinity
and links him to the feminine. Amintor and Melantius were less
able to conquer death. According to Huebert, “in the crisis of
death Aspatia [and Evadne] may claim a reluctant but real
victory over the masculine social order (610).
A number of
theorists (i.e. Liebler, Hopkins) have adroitly proposed that
the woman in The Maid’s Tragedy disrupt the gender
boundaries, and thus the patriarchy, within their society; that
they are proto-feminist, and that they disrupt “the binarism of
gender” (Liebler 366). Some theorists counter-argue that by
disrupting the gender roles, the females are simply reinforcing
the patriarchy (i.e. Alfer, Howard), and that the females have
simply internalized the patriarchal dictates (Alfer 313). I
further these assumptions in arguing that the females within the
play both disrupt the gender hierarchy and play into the
patriarchy. They do so by reversing the ‘binarism’ of gender,
and replacing the male role within the patriarchy. The
patriarchy is defined by Ania Loomba as “a functional term
useful for referring to those social structures and ideologies
that contribute to the subordination of women” (1). In this
case, it is the subjugation of the ‘other,’ the passive,
feminized male. The women, in a loss of identity, have
redefined themselves by appropriating language, the phallus,
masculine dress, autonomy, and action. The males, in a similar
confusion of identity, have realigned themselves with feminine
in their metaphoric transvestitism, passivity, inability to
articulate, and homoeroticism. Traditionally the ‘binarism’ of
gender has classified the feminine as “the left, the lower, the
dark and the disorderly . . . the lower terms of the oppositions
masculine/ feminine, right/ left, upper/ lower, light/ dark, and
order/ disorder . . . gender is thus a pivotal and paradigmatic
opposition in the structure of antitheses” (Callghan 11).
Within The Maid’s Tragedy, this opposition has been
reversed; the males are the feminine, the left, the lower, the
dark, and the disorder. They are the opposite of rationality,
action, and effectiveness. In the early modern period, class,
gender, employment, and religion were no longer sufficient
referents to define an individual, and the “problem of
ontological mobility, or mobility of identity, [was] palpably at
the center of the cultural consciousness” (Whigham 170). Frank
Whigham’s appraisal of The Duchess of Malfi, is effective
in summarizing the problem within Beaumont and Fletcher’s text:
“this is the burden felt by all: the shaping of the social self
in the abrasive zone between emergent and residual social
formations” (195). The reidentification of women with the
masculine within the play is possibly a caveat by Beaumont and
Fletcher on the effects that mobility and loss of identity may
have. More plausibly, it could be a comment on the ephemeral
and mutable nature of society and humans, and a foreshadowing of
the possible roles men and women will be able to explore in the
future.
|
