Quote: “How light and free I felt! When man first set woman on two wheels with a pair of pedals, did he know, I wonder, that he had rent the veil of the harem in twain? I doubt it, but so it was. A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering. I felt it that brisk May morning as I span down the road with Tam o’Shanter on my head and my loose hair traveling after me kike a Skye terrier. “This,” I thought to myself, “is truly my Odyssey…”(Allan 42-3).
Comment: There are so many ideas here about the ‘new woman’ – freedom, mobility, adventure, not attached to a man – as well as this connection she has to the Odyssey and casting out on her own adventure. I also thought that the idea of the bicycle as this new form of liberation was interesting; as she mentions before, it opened up more than just physical distances, but women were wearing pants to ride them, had their hair loose like her own, and it feels to me a very definite break among her young character. Compared to the young women we have seen in previous novels, the ideas surrounding their duties and societal roles seem very different. Especially this “no man hindering” her gives the feeling that she is not worried about this safety or ‘covered’ aspect of a woman’s life (significant to the Married Women’s Property Acts’ newfound expansion of a woman’s ability to engage more freely in society). The shift in norms surrounding what a woman could be in life makes for a new adventure-like story – previously which had been reserved for boys (I am thinking of the didactic novels for young girls in previous decades centering on domestic life and internal virtues versus novels like Treasure Island that show boys learning through external experiences) can now take on a youthful and explorative tone for the young, educated and wild woman of this new age.
Question: I am thinking about the masculine-like qualities of Juliet as she is, in a way spanning between these two rigid binaries of the time, but is it more that she is emulating men or claiming masculine-centered situations as feminine? This also plays into the idea of her not really believing the rumor that a woman wrote the Odyssey but entertaining it in that new sphere in a way that is not categorically masculine or feminine. Also, her remarks about her Aunt showcase a strong generational divide, common to the ‘new woman’ trope, as the youth tend to embrace change more readily. I want to know more about the family situations of other women who want to embrace this new liberated mindset and face family circumstances where they are not allowed. To what extent were young women able to do the things Juliet does, and what is exaggerated?
