Blurry Filters

When I think back on the texts that we have been reading over the last three weeks I find that there is a definite shift from the patriarchal culture. The purpose and intent of most of these articles is completely different from the earlier ones we have read this semester. In a way, that has been a good change for me. The articles are quite humorous in some ways and definitely seem to be an odd filter for didactic literature. The language of these articles serve to make it laborious reading for the modern viewer. The general intent and the vocabulary blur the message. Each one required an effort on my part to understand the tone and message they were trying to relate.

The first few articles we read lean toward trying to warn or teach young women how to behave socially to prevent any misconceptions others might have of them. The one that particularly comes to mind is the article “Copy of a Letter from Miss---- to Mr.” In this particular article, the writer, Eliza, is lamenting her social indiscretions committed with this particular young man. She states “If female virtue consists, as I have sometimes been told, in female reputation, any virtue is indeed gone; but if, as my soberer reason teaches, virtue to be independent of human opinion, I feel myself its ardent votary, and my heart is pregnant with it nobles principles.” Not only is the language of this writer foreign to the modern reader, but it is so verbose. It seems so foreign to increase the number of words to express one’s thoughts when we are constantly in a media culture of the fewest lines possible. Our technology leans toward lean communication.

Finding relevance in these articles is not difficult once the extravagant language is bypassed. The particular article that spoke to me the most was “The Passenger ---No XL”. It addresses some issues that I think are still relevant in what we consider our modern culture. For example, the Doctor “remarked, that it had ever appeared to him that some correction was wanting in our laws, to curb the tyranny of a base husband, over an unoffending wife, whom he had voluntarily bound himself to protect and to cherish. In other cases, said he, men are bound to fulfill their obligations according to their tenor; if this same cruel husband had promised a sum of money, the laws would oblige him to pay it.” We addressed in class how this particular issue stands out as a new thought during this error. This doctor saw the need to address the crime of treating one’s wife with less responsibility than the law required for financial obligations. I think the fact that this is pointed out in this article drew my attention to the ludicrous double standards that society accepts in the arena of marriage. This particular article comes closer to the current modern reader’s concept of written communication and therefore, I thought it was easier to digest and understand.