January 17, 2018

"The specter of Dickens’s ranting spinster — spurned and embittered in her crumbling wedding dress, plotting her elaborate revenge — casts a long shadow over every woman who dares to get mad."

Writes Leslie Jamison — in "I Used to Insist I Didn’t Get Angry. Not Anymore. On female rage" (NYT) — invoking Hillary Clinton:
In “What Happened,” her account of the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton describes the pressure not to come across as angry during the course of her entire political career — “a lot of people recoil from an angry woman,” she writes — as well as her own desire not to be consumed by anger after she lost the race, “so that the rest of my life wouldn’t be spent like Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’s ‘Great Expectations,’ rattling around my house obsessing over what might have been.”
Miss Havisham was "rattling around" over a marriage that never happened, so it's irksome to see her used as Hillary Clinton's point of reference. Hillary Clinton is all about a marriage that did take place, and it would be interesting to know what she would have been without Bill.

But the topic here is female anger.
If an angry woman makes people uneasy, then her more palatable counterpart, the sad woman, summons sympathy more readily. She often looks beautiful in her suffering: ennobled, transfigured, elegant. Angry women are messier. Their pain threatens to cause more collateral damage. It’s as if the prospect of a woman’s anger harming other people threatens to rob her of the social capital she has gained by being wronged. We are most comfortable with female anger when it promises to regulate itself, to refrain from recklessness, to stay civilized.
That's the discipline. If you're set on looking beautiful and commanding empathy, you've accepted the subordination and made yourself small. I think this is an important topic, and I like the photo illustrations at the link, but the essay is not to my taste. Quoting Hillary. Quoting this wretched nonsense from Audre Lorde: "I have suckled the wolf’s lip of anger and I have used it for illumination, laughter, protection, fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, no quarter." Wolf's lip??

Here's the whole Lorde essay, in case you think more context will help.

Wait a minute! I googled "wolf's lip" and got some major help from Urban Dictionary ("Picture the side of a dog's mouth, the back part with wrinkly skin and folds of dark moist flesh"). Did the NYT understand what it was quoting?!

IN THE COMMENTS: Rob said:
"[T]he sad woman, summons sympathy more readily. She often looks beautiful in her suffering: ennobled, transfigured, elegant." Now we know why Cory Booker publicly anguished about hurting and having tears in his eyes.
From last night's Cory Booker comments thread, Hoodlum Doodlum says "This one goes out to Corey and T-Bone" and points us here:



You might be asking, yes, but who's T-Bone. Answer: "Cory Booker’s Imaginary Friend" (National Review).

124 comments:

Gahrie said...

When has Hillary not come across as angry?

Meade said...

Out: Pussy Hat

In: Wolf Hat

MacMacConnell said...

"When has Hillary not come across as angry?"

NEVER!

JackWayne said...

So far we have seen angry black men, angry red men, angry white men, now angry white women from the prog press. And we get hints that angry black women are directing the fem movement. Ho Hum. Maybe in 2019 we’ll get the angry yellow men and women. Then we’ll all be together in anger. If it weren’t for cliches would we have any prog news at all?

Paul Zrimsek said...

it would be interesting to know what she would have been without Bill.

A modestly successful lawyer who managed to get elected to the school board on the third try.

Mike Sylwester said...

Last night I watched the first episode of the second season of the PBS series Victoria, about the life of Queen Victoria.

Early in the episode, Victoria and her attending ladies were sitting around and chatting, and one of the ladies mentioned that she was reading Great Expectations. A brief discussion of the novel followed. (I never have read the novel, so I didn't get any nuances in the discussion.)

The second season has introduced a new female character, played by the now-old actress Diana Rigg. From the beginning, this character has been laugh-out-loud funny.

The situation is that Queen Victoria was politically compelled to bring some Tory women into her entourage after the Tory Party took over the government. Victoria resisted the pressure as long as she could, but eventually asked the Tory prime minister to give her a list of recommended ladies. Victoria then selected the very last woman on the list, who is the Rigg character.

The Rigg character used to be, many years ago, a lady for Victoria's grandmother, and so she is trying to restore old traditions into Victoria's entourage.

Anyway, the Rigg character has finished listening to the other ladies discuss the novel Great Expectations, and then she exclaims: "In my day, no unmarried woman ever would be allowed to read a novel."

Henry said...

I'm currently reading Jane Duncan's "My Friends" series which mostly take place in Scotland and the Caribbean. The word the narrator uses, to describe herself, her domineering granny, and her short-tempered aunt is "thrawn."

adj. twisted, crooked, distorted; (of people) obstinate, intractable, etc

THRAWN is frequently used with reference to stubbornness and absolute conviction. A recent Sunday newspaper article described the Scottish Borders as having a "thrawn sense of self".


Importantly, thrawn commands respect. Here's the narrator's father:

People like your granny, thrawn-natured people like that are always fonder of people that stand off from them, people they can respsect, people that can give them a good salting when they need it. People like your granny seem to enjoy a good fight, too.

Thrawn does not describe Hillary Clinton. Her anger is a kind of pathetic self-centered venting. There's no fight in this style of anger. It insists on obeisance.

Bruce Hayden said...

Well, Crooked Hillary was correct - getting visibly angry when running against Trump would have hurt her. She already had all the feminists who would appreciate her anger voting for her, and for most everyone else, it would have just made her look weak. Trump would have just ridiculed her for any bursts of anger. Making things maybe worse for her, was her reputation for raging fits over minor slights. The country really isn’t ready to trust a woman with the nuclear trigger if she could go off in a rage over an underling making eye contact with her.

Why can guys get away with expressing anger in that sort of situation, when gals can’t? Maybe because of the belief that men can better separate the personal from the business or political side. Anger for a Trump is a well honed weapon. For Crooked Hillary, it isn’t that clear, because the personal is always involved.

Is this fair? Probably not. But there are some very good reasons why men have been entrusted with the security of a country or tribe overwomen, and one is that they are better able to separate out the personal when determining what to do. Which is to say that women have to overcome very realistic stereotypes of their decision making process and priorities to show that they would do a competent job in that sort of situation.

MacMacConnell said...

Lorde,"I have suckled the wolf’s lip of anger and I have used it for illumination, laughter, protection, fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, no quarter."

Samantha Powers, “I wanted to milk the soft power dividend of this moment"

Aziz, "Suck my finger."

Ficta said...

Of course a presidential candidate shouldn't look angry, male or female. Even if their followers are angry, a winning candidate needs to be a happy warrior, all smiles. Remember the scream that sunk Howard Dean?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

It’s as if the prospect of a woman’s anger harming other people threatens to rob her of the social capital she has gained by being wronged.

Assumes facts not in evidence, i.e. that the anger is a result of having been wronged.

Rob said...

"[T]he sad woman, summons sympathy more readily. She often looks beautiful in her suffering: ennobled, transfigured, elegant." Now we know why Cory Booker publicly anguished about hurting and having tears in his eyes.

tim in vermont said...

Angry women are messier. Their pain threatens to cause more collateral damage. It’s as if the prospect of a woman’s anger harming other people threatens to rob her of the social capital she has gained by being wronged.

Well, you know, maybe nobody wants to voluntarily deal with that? Anger works mostly for women in the context of some relationship that is not easily slipped, like marriage, maybe, once committed to, or when the woman otherwise has something to offer that you want enough to suffer the anger.

Hillary was offering herself up for a four year commitment. To browbeat America into “marrying” her. Not to mention the context of her anger. As a kid, I had a friend who was an inveterate shoplifter. He got caught one time, and blustered his way out of it with a mighty blast of anger at the suggestion he might be a thief. Since this was before cameras, it worked. Is that the kind of positive anger that Hillary projects?

When the fuck was Hillary ever wronged?

tim in vermont said...

Assumes facts not in evidence

Well yeah. That’s what Democrats do, haven’t you noticed?

Wince said...

Hillary Clinton describes the pressure not to come across as angry during the course of her entire political career — “a lot of people recoil from an angry woman,” she writes — as well as her own desire not to be consumed by anger after she lost the race...

Here's the crucial point about the object of Hillary's anger that she misses. It's a vicious circle.

As much as she tries to portray, Hillary's is not an anger born of passion for an ideal.

Hillary's seething anger is perceptibly selfish, directed at the voters of this country who would never elect her.

And the enough of the voting public sensed it for her to loose.

True to form, she ascribes her anger to a sexist narrative projected at the electorate, which is part of the public revulsion that feeds her anger.

tim in vermont said...

”In my day, no unmarried woman ever would be allowed to read a novel."

Good advice.

tim in vermont said...

Obviously the retrograde fiction of Dickens has to go.

Curious George said...

Mad Hillary!

Imaging having to listen to this shrill she-beast lecture us for four years. Ugh.

Nonapod said...

A 1990 study conducted by the psychologists Ulf Dimberg and L.O. Lundquist found that when female faces are recognized as angry, their expressions are rated as more hostile than comparable expressions on the faces of men — as if their violation of social expectations had already made their anger seem more extreme, increasing its volume beyond what could be tolerated.

I always think it's a mistake to just assume that all human interactions and behaviors are determined solely by society rather than genetics. But the entire fields of psychology and sociology seem predicated on such assumptions. It's possible that there could be an evolutionary reason why anger in women is perceived as more hostile than similar expressions in males.

Fernandinande said...

"The specter of Dickens’s ranting spinster casts a long shadow over every woman who dares to get mad."

I'm continually amazed at the nonsense that people get paid to write.

William said...

I read the article. I found it confusing.... She gets punched by a stranger in Nicaragua and finds this to be an occasion to reflect on her white privilege. I don't understand how her mind works.......Nancy Kerrigan came from a modest background. She was better looking than Tonya and had a supportive mother. That was the extent of Nancy's privilege. Tonya was not the victim of that crime.

Achilles said...

Does Howard Dean think angry male worked out well for him?

Booker tried tears of anger.

This is obviously a problem unique to women. Those poor women.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Tim in Vermont said...

When the fuck was Hillary ever wronged?

Repeatedly, by Bill. But her future prospects required her to stand by her man, so she takes the anger out on everyone else.

Achilles said...

Gahrie said...
“When has Hillary not come across as angry?“

When she was “sick and tarred.”

Or being tossed into a van like a slab of beef.

Or carried up the stairs.

Chuck said...

So the good guys at National Review were ridiculing Cory Booker long before anyone at Althouse was.

Are the NR guys still weak, lefty, globalist, NeverTrump cucks?

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

“She already had all the feminists who would appreciate her anger voting for her, and for most everyone else, it would have just made her look weak.”

She undoubtedly reminded many male voters of their first wives. That shrilly plaintive “why I am not 50 points ahead?” video immediately made me think of my third grade teacher Sr. Mary Francis, who used the same tone when she asked us why we were such wicked children.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Even globalist cucks can grasp that T-Bone Booker is ridiculous. Although some don't.

mockturtle said...

Anger ≠ power.

bleh said...

There are so many myths out there about gender differences that I find really fascinating. People also recoil from an angry man, but don't tell that to angry women. Who are these men who are acting angry and not suffering because of it? Didn't Howard Dean fizzle as a candidate mostly because he let his anger show?

I get it that there are asymmetries in life and that sucks. In some ways women benefit, in some ways men benefit. But Hillary was not discriminated against for being a woman. I actually feel even better about her not winning if she struggled so mightily to contain her volcanic anger -- and, if you believe some of the news reports, she failed to contain that anger with staffers and aides during the campaign, even to the point of violence.

It doesn't fit with the popular caricature, but in truth men are socialized early on to control their anger because male anger can be very dangerous. Male anger can result in injuries or worse and is a cause for police concern. So men learn early on, usually by high school, that they can do real damage to each other if they fight. So they mostly stop fighting.

Women don't experience the same thing. When their emotions get the best of them, they usually cry and wail and so on, and other people rush to comfort them. That is why when we see a woman being "angry" we feel a mixture of pity and contempt. Kinda like how I felt when I saw Cory Booker yesterday.

Seriously, who are these men acting like belligerent assholes? There's a huge difference between being indignant about something and altogether unhinged. Hillary is often unhinged.

William said...

Is it ever possible that a woman's anger is disproportionate to the offense and malicious in intent? Sylvia Plath famously stuck her head in the oven and committed suicide. She had made suicide attempts before she married Ted Hughes so perhaps he wasn't the prime or sole cause of her suicide. Nonetheless, her death left a mark on his psyche. To Hughes second wife committed suicide in exactly the same way as Sylvia...... Was Ted some kind of malignant presence who drove women to suicide or was Ted some kind of vulnerable soul that self destructive women wished to hang around? He made the ideal witness for their dive into the abyss.

LuAnn Zieman said...

Lorde,"I have suckled the wolf’s lip of anger... ." Wolves feed their young by regurgitating food. The young do suckle at the wolf's lip, so the image is not nonsensical. It's not natural, though, since the suckled wolf's lip provides comfort and nourishment to the young, not anger.

rhhardin said...

Evolutionary attraction and disattraction.

An angry woman is likely to become a nagger, so not a good marriage prospect.

An angry man is not likely to become a nagger but will have other marriage problems.

Meade said...

"Are the NR guys still weak, lefty, globalist, NeverTrump cucks?"

Chuck,

Thank you.

Out.

Gahrie said...

Are the NR guys still weak, lefty, globalist, NeverTrump cucks?

Yes. Well except for the Lefty. Most of them would be conservative Democrats.

Mike Sylwester said...

I have suckled the wolf’s lip of anger and I have used it for illumination, laughter, protection, fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, no quarter.

Within this wretched nonsense, Audre Lorde seems to think that a baby suckles her mother, instead of the other way around.

Lorde seems to be saying that she herself has sucked -- not suckled -- the wolf's lip, from which she has ingested anger, that she has used for illumination, etc.

If Lorde had suckled the wolf's lip, then milk from Lordes' breast would be going into the wolf's mouth. If so, then how is Lorde getting any illumination, etc.?

Bob Boyd said...

It sounds like she's been raising wolf pups then burning them for fuel.

Mike Sylwester said...

Continuing my comment at 10:45 AM

I have suckled the wolf’s lip of anger and I have used it for illumination, laughter, protection, fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, no quarter.

Assuming that Lorde meant that she sucked (not suckled) the wolf's lip, then I am puzzled by her phrase of anger.

* the lip itself is an angry lip?

* Lorde sucked anger out of the lip? (of is short for out of)

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I don't think my reaction to female anger is any different than male anger. I decide if the anger is reasonable and helpful. If it is, then fine. If not, then yeah, I think less of that person.

buwaya said...

NR is often right and sometimes wrong, as it has always been. But it has also, always, been entirely irrelevant. Bill Buckley was important because he was a charismatic public figure, but they haven't got a Buckley.

NR is utterly useless in the big picture. There are any number of even Youtube channels that are vastly more significant. And a single ladies' magazine matters more than all the decades of NR put together.

Thats why Glenn Reynolds suggested that a wealthy conservative should buy a ladies' magazine; it would be a better investment in political influence.

With that, those NR pipsqueaks have an amusingly inflated opinion of themselves.

Achilles said...

Chuck said...
“So the good guys at National Review were ridiculing Cory Booker long before anyone at Althouse was.

Are the NR guys still weak, lefty, globalist, NeverTrump cucks?“

Most are. A couple aren’t. They would lose all credibility if they fired VDH but they are looking for an excuse just like Derbyshire.

They have to keep up the facade and keep pushing open borders and “free” trade as republican positions for the wealthy globalists that fund them. They have to bitch about deficits when tax cuts come up too. And of course how big a racist the current republican leader is.

They are becoming useless to their masters now because they can’t get republican voters to support traitors like graham and flake. I anticipate they join the resistance this summer over something racist.

buwaya said...

Anger is the emotion of our times. The MSM wants to create as much anger as possible for political reasons. The entire thrust of the media message is emotional - as it has always been, but never to this degree.

And it is entirely deliberate and coordinated.

buwaya said...

Good point. NR used to have more independent thinkers, who could connect disparate things and make you see what was always there, like Steyn. Buckley had an aesthetic appreciation for things that could not be, now, and a quirky, often cruel sense of humor. Modern NR would never have a Florence King, but Buckley did.

But they are now a very crabbed lot.

Mike Sylwester said...

Continuing my comment at 10:53 AM

I have suckled the wolf’s lip of anger and I have used it for illumination, laughter, protection, fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, no quarter.

The phrase no quarter is ambiguous.

* No place to reside.

* No mercy for an enemy.

Lorde already has used the word places, so the full expression is:

... places where ... there was no quarter.

Therefore, her intended sense seems to be:

... places where ... there was no mercy for an enemy.

That makes sense, but there is a problem in her parallel construction, which is:

* light

* food

* sisters

* no quarter

The first three items are resources, whereas the fourth item (no quarter) is a condition.

Achilles said...

Buwaya said...

“NR is utterly useless in the big picture. There are any number of even Youtube channels that are vastly more significant. And a single ladies' magazine matters more than all the decades of NR put together.”

The goals of the people that fund NRO have nothing to do with significance as far as numbers. They want to define conservative intellectual thought. Thus a group of people can write some articles nobody reads and be brought onto major media outlets to be the stand in conservative and tell the country what real conservatives are thinking. They were supposed to keep republican voters in line on open borders and free trade and taxes.

They failed with Trump. Their greatest fear was a republican President that put the needs of republican voters first.

Bob Boyd said...

Did you ever try to get a wolf to burn? It's almost impossible unless you have a can of gas and even then they put out a ton of smoke, they won't keep still and they tend to keep going out.
IMO you're better off with green wood which is much easier to collect.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Most are. A couple aren’t. They would lose all credibility if they fired VDH but they are looking for an excuse just like Derbyshire.

Agreed. I try not to give NR clicks. Go to youtube and search on victor davis hanson for lots of great content.

Freeman Hunt said...

I think it's false that people show greater dislike for uncontrolled anger in a woman than in a man.

Mike Sylwester said...

Now that I have studied the word suckle, I see that two interpretations are correct.

* The mother suckles the baby

* The baby suckles the mother

However, when I see the word in the context of the wolf's lip, I reflexively think that the anger-milk is moving from Lorde into the wolf.

If Lorde had written that she suckles the wolf's breast of anger, then I would understand that the anger-milk is moving from the wolf into Lorde.

I still am not completely sure what Lorde intends for us to understand about who is suckling whom.

buwaya said...

To be clear, re Miss Havisham, and its been quite a while since I've read "Great Expectations", so I may be off here, she didn't actually rant, nor was she passionately angry in presentation.

Her notions of revenge were cold, not hot.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Trump is rewriting the Republican party's DNA, which is why the establishment is so desperate to destroy him. They don't just want to oust him. They want to destroy him and his family so that nobody will try to challenge them again.

Bob Boyd said...

Wolves don't make good fuel, but having said that, I can understand why Audre Lorde didn't want to write, "I have suckled the green wood of anger and I have used it, etc etc."

Feminists reading that would have said, "Now wait a minute..."

buwaya said...

NR can't define conservative intellectual thought, as their message goes nowhere. They aren't at all where the kids are.
They have not forced open the doors of the academy, as Buckley did manage, a few times.

gilbar said...

So, the author goes on and on, describing the acts of violence she did as a kid;
"wanting so badly to destroy something, whatever I could."
then she talks about how such acts drive people away, saying
casts a long shadow over every woman who dares to go mad. (fify)

Paddy O said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Paddy O said...

"T-Bone"

All this time, I thought he was talking about Neal Watkins from Accounting.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Unfortunately, the full version of the greatest version of Great Expectations ever filmed is not available on the interwebs, but here is a clip with the robot monkeys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un4Fei9liDs

Luke Lea said...
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Luke Lea said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bob Boyd said...

In the end, Hillary will be as famous an example of how not to do it as Miss Havisham.

pacwest said...

Just put her in jail already.

Mike Sylwester said...

William at 10:39 AM
Sylvia Plath famously stuck her head in the oven and committed suicide. She had made suicide attempts before she married Ted Hughes so perhaps he wasn't the prime or sole cause of her suicide.

I write a blog about the movie Dirty Dancing.

Recently I have been writing a series of articles arguing that the movie's screen writer, Eleanor Bergstein, was influenced by Sylvia Plath.

The series begins at ...
https://dirty-dancing-analysis.blogspot.com/2017/12/eleanor-bergstein-and-sylvia-plath-part.html

buwaya said...

If you want an example of a politically influential Youtube, have a look at "Demolition Ranch". Not because there is any overt politics in it, but because of the mass of fundamentally libertarian assumptions built into its silly yet dangerous fun.

These are young men messing around with weapons and explosives out in the free countryside of Texas, profoundly and openly skeptical of government regulation. Its all about the subtext and context.

And, note, they get 1 to 10 million views per weekly video.

Henry said...

Spectres don't cast shadows.

Kate said...

A sad woman is like a pale, Irish statue.

Comanche Voter said...

Hillary Havisham. Has a certain resonance. Spurned at the altar of 1600 Pennsylvania by the faithless American public.

If this were the old Dick Clark's Bandstand (on the tube when Hillary was in high school), I've give it a 76--has a beat and you can dance to it. A catchy tune indeed.

Achilles said...

buwaya said...
“NR can't define conservative intellectual thought, as their message goes nowhere. They aren't at all where the kids are.
They have not forced open the doors of the academy, as Buckley did manage, a few times.“

NR helped push Romney in over the objections of republican voters. They were instrumental in convincing enough republicans to accept Romney despite his clear insincerity. It was clear pushing the author of obamneycare as the nominee in a year Obamacare was the biggest issue would demoralize the voter base of the party.

NR on it’ own could not have done it but they are part of a network of “good” conservatives in DC funded by the globalists. Will, Kristol, Ruilbin and any number of elected republicans are a part of the “team.” Graham and Flake are the point of the traitors spear.

Luke Lea said...


Is anyone's anger attractive? Not even God's in the Old Testament.

Yancey Ward said...

"Hillary Clinton is all about a marriage that did take place, and it would be interesting to know what she would have been without Bill."

This is easy to answer- you would have never heard of her. At best, she would be some blogger's Inga.

tcrosse said...

Higgledy Piggledy, Hillary Havisham
Lost the election and promptly went mad
Russian collusion, Wisconsin and Michigan
Ruthlessly stole her Entitlement. Sad.

rehajm said...

There's a reason What Happened isn't in the self-help section.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

"She often looks beautiful in her suffering: ennobled, transfigured, elegant. Angry women are messier. "

Well, sad women can get quite messy, especially if their mascara is not waterproof. And I really hate that your nose runs when you cry. Your heart is breaking and you have to worry about snot at the same time?

Admittedly I am biased but I did not find the women weeping at the Javits Center on election night to be "ennobled, transfigured, elegant." I was very happy that they were the ones who were weeping and not us deplorables.

Sigivald said...

Everyone?

What about everyone who's never read Great Expectations?

I mean, I've read a lot of 19th century English novels for fun, and even more for classes; but not Dickens.

Dickens is not, I suspect, our General Schema For Female Madness.

Martin said...

I don't recall people getting all weird when Margaret Thatcher got angry and showed it. Nor does history suggest that women such as Victoria, Elizabeth I, Maria Theresa, Catherine the Great, Isabella of Aragon, Isabella Q. of England (m. Edward II) and plenty of others were patronized or treated in a diminished way when they were angry. Or, if so, only once.

One might say that those were not typical women (though Thatcher rose on her own and Elizabeth had to fight hard to get the crown). But comparison to Hillary Clinton in 2016 is NOT inapt.

If Clinton thought she had a problem in 2016, she would do well to think on why Thatcher could do it and she couldn't, esp with all the media on her side (as they were against Thatcher). But I think it is just another lame excuse.

Jupiter said...

Evolution decided that people should have the ability to get angry, and also the ability to get sad. People with those abilities were reproductively more successful than those without. But it could easily be that the value of those abilities is different for the two sexes.

buwaya said...

Dickens is the greatest of the 19th century novelists, and almost the funniest.
In, mostly, a low key way. A smile, not the laugh out loud of Mark Twain.
He brings a smile on every page.

It's a sign of the times that few read Dickens.

Luke Lea said...

Sarcastic anger set to music can sound pretty good, as in Dylan's "You got a lot of nerve . . ." https://goo.gl/p4pZdG

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Sigivald said...

Dickens is not, I suspect, our General Schema For Female Madness.

I've always seen Hillary as more the Lady Macbeth type.

Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare... It dramatizes the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake.

Michael said...

Hillary would be more Mrs. Jellyby. All about making a show of helping others while neglecting her own.

Gahrie said...
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Gahrie said...

I've always seen Hillary as more the Lady Macbeth type.

I've always seen her as the Elizabeth Bathory type.

robother said...

Didn't Harvey Weinstein get Gwyneth Paltrow to play Miss Haversham in lingerie early in her career?

Anonymous said...

” she writes — as well as her own desire not to be consumed by anger after she lost the race, “so that the rest of my life wouldn’t be spent like Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’s ‘Great Expectations,’ rattling around my house obsessing over what might have been.”

Funny, she has spent her life after her humiliating loss like Miss Havisham blaming everyone except herself for her failures "rattling around... obsessing over what might have been."

mockturtle said...

Her notions of revenge were cold, not hot.

That is my recollection, as well.

mockturtle said...

Well, sad women can get quite messy, especially if their mascara is not waterproof. And I really hate that your nose runs when you cry. Your heart is breaking and you have to worry about snot at the same time?

LOL! I hear you, exiled!

madAsHell said...

Why can guys get away with expressing anger in that sort of situation, when gals can’t?

Guys know when to shut up. They've eaten a few knuckle sandwiches.

mockturtle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mockturtle said...

I is B says: I've always seen Hillary as more the Lady Macbeth type.

Most definitely. The main point of departure is the distinct lack of remorse in Hillary.

Big Mike said...

... and it would be interesting to know what she would have been without Bill.

Everybody's seen her type when their kids are young -- gets elected chairman of the PTA, has a lot of ideas, but doesn't want to do the work herself so winds up complaining bitterly that no one else wants to do the hard work either. After her kid graduates the rest of the parents quietly tell each other that they're glad she's gone.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

What awful advice these progressive "thinkers" often dispense. Walking around angry and woke all the time is not empowering; it is profoundly disempowering. Allowing outside situations, slights, frustrated entitlements etc to determine your state of mind is the ultimate in handing over your power to something outside yourself. Allowing a manufactured reality [SJWism, victimization, #metoo; etc] to restructure your brain is literally allowing yourself to be colonized and your self to be erased. Why on earth would anyone think that was some kind of progress toward justice and self-actualization?

Freeman Hunt said...

... and it would be interesting to know what she would have been without Bill.

Have to wait for a sequel to Election to come out.

Gabriel said...

Miss Havisham is not a stand-in for or a rebuke to women who dare to get angry. She is a person who has let her anger take her beyond reason. Plenty of women got angry in Dickens, but there's only one Miss Havisham.

He had others who also took anger beyond reason: Hortense in Bleak House, Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities, but neither have anything in common with Miss Havisham.

Mark said...

it would be interesting to know what she would have been without Bill

An out-and-out political failure and non-entity early on. Which might have prompted her to move on to something else. And thereby have a happier life. And be a better person.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Hillary just needs to reintroduce her truth to the voters.

veni vidi vici said...

Once again, months are being spent to draw the same conclusion, "Women don't know what they want."

Has it ever not been thus?

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Miss Havisham wasted her life because she refused to accept a reality outside the manufactured one in her head. The first step to any kind of healthy and peaceful interior life is accepting what is, not fighting against it in the service of what you think should be.

Freeman Hunt said...

People avoid being in physical proximity to men who appear enraged. No one likes a raging man. Why would they like a raging woman? One difference that might result in different reactions is that people generally see a raging man as a greater physical threat. But that wouldn't make people's reactions more positive. Only less confrontational. Certainly no one respects the raging man more than the raging woman.

mockturtle said...

Misplaced asserts: Miss Havisham wasted her life because she refused to accept a reality outside the manufactured one in her head. The first step to any kind of healthy and peaceful interior life is accepting what is, not fighting against it in the service of what you think should be.

It's really the difference between having an internal vs. an external locus of control.
Some people really believe their lives are shaped by outside circumstances and other people. Sad.

Mark said...

The second season has introduced a new female character, played by the now-old actress Diana Rigg

I confess I did not recognize Mrs. Peel until I saw her name in the credits.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

It's really the difference between having an internal vs. an external locus of control.
Some people really believe their lives are shaped by outside circumstances and other people. Sad.


Doesn't mean we shouldn't work to create positive change blah blah; we should just seek to understand the deep wisdom in the serenity prayer.

And yes. Every one of us could probably think of a dozen unhappy people who think that their unhappiness is someone else's doing and not a product of their failure to choose their own attitude. It's true for every unhappy, unsatisfied, envious, perpetually angry person.

I Callahan said...

Does Howard Dean think angry male worked out well for him?

Did you guys really see anger in "YEEAARRRGGHH!!"? I just thought it was a guy who got caught up in the speech he was giving, the people listening to him got caught up, and they all fed on each other. Nothing more.

Don't get me wrong - I don't think Howard Dean is qualified to run for dogcatcher, but his outburst was NOT anger.

I Callahan said...

Are the NR guys still weak, lefty, globalist, NeverTrump cucks?

Yes. And knocking Booker has NOTHING to do with that.

I Callahan said...

What awful advice these progressive "thinkers" often dispense.

Pants' comment that follows this first sentence, to me, is the comment of the week, at least.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

An out-and-out political failure

She simply does not have the necessary talents to be a successful politician. There is no shame in that. Most people don't.

carrie said...

Hillary made sure she came across as angry after Bill's affair with Lewinsky was exposed. I remember that it caught my attention when the news reports kept referring to Hillary as angry or outraged--those are strong images and she was reported to be angry or enraged often. So what she really does is spend her time deciding when it would be to her political advantage to appear angry or enraged instead of actually being angry or enraged, although she probably really is enraged by Trump.

Mountain Maven said...

A disbarred staffer flying a desk at the SLPC.

readering said...

Don't understand why the Havisham image is irksome. A lot of her readers have probably seen one or more of the many filmed adaptations, especially David Lean in 1946 or Mike Newell in 2012 (with a great Helena Bonham Carter).

Roughcoat said...

Achilles was an angry -- wrathful -- man who was attractive in part because of his wrath. His wrath had gravitas and many people (I am one) find gravitas very attractive. Gravitas conveys power, competency, truth. He was a no bullshit guy. He was the ultimate charismatic alpha male. Also he was physically attractive.

Quaestor said...

[The sad] often looks beautiful in her suffering: ennobled, transfigured, elegant.

What maudlin rubbish. Leslie Jamison has seen far, far too much television. There are millions actual of sad women on this planet most of whom are ragged and unwashed with crinkled faces and sagging breasts who toil with leathern hands because they can no longer prostitute themselves for the miserable fare that keeps them alive for another day of wretched life. Miss Haversham is a work of fiction. Bárbara Mendez is a sad woman of Venezuela. We should ask her about her transfiguration.

But why should I complain? It's the New York Times, isn't it? Delusional fantasy has been its stock in trade since Pinch inherited the reins.

Roughcoat said...

Also, when it comes to characters whose wrath has a certain charismatic attractivness, think of Feanor, a Tolkien hero of the Silmarillion. Read Feanor's speech when he decides to pursue Morgoth "to the ends of the earth," "to the world's" end, to regain the Silmarils that Morgoth took from him. Very stirring, and sexy.

buwaya said...

"NR helped push Romney in over the objections of republican voters."

Few Republican voters read NR, or any of the other such publications.
Vastly more hear the radio guys.
The Republican primaries were mostly about who secured the funds.

tim in vermont said...

The ancestors of the guys who don't control their anger mostly died young, so we have a missing cohort.

Jim at said...

You know, I'd be curious to find a moment when Hillary Clinton wasn't a snarling, miserable bitch constantly pissed off at the world.

Her natural state is the 'angry woman.' It's who she is. It's who she's always been. It's who she'll always be.

readering said...

Saw he speak once. Not snarling at all.

rhhardin said...

Angrrr

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Raging in anger is really a counterproductive type of action. Sure, you blow off steam. Throw a few things around. Intimidate some people. A woman screeching and raving, is just exhibiting that they are in powerless state. What are you trying to accomplish? Nothing good will come of a man and especially a woman acting like a raving loon. People will avoid you and your anger is worthless.

I was always told. Don't get mad. Get even. Cold, controlled, finely tuned and directed anger is the way to go. What do you want to do with your anger, your rage? Is it worth acting on? Is there an end result you want. Think about it, think some more and then when the time is right act.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. That saying exists for a good reason.

PS Don't get me mad :-D

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

Then Cory Booker said, "Hold my Paxil."

Achilles said...

buwaya said...

“Few Republican voters read NR, or any of the other such publications.
Vastly more hear the radio guys.
The Republican primaries were mostly about who secured the funds.”

Totally agree. The same people who fund NR funded Romney. And Bush. And McCain. If Bush III wasn’t available it would have been Graham. There are any number of senators and congress critters in that boat. Open borders were worth any price. They have been shifting their funding to democrats for a couple decades now.

The internet ended their monopoly on organization.

Unknown said...

I thought George Costanza was T-bone.

Phil 314 said...

FWIW. I like National Review, read their site daily along with Althouse and Instapundit.

And yes Romney would have been an excellent president; obviously his candidacy was insufficient .

Finally, Hillary still doesn't realize it was her "anger", her laugh or her clothes. It was her.

Megaera said...

The thing about Miss Havisham? She's not angry or crazy, just willing to surrender herself completely to her her sole life-focus: vengeance for having been jilted. Not, mind you, vengeance directly on the jilter himself, but vengeance by proxy on some undeterminable, minute fragment of society, coldly executed through and on Estella and Pip who she leaves warped in her wake. All her theatrical trappings are just reminders to herself of her purpose.

No one so far seems to have mentioned the Maenads, the maddened female followers of Dionysus, who let all of their inhibitions go and as mobs killed wild animals and young men, tearing them apart by tooth and nail. Reason enough, I consider, for the image of a raging female to conjure up a certain sense of unease.

Having labored at Lorde's, er, discourse, my immediate impression was not of rage, but of uncontrolled spite. She spent so much time clarifying her own status as a martyr and stamping virtually every white woman who ever spoke to her as irremediably un-self-aware and irredeemably loathsome that I got tired near the end and gave it up as a bad job. Found not one single alleged horridwhitewomanoriginating pseudoquote that didn't sound wholly manufactured. Pah.


EMyrt said...

Nonapod requests an evolutionary pysch explanation.
This is arm-waving, but it probably has something to do with raising kids. Too much anger, especially the kind that gets physical, means more risk of damaging her kids, and if the kids don't thrive, or mom kills them, her genes don't make it either.

Ray - SoCal said...

Romney ran to win in the primary. When he needed to go dirty, he did.

Then in the election he ran a super nice campaign, while Obama slimed him. Plus Obama ran a much better get out the vote and digital campaign. Obama sure could not govern, but he was brilliant on running his own campaign.

Ray - SoCal said...

NR is a mixed bag. The articles on the Russian / FISA by Andrew Mccarthy ste A+. VDH is A+. The rest, varies.

I knew they were mostly anti trump, I did not realize open borders.

Kirk Parker said...

Phil 3:14,

Romney would have been an excellent president?

Sure, in 1955 or 1965; possibly even in 1975. But completely, utterly, hopelessly unequal to the task as it stands today. Heck even Trump can barely manage it.