Emerence from The Door, and the ‘Dog Woman’ as ‘Manly-Woman’ from Sexing the Cherry

Year 2023, , 1209 - 1223, 21.12.2023

Merve Hançer

https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.1405994

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of feminism and the representation of female characters in Hungarian and English novel, pointing out their similarities and dissimilarities regarding the period and different cultures in which they were written. Consideration is given to Magda Szabó’s The Door (1987) in Hungarian literature, and her contemporary Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry (1989) in English literature. The ways in which these significant female authors deal with women’s problems, their position in society and their attributed roles and identities from different perspectives, are examined in detail. In each of these works, the female protagonist takes a stand against the identities and expected duties imposed on her as a woman and the abstract barriers constructed between female and male that aim to control her life. These works of fiction enable the female voice, so often disparaged and disregarded by men, to be heard; and enable us to observe how female writers characterize women. Therefore, these selected novels escape the precedent of male patriarchy and the representation of women in the works of male writers. What differentiates this study is to allow women’s voices from different cultures to be heard and their stories’ being transmitted from female authors who could provide an insight into the minds of women both in Britain and Hungary. Finally, critical points of feminism and the position of women in Hungarian and British society are compared so as to illustrate the persistent exclusion of women from active social life.

Keywords

Feminism, English Literature, Hungarian Literature, Communist Regime, Elaine Showalter, Gynocriticism

References

• Atayurt, Z.Z. (2014). Excessive and embodiment in contemporary women’s writing.
• Stutgart: İbidem Press.
• Butler, J. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology
• and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519–531. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/3207893. Accessed 9 Apr. 2021.
• Chernock, A. (2010). Men and the Making of Modern British Feminism. California: California U.P.
• Cixous, H. (1976). The Laugh of the Medusa. Signs, 1(4), 1976, 875–93. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173239. Accessed 26 June 2023.
• De Beauvoir, S. (2010). The Second Sex. (Constance Borde & Sheila Malovany Chevallier, Trans.) New York: Vintage Books.
• Digby, A. (1992). Victorian Values and Women in Public and Private. Proceedings of the British Academy 78, 195-215. Retrieved from https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/4031/78p195.pdf.
• Eagleton, M. (2007). Literary representations of women. In A history of feminist literary criticism, G.
• Plain & S. Sellers (Eds.), New York: Cambridge University Press. 105-119.
• Eberhardt, P. (2003). Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth-Century
• Central and Eastern Europe- History, Data, and Analysis. (Jan Owsinski, Trans) New York and London: M.E. Sharpe.
• Frank, T. (1995). Nation, National Minorities, and Nationalism in Twentieth Century Hungary. In
• Eastern European Nationalism in the 20th Century, P.F. Sugar (Ed), Washington: The American U.P.
• Hideg, R. (2020, Feb.8). “Abigail: The Impact of World Events on Individual Lives.”
• Hungarian Literature Online, https://hlo.hu/review/abigail-the-impact-of-world-events-on-individual lives.html.
• Goven, J. (1993). The Gendered Foundations of Hungarian Socialism: State, Society, and the Anti-Politics of Anti-Feminism, 1948-1990. [Doctoral dissertation, University of California]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
• Hooks, B. (2015). Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. New York: Routledge.
• Juhász, B. (2016, Oct. 21). “Women’s Rights and the Legacy of Communism in Hungary.”
• Visegrad Group, https://www.visegradgroup.eu/womens-rights-and-the.
• Kay, J. (1990). “Unnatural Passions: Interview with Jeanette Winterson.” Spare Rib, vol.209, 26-29.
• Kertesz, S. D. (1950). The Methods of Communist Conquest: Hungary 1944-1947. World Politics, 3(1), 20–54. https://doi.org/10.2307/2009010.
• Lacan, J. (1983). God and the Jouissance of Woman. In Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the
• ecole freudienne, Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose (Eds), New York: Norton.
• Lengyel, I. Z. (2022). Literature as/against Culture: Magda Szabo’s The Door (Az ajto). In
• Contemporary and Recent Hungarian Fiction: Reception and Cross-Cultural Interpretations, Tibor Gintli and Janos Kenyeres (Eds), Budapest: Cser Publishing House and ELTE U.P.
• Luther, M. (1832). Table Talk; Or, Some Choice Fragments from the Familiar Discourse of That Godly
• Learned Man, and Famous Champion of God’s Truth. London: Longman.
• Makinen, M. (2005). The Novels of Jeanette Winterson. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• New International Version. (2011). Genesis 2:18. BibleGateaway.com.
• https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%202%3A18&version=NIV
• Patmore, C. (1903). The Angel in The House Together With The Victories of Love. London: George Routledge & Sons, Limited.
• Romsics, I. (2000) The Trianon Peace Treaty in the Hungarian Historiography and Political Thinking.
• In Hungary’s Historical Legacies – Studies in Honour of Steven Béla Várdy, P. D. Hupchick and R. W. Weisberger (Eds.), New York Columbia U.P.
• Schwartz, A. (2008). Shifting Voices: Feminist Thought and Women’s Writing in Fin-de- siécle Austria and Hungary. Québec: McGill-Queen’s U.P.
• Showalter, E. (1979). Towards a feminist poetics. In Women writing and writing about women, M.
• Jacobus (Ed.), London and New York: Routledge, 22-41.
• Showalter, E. (1981). Feminist criticism in the wilderness. Critical Inquiry, 8(2), 179-205.
• Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343159.
• Showalter, E. (1984). Women’s Time, Women’s Space: Writing the History of Feminist
• Criticism. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, 3(1/2), 29–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/463823.
• Showalter, E. (1992). Killing the Angel in the House: The Autonomy of Women Writers. The
• Antioch Review, 50(1/2), 207–220. https://doi.org/10.2307/4612511.
• Szabó, M. (2005). The Door. (Len Rix, Trans.) New York: New York Review Books.
• Tezla, A. (1970). Hungarian Authors: A Bibliographical Handbook. Cambridge: Harvard U.P.
• Turner, E. R. (1913). The Women’s Suffrage Movement in England. The American Political
• Science Review, 7(4), 588–609. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.2307/1944309.
• Zarin, C. (2016, April 29). “The Hungarian Despair of Magda Szabó’s The Door.” The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/magda-szabos-the-door.
• Winterson, J. (1989). Sexing the Cherry. New York: Grove Press.
• Woolf, V. (1931). Professions for Women. National Society for Women’s Service. Retrieved
• from https://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Woolf.pdf. YouVersion. (2023). Ecclesiastes 7:26. Bible.com. https://www.bible.com/bible/1588/ECC.7.26.AMP.