![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Lemon tea and sugared almonds
Oct. 24th, 2014 02:10 pmDay Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Sarah and Mimi Bernstein (The Girls in the Velvet Frame by Adele Geras)
Today is a double-header, but it's not really cheating as the two characters are from the same book and act as foils to one another.
The Girls in the Velvet Frame is the story of Sarah Bernstein, a Jewish widow raising five daughters in British Mandate Palestine. The family live in a great deal of poverty. The oldest daughter, thirteen-year-old Rifka, has to work in a bakery to supplement her mother's income, and although the family is far from starving, there's lots of talk about wasting food and having to eat into savings for the smallest treats. Sarah puts a brave face on, and her daughters are tough and cheerful, but even the youngest of them knows that all is not well.
Part of the problem is that Sarah's oldest child and only son, Isaac, immigrated to New York and promptly dropped off the face of the earth. There have been no letters from him, and Sarah doesn't know if he's even alive. Much of the plot of the novel is concerned with the daughters finding a way to get in touch with Isaac in order to ease their mother's mind on that score.
Sarah followed the path expected by her community. She married young, supported her husband while he pursued a scholarly life, and made every sacrifice possible in order to ensure her children's comfort and bright futures. In some ways she's quite a passive character: she never complains or tries to change her precarious situation (beyond working harder, sacrificing more and trying to instill particular values in her daughters), and all the actions are taken by her resourceful daughters. Nevertheless her strength shines through.
If Sarah is passive and conventional, her sister-in-law Mimi is the exact opposite. By the standards of her day and community, Mimi has led a scandalous life. She never married, but travelled all over Europe, having all kinds of adventures and romantic entanglements, which she never tires of relating to her adoring nieces. (They're most horrified to hear that she once ate a meal in France consisting of 'chicken actually cooked in a cream sauce', which is of course as far from kosher as it's possible to get.) She always dresses in glamorous clothes, floating scarves and jewellery, her face painted exquisitely. Her house is always full of sweets and little bowls of sugared almonds. Her nieces love her, and find her house a welcome contrast from their own genteel poverty.
One thing I find particularly refreshing about Mimi is that she speaks frankly to her nieces about the benefits and disadvantages of her chosen lifestyle. Her eleven-year-old niece Chava is particularly adamant that she will never marry, and that she will follow Mimi's footsteps, and Mimi is very encouraging of this. But she also points out that she is sometimes unbearably lonely. However, when Max, one of her old flames, arrives on her doorstep seeking to pick up where they left off twenty or thirty years ago, Mimi ultimately turns him down, saying that she would have found being a wife to anyone completely stifling.
Mimi and Sarah have spent their entire acquaintance being quite distant and frosty to one another. This is mainly due to animosity on Sarah's part. She has always thought of Mimi as being frivolous, selfish and a bad influence on her daughters. I've also always felt that Sarah found Mimi's life choices to be a subtle criticism of her own conservative life path, although this is never made explicit in the story. But by the end of the book, the two have found common ground, and are able to feel mutual respect and even love for each other. I'm always pleased to find stories where women whose approaches to being a woman are very different are not pitted against one another, and where very different choices made by very different women are treated with respect. I first read The Girls in the Velvet Frame when I was seven years old, so maybe it was the origin of such attitudes for me.
( The other days )
Sarah and Mimi Bernstein (The Girls in the Velvet Frame by Adele Geras)
Today is a double-header, but it's not really cheating as the two characters are from the same book and act as foils to one another.
The Girls in the Velvet Frame is the story of Sarah Bernstein, a Jewish widow raising five daughters in British Mandate Palestine. The family live in a great deal of poverty. The oldest daughter, thirteen-year-old Rifka, has to work in a bakery to supplement her mother's income, and although the family is far from starving, there's lots of talk about wasting food and having to eat into savings for the smallest treats. Sarah puts a brave face on, and her daughters are tough and cheerful, but even the youngest of them knows that all is not well.
Part of the problem is that Sarah's oldest child and only son, Isaac, immigrated to New York and promptly dropped off the face of the earth. There have been no letters from him, and Sarah doesn't know if he's even alive. Much of the plot of the novel is concerned with the daughters finding a way to get in touch with Isaac in order to ease their mother's mind on that score.
Sarah followed the path expected by her community. She married young, supported her husband while he pursued a scholarly life, and made every sacrifice possible in order to ensure her children's comfort and bright futures. In some ways she's quite a passive character: she never complains or tries to change her precarious situation (beyond working harder, sacrificing more and trying to instill particular values in her daughters), and all the actions are taken by her resourceful daughters. Nevertheless her strength shines through.
If Sarah is passive and conventional, her sister-in-law Mimi is the exact opposite. By the standards of her day and community, Mimi has led a scandalous life. She never married, but travelled all over Europe, having all kinds of adventures and romantic entanglements, which she never tires of relating to her adoring nieces. (They're most horrified to hear that she once ate a meal in France consisting of 'chicken actually cooked in a cream sauce', which is of course as far from kosher as it's possible to get.) She always dresses in glamorous clothes, floating scarves and jewellery, her face painted exquisitely. Her house is always full of sweets and little bowls of sugared almonds. Her nieces love her, and find her house a welcome contrast from their own genteel poverty.
One thing I find particularly refreshing about Mimi is that she speaks frankly to her nieces about the benefits and disadvantages of her chosen lifestyle. Her eleven-year-old niece Chava is particularly adamant that she will never marry, and that she will follow Mimi's footsteps, and Mimi is very encouraging of this. But she also points out that she is sometimes unbearably lonely. However, when Max, one of her old flames, arrives on her doorstep seeking to pick up where they left off twenty or thirty years ago, Mimi ultimately turns him down, saying that she would have found being a wife to anyone completely stifling.
Mimi and Sarah have spent their entire acquaintance being quite distant and frosty to one another. This is mainly due to animosity on Sarah's part. She has always thought of Mimi as being frivolous, selfish and a bad influence on her daughters. I've also always felt that Sarah found Mimi's life choices to be a subtle criticism of her own conservative life path, although this is never made explicit in the story. But by the end of the book, the two have found common ground, and are able to feel mutual respect and even love for each other. I'm always pleased to find stories where women whose approaches to being a woman are very different are not pitted against one another, and where very different choices made by very different women are treated with respect. I first read The Girls in the Velvet Frame when I was seven years old, so maybe it was the origin of such attitudes for me.
( The other days )
