Year taken: 2012-2013
Professor: Nellie Vázquez
Class: INGL3002
University: University of Puerto Rico, Cayey Campus
Grace H. Rodríguez Cruz
Professor Vázquez
English 3002
20 May 2013
Good
girl or bad girl? The character analysis of Mabel from “The Horse Dealer’s
Daughter”
“Well, Mabel, and what are you going to do with yourself?”(2330)
expresses Joe about his sister in D.H. Lawrence’s “The Horse Dealer Daughter”.
The very first line might be over looked at first but, oh, how much can be used
throughout. What is Mabel going to do? Maintain the “good girl” persona in her
loveless household or to succumb into the desires of a “bad girl”. Being the
ambiguous woman in a story, Mabel begins to show as the stereotypical
well-behaved girl who “accepts her traditional gender role and obey patriarchal
rule” (Tyson 88). But even so, we see how Mabel is greedy and full of the
confidence money gives: “the sense of money had kept her proud, confident.”(Lawrence
2334). This is a trait that marks Mabel as a character who may be a “bad girl”
as well as a “good girl”.
While getting to know her as the ignored woman
on a table of men, Mabel begins to develop in the specific traits given by Lois
Tyson’s “Feminist Criticism” chapter in “Critical Theory Today”. Mabel just
listens and cleans out the table after eating; always showing lack of interest
to anything and barely talking at all. Even when asked by Dr. Fergusson about
her whether traveling or not, her response was dry and straight to the point.
Adding nothing else but a “no”; “You could bray her into bits, and that's
all you'd get out of her,”(2334). Mabel is “modest, unassuming, self‑sacrificing, and
nurturing…”(Tyson 90)“…But so long as there was money, the girl felt herself
established, and brutally proud, reserved.” (Lawrence 2334)
The
reason to think of Mabel as the kind of woman who has developed the mischievous
and plotting personality to escape her horrible and poor present, lies within
these lines. Her whole “Do you love me, then?” could have been a way to seduce
the young doctor into thinking he does love her and to give him the idea of
marriage (2338). Being Mabel the greedy woman that was being talked before the
“commit suicide” incident, it could fill in the blanks to her blunt and strange
reaction; giving the image of a misunderstood woman being miserable when, in
fact, it may have been of aware to her the doctor’s observations and spying on
her and create a little play where she may attempt suicide by drowning. This,
in my opinion, is pretty irrational considering the triggered response in the
human body of survival and how it would be impossible to intentionally drown
yourself without fighting the danger out. This gives in to a scene of a heroic
saving of a damsel in distress that the young doctor might’ve fallen in as
bait.
But
just as we can see this as an “evil” plan, it can also be portrayed as the
fairy-tale filled plan of a girl who’s miserable life was destroying her,
giving in to suicidal thoughts or to simply give in to hope of being rescued.
This may explore a “good girl” archetype on Mabel that has been shunned upon by
feminists many time but exposed to everyday media: “Feminists have long been aware
that the role of Cinderella, which patriarchy imposes on the imagination of young girls, is a destructive role because
it equates femininity with submission, encouraging women to tolerate familial
abuse, wait patiently to be rescued by a man, and view marriage as the only
desirable reward for “right” conduct”(Tyson 88) It may be possible to find that
Mabel has an inner angelic side who is so miserable that her actions aren’t
really a thought plot, but rather her truthful and pure feelings. Was Mabel a
cunning “villain” or an innocent princess?
In a
subtle seduction, Mabel might “spell-bound” the doctor when she just threw
herself at his knees and, while naked under a blanket, kissed them. The erotic
scene might’ve been a little awkward at first for Fergusson, but just the
visual thought of this might’ve made him change his mind about his feelings for
the girl. If she is the “bad girl”, Mabel didn’t really had to push the doctor
to her request, but to slowly, in an unpredictable way for him, approach so
lightly that might’ve drawn the doctor to her lustful spell. The bad girl tends
to “violate patriarchal sexual norms in some way: they’re sexually forward in
appearance or behavior…”(Tyson 90). In favor of the good girl side, this act of
her might’ve shown her virginal innocence, driven by the shock of being
undressed by this young man, she might’ve gotten the wrong idea and illusion of
being desired by the same man who rescued her from misfortune and to who she
owns something else than mistreatment or loneliness. Mabel was to find herself
enchanted by the “princess and hero” brainwash and believed that Fergusson desire
to keep her; giving him her authentic and hidden happiness and libido.
Whether Mabel was
the good or the bad in the story, it doesn’t change the fact of the doctor
becoming her “subject animal” by the end (2331) and that “her power [is] stronger
than his” (2338). He became enslaved by her in just a few minutes, changing his
mind to marriage and love by giving him a dose of her to a probably lonely and
isolated doctor. The text can either “reinforce and undermine patriarchal
traits”(Tyson 101) by either behaving “like a woman” or as the stereotypical
evil witch (Tyson 92).
Works cited:
·
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory
Today: A User-Friendly Guide. New York/London: Garland, 1999.
·
Lawrence, D.H. “The
Horse Dealer’s Daughter.” 1922. Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th
ed. 2 vols. New York: Norton, 2000, 2: 2330-2341.
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