[fantasyfan]

I've just read the marriage proposal chapter in which Tony is told that Grunlich has sent a letter to her father proposing marriage to her. The most striking aspect of this scene is that it dramatises the Patriarchal nature of society through the use of one of the most core lies of such cultures--namely that a young unmarried woman equates with infantile child--i.e. someone incapable of reason who must be manipulated into the socially approved niche set out for them. In fact, Grunlich reminds me of a Mr Collins type who believes in a trophy wife and whose demonstrations of affection are purely superficial.

Unfortunately for Tony both mother and father use the woman as child routine on her. The mother says:

"A young girl like you never knows what she really wants. Your head and heart are both all in a muddle."

And the consul answers Tony's quite rational point that she hardly knows the man with:

"What could you possibly know about him? You're a child, don't you see, and you wouldn't have known any more about him if he had been here for fifty-two weeks rather than four, You're a little girl who's seen nothing of the world and has to depend on the eyes of other people, who only want the best for you."

Throughout we see Tony dehumanised and locked into a child-pattern which allows the father to exercise control. The fact that Tony actually seems so far to be a rather unpleasant person doesn't change the nature of her victimisation.

At this stage Tony has--as Caleb pointed out earlier--the right instincts. I gather that she will be less a victim later on, but that doesn't change the fact that she is being used essentially as an item of property for social aggrandisement rather than being seen as a person.

But did Thomas Mann actually have an understanding of the feminist rationale underlying the business with the first marriage? Did he have any real sympathy for the oppression of women in that type of patriarchal culture? Or was he simply portraying the situation as it existed?

So far, I find it an interesting book, but it lacks the subtlety and psychological perception of Ulysses, Remembrance of Things Past {Now known as In Search of Lost Time} or Conrad's Nostromo. Of course, this is only a personal opinion and I may well change my mind by the time I finish the book. In addition, another factor is that we are dealing with a translation here--and I suspect that neither of the two available is as powerful as Scott-Moncrieff's brilliant rendering of Proust.