July 13th, 2008
by
Liz Henry
“Redwall” by Brian Jacques is nearly perfect for little kids except for the sexy yet demure always-cooking-and-serving mouse maiden Cornflower, the hero Mathias’ love interest. All through Redwall I noticed the reasonably decent gender balance, with good and evil, clever and brave female characters. Sela the Fox was clever and evil; Constance the Badger and Jess the Squirrel were smart, brave warriors. Warbeak the Sparrow Barbarian is super fierce and cool and so is her mother. Guosim the Shrew is a socialist revolutionary leader. So why do we need the demure maiden to blush, look coy, and serve up constant steaming mugs of acorn tea? Also for the other characters, good and evil, to sexually harass her every other minute?
Cornflower does get off a few good speeches about how heroic and special Matthias is. I don’t think she ever has a bit of dialogue (or thought) that isn’t about Matthias the Warrior!
In her one heroic moment, Cornflower the sexy mouse is serving food to the sentries on the Redwall Abbey walls. She sees an attacker sneaking up some scaffolding or siege machinery, screams, and throws her lantern, which bursts and lights the siege tower on fire. That’s all very well but the odd thing, the part that struck me, was how the author carefully and deliberately framed her actions as involuntary. In other words, our hero’s maiden love has to have a brave impulse so that she’s worthy of him in some way other than being a hottie and a good cook, but also has to have her agency denied, I guess either because it would make her slightly comic and unfeminine or because it would undermine the main hero to have a romantic attachment to another hero. Here’s the bits that raised the red flag of Denial of Agency:
Scarely aware of what she was doing, Cornflower threw the lantern… [inferno of fire drives away evil rat warriors] The incident put an end to that night’s fighting. On top of the wall cheering broke out. Cornflower was the heroine of the hour. She blushed as Foremole nodded admiringly.
Then Foremole tells her she’s pretty, calls her missy, and asks for some of her delicious vegetable soup. The Abbot of Redwall explains that using fire in battle was totally forbidden — even the evil rats wouldn’t do it. But “Accident or not, we owe Cornflower a debt of gratitude. She is a very brave young fieldmouse.”
In the Abbey kitchens Cornflower stirred the oatmeal and checked on the bread baking in the oven. She smiled to herself. What would Matthias have thought of it all?
Last night’s heroine. This morning’s cook!
Then (SPOILER but nothing that isn’t obviously coming…) in the final scene the Abbot in his dying breath gives Cornflower to Matthias since “a warrior needs a good wife”. Barf me out! He doesn’t even ask her! He summons her up and gives her away like the useful, desirable, valuable, mindless property that she is.
Oh also? For a book with so many female characters it’s hilarious how it doesn’t pass the Bechdel test! Even when there’s two female characters together, like Warbeak and her mom Dunwing, they only talk about men! Or in this case, “bull sparrows”.
It’s been a lovely relaxing Sunday and a nice read after the intensity of Naomi Novik’s latest Temeraire book, which was Incredibly Fabulous and what I should be writing about instead of a cheap and easy eye-rolling at this YA fantasy book from the 80s, but on the other hand it always seems good to me to point out the obvious that people may have not noticed on their childhood readings of a book still being read — as with the rape/domestic violence issues in Dragonflight and its sequels.
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- More blogging by
Liz Henry at
http://liz-henry.blogspot.com
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Filed under Books & Literature, Young Adult | Comments (11)
I have been somewhat put off by the fact that in all of the Redwall books that I have read, the male characters always end up with the female characters they are after, even if the women in question show no indication of even knowing they exist throughout the book.
That and the constant vilification of rats is the main reason I stopped reading those books.
Do these look like murderous pirates to you? http://icanhasrats.com/
Give the ratties a break!
Ah, yes, Dragon
rapeflight.But then, what does one expect from “Tent peg” McCafferey?
(Full disclaimer: I still own the Dragonrider and DragonHarper series. Also, nothing McCafferey ever wrote could possibly compare with the “Venom Cock” series. Of which I still need to torture myself with the third.)
Djiril,
when my boys were 10, they (and most of the boys in their 4th grade classrooms) devoured the Redwall books. Their sister (2 years their senior) refused to read them because, she said, rats and weasels were always bad guys, and she didn’t think that was right.
Kate — The Cornflower in your “Crossroads” series is, um, different from this Redwall Cornflower.
I tried reading these books a couple times and got nowhere immediately. They arrived when I was too far past the right age to read them, and thus imprint upon them, like I did Bambi and the Black Stallion, for instance. I still love those books, they are comfort books for me. But books with talking animals that came along post that period in my life don’t work so much.
Except for Temeraire. He speaks so elegantly and eloquently.
Love, C.
But then, Temeraire isn’t an animal.
Love, C.
Is he meant to be mineral or vegetable?
Ha! I think he’s meant to be Other!
In possession of Consciousness, Intention and Conscience, the incarnation of the Enlightened Gentleman!
Love, C.
He does, of course, himself, eat animals.
Love, C.
Unless, was he becoming vegetarian, with the assistance of brilliant artists of cookery?
I haven’t read the latest volume.
I have read only to where he is parted from His Dear.
Love, C.
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