OUR CHANGING HEROINES

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 164, 13 July 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR CHANGING HEROINES

FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.

MORE SELFISH, BUT MORE

HUMAN.

A DIFFERENT OUTLOOK ON LIFE.

(By A.G.K.)

-1 am what I am, I shall do what I shall do because of the Mendelian laws of heredity aud physical reflexes developed in my childhood by my eccentric

and distinguished Pa, who conditioned my responses to the unverbalised stimuli." Thus chants Viola, eighteen-year-old heroine of a recent novel from the pen of Phillip Gibbs.

It is beyond the bounds of possibility that such an utterance should come from the lips of an eighteenth century heroine, any more than one could imagine her describing herself as a "Behaviourist." As for her indulging in her morning ablutions in an open-air bathroom overlooked by the neighbours—the idea would be unthinkable"

Ihe mental and physical development of Viola are responsible for a vastly different outlook on life from that of her predecessor. The young ladies of the nineteenth century novel peeped at the world through a window, and quickly drew the curtains if they glimpsed the approach of anything ugly or brutal. To-day the novelists throw wide the doors and allow their women characters to sample life in all its phases. Governess br'Farm Girl? They are not afraid to work for their 'daily bread. That is one of the widest gulfs which yawns between great-grand-mother and her descendant to-day. The only occupation which her gentility would allow her, when driven by necessity to earn her living, was that of governess. Even then she was miserably paid, and exposed to snubs and humiliation from employers and servants alike. In this year of grace a heroine may do anything, from starting a tea room to keeping pigs, without losing caste among her public. The horizon of such ns Viola is not bounded.solely by Man. With the emancipation of Woman he is no longer her only goal. -- "The modern girl is physically and mentally free, and men have got to mind their P's and Q's, because we are going, to use them when we want them, and have a profound contempt for/ their opinions, their selfish moralities and their nerve reactions. We shall make love with them now and / then, but on our own terms, and without any respect or reverence for their.intellectual superiority, which we utterly deny."

Such rank treason would never have been tolerated by the public of Dickens or Scott. That a male writer of their days should put such t words into his Jerome's mouth —even supposing her to know what a "nerve reaction" wag— would have been inconceivable. When Shirley Kee'ldar was courageous Enough to say that she intended to do. as she. pleased with regard to matrimony, her ' guardian; informed her, with some heat that her words were "to the last -degree indecorous." ■ Her 'emancipation was far from complete, for a little later we find her -'Saying of a rejected suitor: ' "He is very amiable, but not my master; not in one point. I will accept' no hand which cannot keep me in check." There is no modern writer, except perhaps Miss Ethel Dell, whose. heroines would even remotely, echo such'sentiments. The heroine of old did, of course, sometimes prove herself—as in the case of Becky Sharp—equal or superior to the intellectual ability of .her male contemporaries. But she was clever enough to conceal the fact, and the unsuspecting man was made to feel that her achievements were the result of the machinations of his own grey matter, ' The modern, maid scorns such an artifice. She prefers to proclaim with somewhat irritating repetition, that she is Man's equal in brains anil brawn, and she would have him remember it.

There is not an >.mella Seaiey to-dav who would continue to write long, loving epistles to her fiance without responses. Nor would she -eft at home to mope ever her delinquent lover, but would find another dancing partner to fill the gap. That is not to say that she might not grieve in secret, but she must provide herself with a shield against eyes that would pry out her real feelings. Broken hearts are sadly out of date. Dickens' Heroines. I recently re-read "Dombey and Son," and .the coram ant which first came to mind as I turned the last page was: "What a large part of their lives Florence and Edith spent in day dreanis."— Each appears to have put inan unlimited amount of time sitting alone, head in hand, brooding or dreaming. A woman who found herself in Edith s place in a modern novel would take up golf or aviation or social welfare work, or all three, and devote herself to them eo strenuously that she would not have a minute left for introspection. Florence, of course, would be too occupied with her car and cocktail parties, or her Dew hatshop, to remember mftcli about father—probably referred to as "Old George" —at all. Manners and Morals. It is apparent that our modern heroines have become more selfish, and there fore more human figures. If I open a book by Mr. Frankau, Miss Margaret Kennedy or Mr. Beverley Nicholls I do. not expect the leading lady to be endowed with all the graces, and not all the virtues of her sex. I here is nothing of the goddess about her. She is so human that quite often neither her manners nor her morals are above reproach. And her swearing and the mode of'address she adopts towards the opposite sex would cause a Jane Austen heroine to swoon. I

Imagine the consternation of a girl who described her hero as having clearness of the deep sea, .the patience of its rocks, and the force of lows," on hearing a bright young thin bidding her fiance not to be more of an ass than you can help, Toby. _ Whether our heroines have chan o ed for better or for worse is not an easy thing to say. If they have lost some of the dignity and grace of formte years, they have gained in health and physique. False modesty has b ® en . placed by an outspokenness that is borne times unnecessary. Maidenly an unknown quantity in modern fiction, but there exists in its stead a comrade ship on a more, fifty-fifty basis between, man and woman, that would never have been possible in crinoline days. r ;