DO WOMEN KNOW MEN?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21244, 27 January 1931, Page 16

DO WOMEN KNOW MEN?

ANSWER OF THE ARTIST. Can women writer's jdraw real men? This subject was debated recently, at a “highbrow” literary society, composed of both sexes, writes Celia Starfield in the Sydney Morning Herald, The most significant fact revealed during the discussion was the widely differing conceptions entertained as to what constituted ’ a “ real man,” the women present endowing him with all the virtues, and the men with most of the vices. Indeed, one of the latter put forward the quaint argument that no woman could ever truly know any man, being debarred from following him into his native lair—otherwise known as the men’s smoking room—where presumably he drops his conventional mask, and discloses himself for the monster that he realty is. Why a man should be any more real whilst indulging in smoke-room tales than when playing with the. children, taking part in sport, or in any of the multifarious activities of modern life, is a puzzle—also a libel on the sex in general. It is simply one aide of his make-up, and should not be unduly stressed, either by himself or his delineators. However, women are beginning to have a shrewd suspicion (in the married one, this amounts to definite knowledge) that their men-folk often hint darkly at a desperate past, because of the “ gay dog ” tradition, which still persists, and which invests them with a certain glamour in the eyes of romantic spinsters. Two definitions come to mind, personally overheard. One was by a fellowboarder, who said of another: “What I admire about him is the way he gets what he wants, and sees that he gets it pretty quickly. A real man, I call him.” The other was delivered by a charwoman, who boasted that her husband, with all his faults, was a real man, because though he might occasionally use a poker, he never struck her with his bare fists. Thus, the interpretation would appear -to embrace' a pretty wide range,’ in spite of our lady debaters. To return for a while to the first point; if absolute knowledge were an indispensable qualification in writing, then the world’s literary output would automatically cease. Wisdom does not of necessity tend towards expansiveness; on the contrary, it often _ acts as a check on the imagination, which prefers possibilities to facts. By the same token, men, the largest purveyors of fiction, have from time immemorial protested their ignorance oi the opposite sex, and voiced their despair of ever understanding them; and yet, the shelves of our libraries are filled with books written by men about women —presumably then, about the things they do not know about them. Admitting that these are mere sophistries, women have already proved that they can portray real men, and, when they do, it is executed with a deadly precision seldom excelled by male authors. The first instance that comes to mind is that of George Eliot (Mrs George Henry Lewes) whose male portrait gallery in “ Scenes From Clerical Life ” contains characters so devastatingly true that the originals resognised themselves to their considerable discomfiture. , In fact, for years her books were taken to be the work of a man. 1 Then there is Charlotte Bronte, perhaps the first woman writer to break away from the traditional handsome, gallant hero, with the creation 'of Rochester, who was ill-mannered to boot. Think of the courage needed to launch him upon an ill-prepared world, together with a plain heroine in Jane Eyre. Rochester was incidentally tlje forerunner of the “cave man,” since perpetuated in “ The Sheik ” and works of that ilk. The culmination of this type in the strong silent man of latter-day feminine fiction is the reaction from the garrulous man-made heroes of a past generation; and little as some of us may admire Charlotte Bronte’s hero, he does not impress us as a possible male creature, which the Victorian hero, with his pompous periods, seldom did. Thackeray’s Colonel Newcomc, as an example, must have been an unconscionable bore in real lifc—did he ever exist. Amongst mpdern women writers who give us characters instinct with life, Sheila K. Smith stands pre-eminent. Her work has been compared with that of Thomas Hardy in its fidelity to the soil that inspired it. Of her men, two stand out — Bob and Clem Fuller in “Green Apple Harvest”: Clem, the fine young farmer, reminiscent of Adam Bede, and scapegrace brother Bob, who becomes converted at a revival meeting, and whose consequent struggles with the unruly side of his nature help to make one of the most moving, as well as convincing, stories ever written. The figure of Bob Fuller is weak, pathetic, tragic—and real, and is a complete answer to those who deny woman’s power to portray a man.