Monday, October 13, 2008

Miranda the tight-rope walker?

I was interested in Miranda’s inability to pick a profession. As a girl she wants to be a jockey, and then a tight-rope walker, and as a young adult she wants to be an air-pilot. Miranda, it seems, has always been running away from conventions for women, much like Amy. Both women seem to be avoiding conventional roles (mother, caretaker, ect…). Amy avoids marriage, and wishes that instead of a husband she would rather have a dancing companion for the rest of her years. Miranda avoids traditional female jobs, and when she does marry, she does not consider it to be a life-long partnership. Both women prefer to be independent. What do you guys think of this parallel between the two girls?

3 comments:

meaganflannery said...

I also think it's pretty interesting. There is definitely a great parallel between them except, at least from what I can see, Miranda is I guess more obtuse and tends to want to ask/do irritating things (tantrums and then eloping).

The other thing that they have in common is why they got married. We don't know! It seems all of a sudden and out of character for both women. Maybe it's just a bunch of over-exaggerated gossip, but why DID Amy decide to marry Gabriel? She seemed to be flat out against it and then all of a sudden she changes her mind?

wirsindtansen said...

I feel that Old Mortality as a whole is very flip floppy. I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean, but I think that this ambiguity/undecidedness of the characters reflects an ungrounded free-spiritedness they both posses. A large contributor to this free-spirited nature of both Amy and Miranda is their romantic nature. Both women are imaginative/daydreamers and consequently, their ideals are quite different from reality.

Jen said...

I think that the two women want to be unconventional and deny the womanly roles that are placed upon them by their families to rebel against their families. But I think that Amy marrying Gabriel she just gives up on trying to reject her family and thir ideals of women.