I finished I Was Amelia Earhart earlier this week. I picked it up on a whimsy, but the first page had me hooked...
"As far back as she could remember, she always wanted to be a heroine... Not on a screen in a dusty vaudeville house, but out in the real world. The painted goddesses ruling countries and fighting wars weren't at all like the women she knew. The women she knew did what men expected of them. Heroines, they did whatever they wanted. They smoked cigarettes on horseback under silken skies. They carried guns and had a multitude of lovers. She was seduced by the vision of an imaginary world where women led extraordinary lives..." I Was Amelia Earhart (Jane Mendelsohn)
October 8, 2009
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A few questions/comments:
ReplyDelete(1) What, exactly, is "silken" about silken skies?
(2) Smoking cigarettes on horseback is evocative of the Marlboro Man.
(3) There's a bit of pro-gun, pro-warfare propaganda in this passage. Are you suggesting that in order to live freely and autonomously, women must pack heat?
Regarding (2)... I think that's fascinating. Does it suggest that the author was deliberately invoking a masculine image to heighten the protagonist's idea of being a "heroine" with "being a male"?
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