Reading A Northern Light with a Lens of Feminist Criticism

When reading literature well,  teachers must encourage adolescent readers to begin to use different lenses for constructing an understanding.    The book, A Northern Light, is an excellent piece to use when helping students discover and analyze the way a character can be used to provide a particular portrait of a woman's place in society.   Particularly, I believe this book an be used to help students "read differently" in regards to how they "identify" with characters.   "In Western cultures, many texts make use of four stereotyped representations which place women in one of four categories: 1.  nurturing mothers/carers 2.  dutiful daughters 3. sexual/passionate women 4. mad/bad women. The first two are often read as "legitimate" positions; the third represents a possible position at certain times while the last represents a nonconforming position.  These categories have been argued to define women in terms of what men want from them.   In order to disrupt these traditional reading practices, feminist critics advocate two courses of action.  One is to read "against the grain":  to deliberately challenge the text by pointing out its gender inequalities.  The second course of action is to promote texts (whether written by men or women) which do no reproduce traditional concepts of gender."                        (--excerpted from Brian Moon's, 1999, Literary Terms:  A Practical Glossary.  Urbana, IL:  NCTE) With this in mind, I would like to steer away from our traditional guiding questions (Mizokawa & Hansen-Krening) to use in reflecting on my reading.  Instead, I would like to use a feminist lens to examine some of the female characters in A Northern Light, either perpetuate or break free from the traditional portraits of a woman's place in society. Here are some of my thoughts about the character:   Emmie Hubbard 1. Nurturing mothers/carers: As Emmie's children are often hungry, unbathed, and sickly throughout most the book, I would definitely say that Emmie's character is not portrayed as an acceptable or "good" character. 4. Mad/Bad women: Emmie is certainly seen as the "mad/bad" woman through most of the book. And this is mostly due to the fact that she is not a nuturing/caretaker of a mother. 3. Sexual/Passionate women: What is interesting is that when Mattie (and then we are the readers) find out that Emmie has been having an affair with Royal Loomis' Dad there is certainly a sense of shame and disgust for Emmie and sense of pity for Thomas and his siblings. 2. Dutiful daughter. Although Emmie is not portrayed as a daughter at any time during this book, it is interesting that her character undergoes a transformation when she becomes the care taker for Weaver's mom. As a result of caring for Mrs. Smith that suddenly Emmie is interested in caring for her own children as well as taking care of her own household. Is Emmie a stereotypical character? I think so. In many ways she perpetuates the stereotype that the mistress is not of high caliber. What is interesting though in Donnelly's work is that it is not Mr. Loomis who suddenly "does the right thing" by Emmie and his children.  Instead, it is the women of the novel -- Mattie and Mrs. Smith -- who help Emmie rise to an "acceptable" or "legitimate" position.