with our study of Freeman, Dr Hanrahan keeps coming back to this stereotype of "Yankee reserve". Obviously, this is the reservation of the characters and their unwillingness to show their feelings, but how much does it play into the stories. I see the yankee reserve as a cousin to the British "stiff upper lip" mentality.
Shelbi brought up how events in "New England Nun" would have been handled differently by people today (the Kardashians), but this may have been handled differently from a different region. For instance, I know a lot of "southern lady" types who would have let it slide and made it regularly known through sporadically nice and icy treatment of the person and a decades long gossip campaign against his or her character. Generally any nasty statements made would be preceded by "Now, I just love her to death but..."
In my opinion, no matter what authors put in their stories, between women, catty or not, there would at least be negative thoughts if not talk.
ReplyDeleteI like that you've got us thinking about the difference region/geography makes in this pieces. I really do think that it plays a huge role in Freeman's stories.
ReplyDelete