Woman and The House
In Alice Munro’s "THE OFFICE," a striking metaphor compares a woman to a house:
“A house is all right for a man to work in. He brings his work into the house, a place is cleared for it; the house re-arranges itself as best it can around him. Everybody recognizes that his work exists. He is not expected to answer the telephone, to find things that are lost, to see why the children are crying, or feed the cat. He can shut his door. Imagine (I said) a mother shutting her door, and the children knowing she is behind it; why, the very thought of it is outrageous to them. A woman who sits staring into space, into a country that is not her husband's or her children's is likewise known to be an offence against nature. So a house is not the same for a woman. She is not someone who walks into the house, to make use of it, and will walk out again. She is the house; there is no separation possible.”
This passage started me thinking about the relationship between a woman, especially a woman in married life, and the house or the space in which she lives. Munro further delves into this theme:
"At certain times, perhaps on long spring evenings, still rainy and sad, with the cold bulbs in bloom and a light too mild for promise drifting over the sea, I have opened the windows and felt the house shrink back into wood and plaster and those humble elements of which it is made, and the life in it subside, leaving me exposed, empty-handed, but feeling a fierce and lawless quiver of freedom, of loneliness too harsh and perfect for me now to bear. Then I know how the rest of the time I am sheltered and encumbered, how insistently I am warmed and bound."
These words evoked a myriad of conflicting emotions within me, revolving around themes of confinement and refuge, fragility and warmth. Inspired by this profound imagery, I endeavored to translate these sentiments into three illustrations.
YIYI.
March.2024
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