One of the things that struck me while I was reading Peace Shall Destroy Many by Rudy Wiebe is the sexual repression in the Mennonite community of Wapiti. I suppose in a more traditional, conservative community like the one Wiebe depicts a certain amount of sexual repression is expected, but I was particularly awed by the community's treatment of Elizabeth Block.
Thom muses about Elizabeth several times throughout the book, and the first time this occurs is in Chapter 2.
"Looking up, Thom felt a somehow nameless sorrow push in him at Elizabeth's squandered womanhood. Not actually, he thought, for she seemed never to really have lived it. Neglected, rather. Why had she never married?" (Peace Shall Destroy Many, page 20)
Thom highlights the community's attitude toward Elizabeth, who is considered a squandered old maid at the age of 33. The Wapiti community clearly has a specific place for women, and that place is almost always in a marriage. I think that this is one of the only permissible ways women can express their sexuality in the Mennonite Wapiti community, which values sex inside of a marriage. Since Elizabeth is not married, she is expected not to be sexually active. Later in the book, she violates this social rule when she gets pregnant, gives birth to a stillborn boy, and dies. Before she passes, her father angrily confronts her.
"'Elizabeth,' voice flatly mad, 'who is the father?' ... 'You are no child of mine. When you can walk, get out of my house. I will never look at you again.'" (Peace Shall Destroy Many, page 171)
This discussion doesn't even consider the story of Razia the non-Mennonite schoolteacher and her interactions with the men of Wapiti, but that topic is so expansive it almost needs its own essay.
I agree, Jake. I thought it was also interesting that the characters repeated that she died so many times after she did, and that they at one point explicitly stated that it was the "shame" that killed her. I was confused about Wiebe's own attitude to Elizabeth's death, and whether he was condoning or criticizing the community's sexism.
ReplyDeleteGreat point, Jake! I found the community's opinion of Elizabeth to be quite irksome. I thought about how this could be related to the Mennonite Church today--by no means is this as severe as the way Elizabeth was viewed, but I do find that there is a certain pressure for young folks to get married. You know, meet your spouse at your Mennonite College, get married in a Mennonite Church, have Mennonite babies. raise them in a Mennonite town, etc. The concept of expectation is somewhat similar in Wapiti.
ReplyDeleteJake, I'm glad you pointed out this theme in Wiebe's novel. Indeed there is a great deal of sexual repression and very specific gender roles. For the most part, I think Wiebe is interested in eros, or the life force, as part of incarnational experience. But he's not fully developed as a writer yet. In a fascinating interview, quoted at the end of this blog post , he speaks of how his Christian vision matured when he came to Goshen College after writing this novel. He gets the reader to feel great sympathy for Elizabeth, and at least I felt his critique of a father who would not allow her to cross his rigid categories to find love and fulfillment.
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