In light of my dissertation, I have been able to articulate some questions which have kept me going, and will probably keep me going for a long time. Not that these questions are necessarily new either, for me, or in theory, but I hope my articulation of them simplifies, in some sense, or puts into conversational language, the limits of agency and action. I noticed this when my wife Nel wrote her dissertation, but I couldn’t quite say what my problem was with her argument; I felt it. There were questions I had about her use of fiction and its relation to the “real,” but also I wondered about her examples of agency. Women in some of the stories she analyzed acted out, unconventionally, and indeed expressed agency, though the result often wasn’t clear. A woman would run away, or she would act out against her husband. In short stories, obviously, this can be a conclusion, but the reality of those runaways is not pretty. It is not an inviting life. It offers no real solution. Furthermore, these actions often bring down labels, negative labels, that society uses to pummel an individual, making them ashamed, or feel foolish, about their action.
I worked on two areas of agential struggle–elopement and the use of the term “gold-digger” to curtail women’s use of their legal agency. In both, society is struggling with women and their push against patriarchy, but they aren’t both examples of women’s agency in the same form. It could be that elopement also benefits men, especially during the days when an engagement was a contractual relationship without the benefits of full marriage. Men (and women) have committed to the cow, as the metaphor goes, without getting the milk. Well, maybe they test the milk a little bit, but as has long been the case, this might result in other premarital problems, and at some point, possibly a break in the relationship without both parties taking equal responsibility for any … issue that might come to life. There are labels for those women too.
Just acting out, and even rebelling against someone, or something, does not equal agency. It might, in the short term, but what is the result? If the story simply ends with acting out and rebellion, it is not seriously dealing with how to get through that crisis, and the resulting labels that might affix themselves to someone in that position. In that case, society uses labels and expressions as scare tactics on those who might pick up those tools, legal or not. Agency can therefore be contained by these labels, and in this way, shift the actions of particularly the youth of society, to avoid derogatory terms, shameful or humiliating labels, which might overcome someone over time.
