Despite an earlier attempt to begin this journey with the novel Water For Elephants, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is the perfect choice for this blog. The Red Tent is the story of the women of the Bible, who are horribly overlooked, and it is this combination of religion and feminism that drew me to this story in the first place. Actually, it was my mom who suggested I read the novel, but in any case...
For this first blog post, I read a total of eighty-seven pages. So far, I've seen that Diamant uses plenty of figurative language, (similes and parallel structure) and the flow of the novel is deceptively smooth for the sometimes uncomfortable material it discusses. Perhaps it is the refreshing dialogue that comes from the witty tongues of the five main women that helps move the flow along.
However, I wish to use the first of my five blog posts to discuss characters instead of the author's style. To the right of this post, you will see an abbreviated family tree because as I sometimes find, it is hard to keep track when there are as many characters as there are in The Red Tent.
The protagonist, Dinah, is the daughter of not one but four women: Dinah's biological mother Leah, and Leah's sisters, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah.1 I expect each of these four women will play a different but equally important role in Dinah's life. And so, today I will make character profiles for myself as well as you, the reader, to keep track of their character development as the novel continues.
Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah are all the daughters of Laban, and eventually, all wives or handmaids of Dinah's father Jacob.
Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah are all the daughters of Laban, and eventually, all wives or handmaids of Dinah's father Jacob.
Rachel is the first to catch Jacob's eye, and so, her story is the first Dinah tells. Dinah originally describes Rachel's presence as "powerful as the moon" (Diamant, 8), but Rachel's true saving grace is her beauty. Everything from Rachel's "brown hair shaded to bronze" to her "golden, honeyed, perfect" skin is, in lieu of a better term, perfect (Diamant, 10). She was even nicknamed Tuki, meaning "sweetness," but like any other human, she has her own flaws. Rachel demonstrates the most emotional instability among the four sisters. At times, she is irrationally angry and jealous: "She cursed him soundly, calling him a thief and a bastard, a devil and a pig who inserted himself into sheep and goats and dogs" (Diamant, 35). And at other times, she shows signs of depression: "She sat, too unhappy to weep[...]and whispered, 'Give me children or I will die'" (Diamant, 56). Ultimately, Rachel gives Jacob two sons.
Leah is the second one to meet Jacob. According to Genesis 29:17, "Leah was tender-eyed," commonly interpreted as having poor vision. The Red Tent claims that "Leah's vision was perfect" but goes on to describe the fear people show at the sight of Leah's two different colored eyes: "One blue as lapis, the other green as Egyptian grass" (Diamant, 11). For those familiar with the Toni Morrison novel, Song of Solomon, this aspect of Leah's character can be likened to Pilate's missing belly button and her life because of it. I believe, due to this, Leah is strong and ambitious and worthy of bearing Jacob's only daughter. I don't wish to fill this blog with mere plot summary, but I believe it is important to also note that while Rachel was Jacob's first love, Leah was Jacob's first wife and the first to lie with him.
Zilpah and Bilhah are both more handmaids than they are wives, the former being handmaid to Leah and the latter being handmaid to Rachel. Because of this, I believe they will be considered minor characters throughout the rest of this novel. Zilpah and Bilhah are introduced as the family's outcasts or black sheep. Zilpah is enthralled by mythology and even Dinah is "permitted to laugh at her" (Diamant, 14). Bilhah is also not described in the best of light. Dinah claims she is "not beautiful like Rachel, or capable like Leah, or quick like Zilpah. She [is] tiny, dark, and silent[...]Compared to the two other motherless girls, Bilhah was neglected dreadfully" (Diamant, 15). Nevertheless, Zilpah and Bilhah give Jacob three sons between the two of them.
I'm looking forward to diving more into Dinah's own story, and I will see you in a week or so.
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1While Dinah merely sees Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah as motherly figures, she identifies them using one of two terms: "mother" or "mother-aunties," (Diamant, 3) so I will also refer to them in this fashion.
1While Dinah merely sees Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah as motherly figures, she identifies them using one of two terms: "mother" or "mother-aunties," (Diamant, 3) so I will also refer to them in this fashion.
Hi Clara,
ReplyDeleteI really liked reading your blog! I’ve always been very interested in this book because of the same reason you had; the intersection of feminism and religion. I think that the idea for this book was so cool and I love the take on it from the women’s perspective! It was very interesting to read about the different characters as they are in the Bible. I was wondering if it was sometimes difficult for you to keep track of the characters? I was also wondering if this book has influenced your idea of religion/the Bible while reading it. I look forward to reading more about it!
Bekah,
DeleteThank you for taking the time to read my blog; I appreciate your comments. It certainly is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep track of the characters. I've got the wives under wraps, but now their sons are getting married, and I can't remember who goes with who. It's also challenging because of the deep familial connections between all the characters. While I don't consider myself religious, I've always been fascinated by the concept of religion and why people need a specific belief system. As you mentioned, the idea of changing the perspective in this novel to counteract the perspective of the Bible is very neat. In that way, some of my thoughts of religion have changed.
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ReplyDeleteYou've given a good overview of the characters of the novel, and I liked the link to Song of Solomon. The book also reminds me a bit of Song of Solomon in that there's a lot to do with the "danger of the single story," since usually the story of these women we get is the male viewpoint from the Bible.
ReplyDeleteHi Mrs. LaClair,
DeleteAs a reader, I've always enjoyed drawing connections between different novels, or better yet, different mediums altogether. The connection to Song of Solomon is just one of a couple different links I've seen. For example, I believe there are many similarities between the Red Tent and The Handmaid's Tale,(beyond just the color red) and I plan on discussing some of that in my next blog post. I also see a connection to Snowflower and the Secret Fan and might be interested in comparing the societies and women of those two novels.
Hi Clara,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your first blog post! As a fellow reader of the book, it was really helpful to have your post explain all the different characters. I agree that it is hard to keep track of all the characters. Do you think that all these women will continue to have a prominent role in Dinah's stories? I know that's the next section, and it seems like they do have a strong influence on her.
-Lily
Hey Clara! I really enjoyed reading this post. It's interesting to see your take on this section of the book, because I think that, although we both discussed similar elements in our posts, we focused on slightly different ideas. I really like how you connected it back to the ideas of exclusion and fear of being different, that are discussed in Song of Solomon. That was something I had not really thought about, but it makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your analysis of Laban's four daughters, and your point about Zilpah and Bilhah being treated more like handmaids than wives. I find this especially interesting because when reading this section of the novel, I was initially under the impression that Jacob's wives were all treated equally. However, I think that, as you alluded to, a lot of Zilpah and Bilhah’s negative treatment comes more from their background than their relationship with Jacob itself. I am interested to learn more about both of their relationships with Jacob as we read more, and would like to know your thoughts on this.