In Walks a Woman

Despite not originally planning this short story for our “Fallen Women” season, in a weird way, it may fit…Spoilers, ahoy!If you have not read Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story, “The Lottery,” go treat yourself to a very special reading experience.  It will take you just a few minutes, and it’s one of the greatest short stories EVER.  Then, join Sonja and Vanessa to learn the origins of this legendary story. Was it based on real events? What did contemporary readers make of it?  Why did it puzzle critics? Does the fact that a woman wrote it matter?  What does this brief piece reveal about Jackson’s larger views on humanity?  Nearly 80 years later, is it still relevant today?  Could it be said that we, too, conduct our own deadly “lotteries”?  Along the way, Sonja reveals her surprising knowledge of mid-twentieth century game shows, and Vanessa, not-so-surprisingly, finds another opportunity to diss Papa Hemingway. REFERENCES:Again, we owe a debt of gratitude to Ruth Franklin biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.  If you are a Jackson fan, you just have to go get a copy of this thoroughly researched, insightfully-written study of a complicated woman living in a challenging time for women in American history and literature.  We promise that you’ll find it tremendously rewarding.

There will be SPOILERS, so if you’ve gotten this far in life without hearing about the ending to this novel o' novels, don’t push your luck further:  go block off a month to read it, and then hit play!Sonja and Vanessa are thrilled to welcome their dear friend, Rev. Heather Coates, who fell in love with Russian literature, and was eager (willing?) to re-read Tolstoy’s 1878 (in full book form) novel about a love affair that spans the hundreds of miles between Moscow and St. Petersburg.  Heather offers some tips on how to navigate the names in Russian novels, and Sonja offers a little bio of Tolstoy.  In our lively discussion, we ask if this is the best novel ever written–as many have said it is.  Can you have this novel without the railway?  Is it a novel about a person or a culture?  Can Tolstoy love Anna and kill her at the same time? Should this novel even be named after Anna?  And what does her slice of the story add to the “fallen woman” narrative? Should you read this novel?  And is it possible to read without vodka breaks?Along the way, Heather finds some mushrooms for Sonja, Sonja reveals she’s a romantic after all, and Vanessa finds a way to link a character to Jay Gastby–again. REFERENCES:If you are interested in Tolstoy taking down Shakespeare, here is a link to "Tolstoy on Shakespeare:  A Critical Essay on Shakespeare" –emphasis on the word “critical”. It was published in 1906, four years before Tolstoy dies, so well into his super religious/cranky old man phase, which explains a lot.Also, please know that we are always thinking about how a writer’s biography intersects with their work, and Tolstoy is no exception.  While we give a brief overview of Tolstoy here, we are aware that he and his wife, Sophia Tolstaya, was a writer and artist in her own right, and by all accounts, absolutely essential to Tolstoy’s success as a writer (and, perhaps, day-to-day survival as a human). It is ironic that a man who could “write” women so well was terrible at treating his own wife well.  It is one of the famous awful marriages in literature.  Just search Tolstoy+Sophia+marriage, and loads of articles will come up.  Also, if you are interested in hearing from Sophia herself, she was a life-long diarist, and there are translations of her diaries and a full biography available in English. 

Spoiler alert!!! Many literary-curious readers have Flaubert’s 1857 debut novel, Madame Bovary, in their TBR stack.  If that’s you, circle back to us after you’ve read this landmark of realism. This episode offers a concise Flaubert biography, a sense of why this novel is considered important in the context of literary history, and whether or not you might want to read it.  In terms of the fallen-woman narrative, we explore the role fantasy plays in women’s societal downfall.  Is being a member of a lending library a precursor to disaster? Or does society fail women by educating them and then trapping them in mundane lives as wives and mothers? Is Emma Bovary a victim?  Or is Emma Bovary a woman with agency who recklessly discards a perfectly wholesome life with a devoted husband, respectability, financial security, and a lovely, healthy child? In pursuing these questions, Flaubert claims to be objective…but can he be?  Along the way, Sonja shares TMI about truffles, and Vanessa doubts the wisdom of Dr. Bovary’s ride-with-a-hottie-in-the-woods remedy for curing a nervous wife.

What’s it like to live as a fallen woman in a small town?  We’ll fill you in, so SPOILERS AHOY! Hester Prynne, protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, is 100% a fallen woman, and that exact term comes up in the novel. If you had to read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter in high school (and if you live in the United States, you probably couldn’t escape it), remember that it’s good to face your fears.  Let’s hold hands and be brave and return to Salem, Puritans, and meteors writing capital A’s in the sky.  Why are the meteors doing this?  Naturally, Nature echoes the embroidered “A” that Hester famously wears as a punishment for having a child out of wedlock.  In this lively discussion, Sonja and Vanessa will explore what dimension Hawthorne’s telling of Hester’s life adds to the fallen woman narrative.  Is it in any way a feminist story?  What do the novel and the historical record suggest about Hawthorne’s own feelings about women?  Should you read the novel?  When you do, should you skip over “The Custom House,” which is the introduction to the novel, or is it worth reading?  And if you read this book under duress back in high school…is it worth a second read?  And do we–in 2026–still shame women and give them the equivalent of a “scarlet letter”?Along the way, Sonja expresses distaste for the word “bosom” and then goes on to say it repeatedly, and Vanessa can’t help wondering how energetic the right Reverend Aruthur Dimmesdale is in bed. REFERENCES:Here is a link to Nina Baym's article on Hawthorne's Feminism on JSTOR. If you make a free membership, we’re pretty sure you can read it online for free.  Here is a link to an appreciation of Nina Baym from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, on the occasion of her passing in 2018.  It helps one appreciate how much she contributed to our appreciation of women’s literature.  One critic in the article says, “She changed the way a generation of scholars of American literature came to understand 19th-century women’s writing.” No small accomplishment!

Please Note that this episode contains spoilers and discussion of sexual assault.“You have to get through the first 500 pages, and then you can’t put it down,” said no one ever…except Sonja about Clarissa, the longest novel in the English language. In the mid 18th century, Samuel Richardson was living in a world that strongly believed a woman should marry the man who “ruined” her–even if the act was not consensual.  Clarissa: or, the History of a Young Lady is Richardson’s eloquent, impassioned, surprising response. Even if you have no plans to read this enormous novel, tune in to hear Sonja’s how Richardson pushed his audience to question some of their firmly-held beliefs about virginity, rape, marriage, and the definition of virtue in his tragic and compelling story. Along the way, Pamela Andrews and Clarissa Harlowe find themselves in a cage match, Sonja explains her vision for Clarissa-meets-Heated Rivalry fan fiction, and Vanessa parries with a link to Fifty Shades of Grey.

Shakespeare’s late 16th century play, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, is a perfect literary work to illustrate the dynamic of a fallen woman.  The accusation.  The shame.  The desire for retribution.  The ruined family.  The confident accuser.  But this story, being a comedy, allows all rifts to heal, and everyone leaves happy, except for the villain, who–surprise, surprise–is literally a bastard...born of a fallen woman.  Nothing we read this season this will have a scene in which an accused virgin ends up literally on the floor as her accuser rants, nor will any other work give the virgin a do-over, so make sure you join Sonja and Vanessa as they take you through this classic treatment of the fallen woman theme.  What does Shakespeare seem to make of ruining a woman’s reputation (and quite possibly ending her life) with a rumor?  Is it always about the woman?  What recourse do she and her family have?  Can she even count on her family to defend her?  Can we go so far as to say that this nearly 430-year old play subverts patriarchy’s obsession with virginity?  Along the way, Sonja sings a song about lying men and crowns the best film version of  A CHRISTMAS CAROL, and Vanessa swipes right on a few bastards.  REFERENCES:The internet Shakespeare guru that Sonja cites is Sarah Spring, Actor & Coach, and you can find her at @shakespearemadeclear

Yes, you kinda have to be LIKE a virgin because, really, who knows if there is such a thing as REAL virginity?  Hanne Blank, historian and author of VIRGINITY:  THE UNTOUCHED HISTORY (2007), certainly makes a girl question the whole story–and virginity IS a story, not a biological fact.If you haven’t heard of Blank’s thoroughly researched, sharply-written and entertainingly wry history of virginity, treat yourself to a great read–you’ll be glad you did!  As you drive to the bookstore,  listen to this episode, as we take you through highlights of a history that lays the groundwork for our season on “fallen women.”  After all, if you are going to fall, you have to fall from somewhere, and virginity has traditionally been the precipice from which patriarchy most enjoys watching women tumble to their doom.Join Sonja and Vanessa as they share Blank’s surprising and yet predictable, funny and yet tragic findings, on all things virginal.  For starters, what defines virginity? Is there even such a thing as a hymen? Why was virginity thought to give you superpowers? Does Jesus even care about virginity? Why is virginity still seen as a way to cure sexually transmitted diseases?  Why–if you could go back in a time machine to ancient Rome–might you consider signing up to be a Vestal Virgin? What’s the link between Martin Luther’s Reformation and the concept of the “old maid” that haunts many a Jane Austen heroine? How are concepts of virginity and colonialism intertwined?  And why, dear listener, would you ever think it was a good idea to put a leech…down there?  Along the way, find out why Sonja is a virgin martyr fan girl, and discover the shocking results of Vanessa’s head/neck ratio virginity test.  REFERENCES:Hanne Blank’s Virgin: The Untouched History is such a great read that we hope you buy it or check it out from your library. Our episode only touches the surface of the detailed and fascinating research she presents on the topic.  If you are interested in Virginia Woolf’s assertion that virginity is a “fetish,” it’s best to read her entire section, "If Shakespeare Had a Sister" from A Room of One’s Own. We reference several previous episodes:  Season 2 Episode 1 explains Gerda Lerner’s theories on the beginnings of patriarchy; Season 4 Episode 5 explores DRACULA and the medical use of wine to help with vampiric blood loss; Season 3 Episode 10 discusses Sarah Waters’s THE PAYING GUESTS and early 20th century abortive concoctions. 

Spoilers…but hey, if you don’t know what TWILIGHT is, come out from the rock you call home and join us for a lively and insightful conversation with our special guest, Dr. Giselle Anatol, editor of the 2011 collection of critical essays, BRINGING LIGHT TO TWILIGHT. Dr. Anatol has provided popular texts and the legacy of the vampire important scholarly attention, and we’re incredibly lucky to have her in the studio to talk about the attraction and cultural influence of the TWILIGHT series. Don’t worry, we’re not cancelling Stephenie Meyer’s TWILIGHT because, dear listener, that’s just not how we roll on IWAW.  What Sonja and Vanessa love is exercising intellectual curiosity.  And this text brings up so many questions! For starters, can you both love TWILIGHT and be a feminist? How much Jane Eyre is there in Bella Swan? Is Carlisle actually a mother? Is Meyer drawing on works like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, ROMEO AND JULIET, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, and WUTHERING HEIGHTS?  Would the sparkling vampire series make a young, modern reader want to go read these classics? What are we to make of the novel linking Native Americans to wolves?  Is Bella’s life-threatening pregnancy a commentary on abortion? What role does Meyer’s Mormon faith contribute to the focus on chastity, male power, championing motherhood, the imprinting and immortality of lovers?  With the world-wide appeal of the 4-book and 5-movie series, we really have to ask these questions because–as we always say on IWAW–stories shape who we are.  Just to point out the obvious, what message does Bella and Edward’s romance, for example, communicate to a young reader about how love works, who to date, and what kind of risks to take? Can a young reader–the target audience of this series–always discern the line between fiction and reality?ALSO, on this episode, we announce the theme of Season 5, the first season of 2026–our second year of the pod!!!Along the way, Sonja bed rots, TWILIGHT-style, and Vanessa, a TWILIGHT fan of old, weathers Sonja’s wordplay about how much the series sucks.REFERENCES:Here is Dr. Gisele Anatol’s biographical information on the University of Kansas English Department website. A link to Dr. Anatol’s 2015 Things that Fly in the NightIf you feel like checking out some of the fascinating articles in Dr. Anatol’s collection, here is a link to purchasing Bringing Light to TwilightHere is a link to purchase Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature by Janice A. Radway.Once again, we cannot say enough good things about Rachel Fader’s The Darcy Myth, and we also have a great episode on it: Rachel Feder's The Darcy Myth.Check out Hot and Bothered Podcast: Twilight for a take on the movie by the extremely talented Vanessa Zoltan & Hannah McGregor. If you want to know more about the Soucouyant that Dr. Anatol mentions, here is one of many websites with information: The Soucouyant.

Warning:  SPOILERS!  SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!After you have read VICTORIAN PSYCHO–a novel that made NPR's Books We Love 2025 List for “seriously good writing”--come back and listen to a lively run down of the historical background that Feito weaves into her narrative.  There’s so much of it that we can’t begin to cover it all in an hour! Feito brilliantly conjures the Victorian social landscape, and she does it all via the distinct voice of Winifred Notty, a ferociously bright, funny, and totally unhinged narrator.  But is Winifred any more unhinged than the world that she inhabits?  Indeed, could one argue that Winifred, this psychotic and goal-oriented governess, a product of the moral hypocrisies of an era that felt utterly sure of its own righteousness?Along the way, Sonja and Vanessa enjoy a historic journey replete with chamber pots, tooth decay, arsenic fashion, animal fat hair products, and Christmas cards featuring dead birds and marching lobsters.  REFERENCES:To learn more about the author, head to her website, virginiafeito.com.Check out art by James Ensor, the artist after whom Feito names the house in the novel. Doesn’t it hit the right mood?Here is a link to the painting that features in Ensor House’s Dining Decor.For a fun explanation of chamber pots and open drawers, check out Elsie Jean, The Well Dressed Historian's video on You Tube.If you’d like to read more about preparing and eating the delicacy that is the ortelan bunting (the bird the book mentions a diner eating, bones and all), you should check out this informative and entertainingly-written Atlas Obscura Article that includes pics.  Here is the interview in which Feito mentions her mother’s reaction to the first draft of the novel.Here is just one of many articles on Victorian Christmas cards, and you can also just google samples of Vic Christmas cards and judge for yourself. This National Library of Medicine article cites statistics about how many deaths in 19th century Britain could be traced back to infectious diseases. Here is the link to The Molly Brown Museum page about deadly Victorian cosmetics and apparel, like arsenic green ballgowns.For a taste of Victorian beauty advice, check out an excerpt from an 1870 Harper's Bazaar.Here is a link to the Wikipedia page that quotes chapters from the Ugly Girl Papers.Here is a link to read about the Victorian Corset Controversy that includes the letter to the editor quoted in this episode.

Warning:  SPOILERS!  SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!!Get lost vampires: there are some even scarier monsters in the Gothic-sphere. They live in High Place, the mysterious, ramshackled (...and seemingly undulating) house at the center of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Best-Selling 2021 novel, MEXICAN GOTHIC.  Join IWAW this week as Sonja shares some deep and fascinating research into Mexican history, European Victorians’ cultural fears, competing theories of eugenics, colonial tropes, and some inside info on the world of mushrooms.  Vanessa sits raptly at Sonja’s knee for this one, and you should join us because Sonja’s research truly helps a reader appreciate the wealth of historical and cultural knowledge that Moreno-Garcia weaves through her atmospheric, unpredictable, and satisfyingly subversive Gothic tale.Along the way, there are plenty of ghostie Gothic Easter eggs, and Sonja and Vanessa agree on everything except the fate of one character: Vanessa argues for cuddles and Sonja for incineration. REFERENCESTo start your own mushroom culinary adventures, do check out Sonja’s dad’s book, A Cook's Book of Mushrooms by Jack CzarneckiWhen the Past Isn't Dead: Post Colonialism and Horror in Mexican GothicA Piece of Britain Lost in Mexico, BBCReal de Monte: A British Mining Venture in MexicoFungal Colonialism in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic"Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge"You Foolish Men" by Sor Juana

WARNING: SPOILERS!!! SPOILERS!!! SPOILERS!!!What if Count Dracula came to small-town America?  That’s the premise of this brilliant vampire novel by the most famous and successful “What if?” writer, ever: Stephen King.  Not only is this novel gripping and satisfyingly plotted, it’s beautifully written and goes way beyond the mere category of “horror” novel.  The characters are engaging and the analysis of small-town American life is loving, honest, and unflinching. Treat yourself to reading it before you dive into this episode–you won’t regret it. Join Sonja and Vanessa as they explore what ‘SALEM’S LOT owes to the Gothic tradition, and to Bram Stoker’s DRACULA, in particular.  With Stoker in mind, we also consider King’s use of female characters. Do we like them?  Is there a Mina Harker in this American town?  Is there a vampy Lucy, snacking on innocent American children? There’s for sure a creepy house–the Marsten House–and we will discuss parallels with Hill House, given that we dedicated an episode to Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, and King literally quotes and references her novel in ‘SALEM’S LOT.Finally, as we’ve established this season, writers use Gothic to metaphorically explore a real-life fear…King’s Gothic work is no exception, but for him, it’s not patriarchy.  It is, however, not unrelated to patriarchy, and it goes back to a story that’s one of the oldest and most influential in human history.  Hint:  think talking snake. Along the way, we bump into Sigmund Freud and a priest with “serious mojo,” Sonja explains how to ward off a vampire when at the doctor’s office, and Vanessa makes a rare comment about being older than her co-host. REFERENCESCheck out our episodes on Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and on Bram Stoker’s DRACULA. 

WARNING:  This episode contains SPOILERS!!!!In 1959, one hundred and sixty five years after Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO, one might reasonably have thought that there was nothing new to be found under the gloomy Gothic moon.  Such a supposition, however, would be discounting the immense talent of Shirley Jackson, one of America’s greatest writers.  In THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, Jackson not only created a uniquely terrifying novel–per the master horror writer, Stephen King— but she also innovates the Gothic genre.  In this episode, Sonja and Vanessa explore what it was about Jackson’s life that made her the only person who could write this singular book.  And yet, despite HILL HOUSE's sui generis status, the novel depicts a widespread, bleak existence that many female readers of the mid-twentieth century would have recognized.  Jackson fully explores the metaphorical possibilities of the Gothic genre to dramatize invisible forces shaping 1950's and 1960's American women’s identities, dreams, and place in the fabled nuclear family.Along the way, Sonja speculates on the possibility that all children carry a dash of the demonic, and Vanessa confirms that the family “portrait” that Sonja thinks is naked is, indeed, naked.  REFERENCES:Here is a link to the article by Barb Lien-Cooper that makes the case that Hill House works to rid itself of the non-Crain-family guests, not unlike the Oscar Wilde story, "The Canterville Ghost," (that is mentioned in Jackson’s novel).Vanessa quotes a writer wondering if we are beyond needing a haunted house metaphor to express the condition of women’s lives, and it’s worth checking out the whole article, by C.J. Hauser, entitled “Some Reasons My Niece is Probably the Reincarnation of Shirley Jackson.” To read about what Vanessa calls the “happy ending” theory, check out this fascinating 2017 article by Brittany Roberts, “Helping Eleanor Come Home: A Reassessment of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.” Roberts makes a very convincing argument that the house is actually trying to help Eleanor.  Roberts argues:  “If previous readings of Hill House have largely focused on the relationship between Eleanor and Hill House as abusive and unidirectional, a relationship that ignites a process of madness and dissolution of selfhood for Eleanor, I instead argue that the process undergone by Eleanor and Hill House is one of mutual fulfilment, a process of accommodating one another’s needs. As I demonstrate, Hill House encourages Eleanor to achieve the romance of isolation that she fantasises about, thereby propelling Eleanor to actualise both the self she has begun to construct through fantasy and her most inwardly cherished desires.15 In return, Eleanor provides a genuine love and appreciation for Hill House and the seclusion, isolation, and silence it promises. Far from participating in the dissolution of Eleanor’s selfhood, then, Hill House, and the many nonhuman emblems of domesticity and seclusion that Eleanor comes to care for throughout the novel, are instead co-creators of Eleanor’s newfound identity.”

Welcome to Manderley…or, rather, the romantic dream of Manderley.  Who needs a repurposed abbey or a Alpine castle when you have the genuine fire-devastated, ivy-swarmed, misty ruins of a historic manor house along the tempestuous north Atlantic coast? As if that were not Gothic enough, let’s go all out with an orphaned heroine and a very carefully guarded family secret.SPOILERS Ahoy when you join Sonja and Vanessa as they discuss this 1938 bestseller, REBECCA.  It’s often promoted as a Gothic romance…but is it?  Is Maxim De Winter a proper Gothic hero?  Would you ride in his car? Are there real ghosts?  How are we defining a haunting? Is our unnamed narrator reliable?  Do we like her? Do the servants–once again–add a vital dimension to the mood and twists to the plot?  And which Mrs. De Winter wins? It probably depends on how you feel about having tea with bread and butter.Along the way, Sonja redefines “gentle flirtation,” and Vanessa blushes, perusing a sexy botanical Tinder profile. REFERENCES:The edition of REBECCA with the really insightful Afterword by Sally Beauman that Vanessa mentions is the 2023 Back Bay Books Edition.

If you’ve ever contemplated a governess career, perhaps Henry James’s THE TURN OF THE SCREW will give you pause.  Or maybe this bite-sized Gothic ghost story will thrill you with the chance of being in charge of a beautiful English country house with no master to tell you what to do.  But choose your adventure carefully because you might end up haunted and/or crazy and/or murdering someone.  Join Sonja and Vanessa as they do a quick Henry James 101, and explore WITH SPOILERS his classic, 1898 ghost story.  Are there ghosts?  Is the governess losing her mind?  Why did Miles get expelled from boarding school? Are Miles and Flora the OG creepy literary kids?  What role does hysteria play? Is there a spell cast over the entire plot?  Is the story a trap to catch the reader? How does the novella, set at Bly Manor, link to the Netfilx show, THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR? We’ll address these questions, and along the way, Sonja will propose a sexy theory, and Vanessa will suggest that the bosom can be a murder weapon. REFERENCES:While we did not look at JANE EYRE as a Gothic tale, we did think about whether it counts as a female odyssey in Season 1:  Can a Lowly Governess Have an Odyssey?Here is an overview of James Literary Criticism, including Edmund Wilson’s influential article, “The Ambiguity of Henry James” from 1934.Here is the article about how Henry James felt about Jane Austen.For more information about the Hysteria Diagnosis in the late 19th/early 20th century, check out this link. Here’s a great article celebrating the ambiguity of Turn of the Screw.Here is a link to the article that offers Henry James's take on several women writers that Vanessa cites in the episode.

In the world of the Gothic, after you bang on a few castle doors, you’re bound to run into a vampire.  Bram Stoker, barrister and theater manager, notably closed out the 19th century by leaving us with his vampire masterpiece, DRACULA.In this week’s episode, Sonja and Vanessa explore how Bram Stoker brews his very own brand of Gothic.  Legends of the Carpathian mountains mix with modern inventions and modern ideas, like that of the New Woman.  With 3 established female vampires, a newly-minted female vampire, and one beloved young wife teetering on the brink of the undead, women make up a crucial part of a tale that spans from England to the heart of eastern Europe. There are undeniably strong women in the novel, but is it a feminist text?  Along the way, we meet a “train fiend,” Sonja muses on sexy lancets, and Vanessa concedes that lawyers may well be the greatest blood suckers of all.REFERENCES:Here is a link to the article by Dracula scholar, Elizabeth Miller, and her overview of scholarship of the novel. If you would like to know more about Dracula scholar, Elizabeth Miller, then check out her wiki page. It’s so impressive how much she single-handedly added to the field.  One might say, in walked a woman, and the rest is history.Sonja read from supporting materials in her edition of Dracula that can be bought new or second hand.

Who wants to break all the rules? Who wants to tear it all down and make the world anew? Emily Brontë does, that’s who. If you imagined WUTHERING HEIGHTS was some quaint Victorian romantic ghost story…think again.  Honestly, there is just no other book like it.  This 1848 work is truly sui generis. It’s like Emily Brontë, in her one and only book, before she dies at age 30, writes an off-the-scale earthquake into life under the unassuming and isolated Yorkshire moors, and her quake violently, mercilessly shakes the foundations of Patriarchy, class distinctions, racial hierarchy, traditional marriage, expectations of femininity, the role of the Gothic heroine, traditional ideas of masculinity, Christianity, the legal system, traditions of hospitality, and the tropes of Romance, including the so-called brooding romantic hero.  Nothing escapes unscathed.  Join Sonja and Vanessa as they share some brief biographical information on Emily Brontë, explain some notable critical takes on the novel, consider the outer limits of revenge, explain why Heathcliff is rarely portrayed accurately in film adaptations, and pretty much stand in complete awe of WUTHERING HEIGHTS, a page-turning labyrinthian story about storytelling. Along the way, Sonja pines for a dance with strangers while wearing a red dress, and we try not to think very hard about Heathcliff’s double-wide-coffin fantasy.  REFERENCES:If you have not read WUTHERING HEIGHTS, check out your local bookstore, and if you don’t have one, consider ordering from our legendary bookstore, The Raven, right here in beautiful, quirky, historical, downtown Lawrence, Kansas.Here is the link to the Bronte House Museum page that details the racial history of Liverpool and how that affects our reading of Heathcliff.The article that Sonja mentions about the symbolism of Catherine’s whip, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, can be found here.Here is an online edition of WUTHERING HEIGHTS that includes Charlotte Brontë’s introduction, explaining the sisters’ pen names, their publishing history, Emily’s temperament, and Charlotte’s take on her younger sister’s novel.  Sonja mentions the term “femme covert,” and if you are not sure what that is, here is a link to an article from the National Women's History Museum about the concept and the huge impact it has had on women historically.We also reference previous IWAW episodes linked here:  Interview with Heather Aimee O'Neill; Emily St. Aubert is the heroine of Ann Radcliffe’s novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, which we cover in a two-part episode; our episode on Tristan & Iseult explores the origins of romance; and we have an episode on Jane Eyre that intersects with the WUTHERING HEIGHTS episode in terms of the Gothic and romance.

Once a genre gains popularity, here come the parodies.  Jane Austen grew up, petticoats deep in Gothic novels, and Jane had thoughts on reading them, writing them, and the effect they had on women readers. Our last novel, Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO is mentioned multiple times in Jane Austen’s NORTHANGER ABBEY, finished in 1799 but not published until a few months after Austen’s death in 1817.Join Sonja and Vanessa as they explore the historical and literary context of this lesser known and sadly lesser-loved Jane Austen novel.  Find out why being Mrs. Tilney would be better than being Mrs. Darcy. Hear about a Jane Austen narrator that is not ambiguous and hard to pin down in a meta story about reading…a story that seems to agree with IWAW: namely, that stories shape us.Along the way, we discover  there is no crime in early 19th century England, we confirm that female frenemies have always been a thing, and Jane Austen finds herself caught in a late 18th century catch-and-kill publishing move. REFERENCES:If you have not read NORTHANGER ABBEY, you should stop by your local bookstore, and if you don’t have one, order it from our local Lawrence bookstore, The Raven.The novel that references monks molesting nuns is Matthew Lewis’s THE MONK from 1796.If you have not read Ann Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO from 1794, you can dive into those 600+ pages, or let us do the reading for you by listening to our fun, educational, romp through the plot in our MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO shows, Part 1 and Part 2. Also, as always, we highly recommend Rachel Feder’s brilliant study of romantic heroes, THE DARCY MYTH or at least check out  our show about it.Much of the biographical information for this episode was taken from Claire Tomalin’s careful and thorough biography, JANE AUSTEN: A LIFE.We also reference Charlotte Lennox’s THE FEMALE QUIXOTE  from 1752 & FORDYCE'S SERMONS a collection of advice to young ladies from 1766.

As with the first part of our Udolpho episode, this is full of spoilers, so don’t listen if you are up for reading about 300 pages (approximately half) of this Ann Radcliffe novel.  However, if you are seeking a lively summary that will allow you to chat confidently about THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO at your next cocktail party, do push play.When you do, you will find yourself waist deep in banditti and pirates (which might seem like the same thing, but you’d be wrong).  The story leaves the fabled Castle of Udolpho, but the intrigue does not end as Emily winds her way back, by road and by sea, to her homeland of France, and the patriarchal real estate hustle continues, while Radcliffe makes sure that every, single imaginable moment of mystery that we’ve encountered in the novel is tidily and rationally explained. Then, we turn to the question of whether you should go ahead and read this novel yourself.  What will you gain?  What is there that we have not captured in our summary?  The answer might surprise you.Along the way, Sonja finds handy travel cash under a horse’s saddle, Vanessa does some “performative sighing” after summarizing this brick of a novel, and both Sonja and Vanessa agree that wallowing in melancholy does have its undeniable charms.  REFERENCES:After recording about 50 episodes, itt’s hard not to refer back to books we’ve read for the pod, and you can find all of it in our previous seasons:  check out our episode on Samuel Richardson’s 1740 Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded; for the reference on Mrs. Ramsey and Lily Brisco, here is a link to our To the Lighthouse episode; in the discussion about metaphorical windows, you might like these episodes: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Madeline Miller’s Circe, Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba,  Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and our 3-part analysis of Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.If you are interested in our spicy episode on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” you’ll have to go to our Patreon–but we promise it’s worth it.

Welcome to Season 4: “Haunting Women”!Here’s your first scare: Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 gothic classic, THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO, is 290,897 words long.  For the average reader, reading at a speed of 300 WPM, that would take 13 hours and 5 minutes to read. And that does not count potty and snack breaks. If you are up for it, go for it!  If not, as Sonja likes to say, we offer “Cliff’s Notes for Adults,” and we’ll bravely take you through the book.  So are there spoilers in this episode?  YES. YES. YES.THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO was first published in 4 volumes, so this episode (dare we say heroically?) takes you through both volumes 1 & 2 in about an hour.  What awaits you?  Lots of patriarchy in the form of castles, marriages for property, and men who say that it’s your fault they have to kidnap you because you wouldn’t say yes to their marriage proposal.  We also pay tribute to Ann Radcliffe’s expansive imagination: Radcliffe, a woman who had never left her home country of England before writing this sprawling travel narrative through mountains and dales and mountains and villages…and, well, more mountains.  We review what “Gothic” means, especially to British writers of the 18th and 19th century, and we once again find that saucy, babbling servants make the lives of bland rich people more exciting. Along the way, we bump into Scooby-Doo, and we play some Udolpho Bingo (Sonja wins), and both Sonja and Vanessa claim they’d marry a stalker who carved sonnets about them into garden walls.  REFERENCES:Vanessa’s reference to Pamela is to Samuel Richardson’s 1740 novel, PAMELA: OR, VIRTUE REWARDED, which we cover in Season 3: Episode 5.

Sonja and Vanessa thought it best to put the last episode of season 3 safely on their Patreon...if you go there, you'll find out why! www.patreon.com/InWalksAWoman