Gender and Subjugation Theme Analysis

Intimacy can be an unbearable burden for those who, first experiencing it after a lifetime of proud self-sufficiency, suddenly realize it makes their world complete. Finding bliss becomes one with the fear of losing it. They doubt their right to hold someone else accountable for their happiness; they worry that their loved one may find their reverence tedious; they fear their yearning may have distorted their features in ways they cannot see. Thus, as the weight of all these questions and concerns bends them inward, their newfound joy in companionship turns into a deeper expression of the solitude they thought they had left behind.

This was the sort of dread Helen sensed in her husband shortly after their wedding.

As the city sank into the depression that followed the crash, Helen found it harder to leave the house. She knew that looking away from the destitute families, the breadlines, the shuttered stores, and the despair in every thinning face was a gross form of self-indulgence, but she also understood that the anguish she felt when confronted by this bleak reality was yet another of her luxuries. Helen had to acknowledge this paradox each time she went for a walk—until what would become her last excursion south of the park. She experienced something different that afternoon. It started with a concave oppression in her chest. A disturbance in the air. She was unable to understand what brought about that dread until she realized she felt watched. Stares. Scowls. Whispers. Everywhere. Smirks. Slurs. Hisses. Everywhere. It was plausible, even expected, that some people would recognize and despise her. But everyone?

In the years following Helen’s death, [Benjamin’s] fascination with the incestuous genealogies of money—capital begetting capital begetting capital—remained intact. He was still an effective investor, and he was still, now and then, capable of some creative flair. Yet despite the continued growth of his portfolio, there was a widespread perception that he was in frank decline, that there was something stale about his approach. Nothing came close to the margins of his golden days. After all, everyone concurred, it did not take extraordinary talent to make money from so much money.

The trials of her tender years and her always delicate health had given her the innocent yet profound wisdom of those who, like young children or the elderly, are close to the edges of existence.

She was too fragile, too good for this world and slipped away from it much too soon. Words are not enough to say how dearly I miss her. The greatest gift I have ever received was my time by her side. She saved me. There is no other way to put it. She saved me with her humanity and her warmth. Saved me with her love of beauty and her kindness. Saved me by making a home for me.

She would narrate a whole book back to me, footnoted with conjectures and predictions. I must say I learned to enjoy those little mysteries. But only in her passionate rendition. It was so lovely to look at her, lit up, lost in her storytelling. She was so captivated by the plot and I was so captivated by her that the food on our plates would grow cold. How we would laugh when we noticed! She always asked me to guess who the killer was, but I had been too distracted looking at her, and it was never the butler or the secretary I offered up as prime suspects. This made us laugh even harder, while I pretended to reprimand her for having made our food cold.

Everyone was playing finance with toy money. Even women got in on the market! The tabloids gave investing “hints” and “tips” mixed in with sewing patterns, recipes and gossip about Hollywood’s latest heartthrobs. The Ladies’ Home Journal ran editorials penned by financiers. Widows and scrubwomen, flappers and mothers alike “played the stocks.” Although most reputable brokerage houses adhered to a strict policy banning lady customers, trading rooms for females sprang up all over New York, and in smaller towns housewives with a “hunch” neglected their domestic duties to follow the market at the local wire house and phone in their transactions at the end of the day. Women represented only 1.5 per cent of the dilettantish speculators at the beginning of the decade. At the end they neared 40 per cent. Could there have been a clearer indicator of the disaster to come?

Every single one of our acts is ruled by the laws of economy. When we first wake up in the morning we trade rest for profit. When we go to bed at night we give up potentially profitable hours to renew our strength. And throughout our day we engage in countless transactions. [...]

All of us aspire to greater wealth. The reason for this is simple and can be found in science. Because nothing in nature is stable, one cannot merely keep what one has. Just like all other living creatures, we either thrive or fade. This is the fundamental law governing the entire realm of life. And it is out of an instinct of survival that all men desire.

Smith, Spencer, etc.

After reading [Bonds], I felt prepared for my first interview with Andrew Bevel. Even more: although it was a work of fiction, the book had convinced me that I was in possession of some essential truth about his life. I was still unable to see just what this truth might be, but this did not prevent me from believing I had, somehow, the upper hand.

It seems that more than vindicating Mildred [Andrew] wanted to turn her into a completely unremarkable, safe character—just like the wives in the autobiographies of the Great Men I read during that time to come up with Bevel’s voice. Put her in her place.

Perhaps this is what Harold Vanner tried to do in his way as well. Why present that broken image of Mildred in his novel? This is a question I have asked myself again and again since first reading Bonds. Why make her mad when she was obviously so lucid? […] He broke her mind and her body simply because it made for a better story (a story he could not resist telling, even if it debased her and, in the end, destroyed him). He forced her into the stereotype of fated heroines throughout history, made to offer the spectacle of their own ruin. Put her in her place.

“What I’ve made, I’ve made on my own. Alone. Completely by myself. And that, in part, is what I proved to everyone during the crash. Regardless of the circumstances there is always room for individual action.”

“Well . . . You weren’t completely by yourself. Your ancestors . . . And your wife was at your side. You did say that Mrs. Bevel saved you.”

At once he lost the impetus his brief speech had given him. “That I did.” He made the salt shaker rotate between his fingers. “And how true it is. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than restoring her image. Thank you, again, for that lovely paragraph with the bouquets.”

We complemented each other. He understood he’d never be able to uphold the myth forming around him without my help. I understood I’d never be allowed to operate at such heights if it wasn’t through him. For a while, we both enjoyed this alliance.

After ’29 devastation, I tried to organize a recovery plan. Give most of money away. But was too sick. Dimming. Consumed by failed treatment after failed treatment. Andrew made a number of contributions: a sprinkle of libraries, hospital wings + univ. halls. Mortified to learn he’d given away these crumbs in my name, I asked him never to use it again.