Short jaunt into the bad old days

Lolly Willowes
by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Laura looked at the bottled fruits, the sliced pears in syrup, the glistening red plums, the greengages. She though of the woman who had filled those jars and fastened on the bladders. Perhaps the greengrocer's mother lived in the country. A solitary old woman picking fruit in a darkening orchard, rubbing her rough fingertips over the smooth-skinned plums, a lean wiry old woman, standing with upstretched arms among her fruit trees as though she were a tree herself, growing out of the long grass, with arms stretched up like branches. It grew darker and darker; still she worked on, methodically stripping the quivery taut boughs one after the other.

Such a delightful little book! In a time and place when women were helpmates, useful to the world only in the domestic functions they could perform for husband and family, what chance does a woman have to escape? And what does she do if she does manage to escape for a bit and then the family comes back to live with her and expects her to fall graciously back into the motherly role?

I'm lucky to live in a place and time where women are allowed to live by themselves and for themselves, but it still seems a little unnatural. How often do we see an old lady alone and feel pity for her rather than envy? Consider my great aunt Callie, who lived alone for most of her adult life. She wasn't a hermit or a recluse; she complained long and loud that "no one comes to visit"; but would she have given up her independence for a spare room in some relative's busy household? No way, sucker!

There's more in this book than woman's independence, but as usual, I probably missed the literary symbolism.  Satan was a hoot.