A Woman's Role

            As a girl who has grown up with numerous opportunities along with the freedom to more or less act and dress how I wish, it is often difficult to imagine putting myself in a time or place in which I was not given any of these options. This is the case while reading the novel Wieland, whose narrator and main protagonist, Clara, is a woman who is limited and repressed as a result of her sex.  Living in a time before woman had many rights or social standing, Clara is at the mercy of different men throughout the novel, primarily her brother, Wieland, her love, Pleyel, and Wieland. Of these relationships, the one that I found to be the most frustrating was hers with Pleyel. Upon hearing what he thinks is Clara having an affair with another man, Pleyel does not hesitate to condemn Clara and vow to never speak to her again. These are strong words for a man who has been close to Clara for most of her life. Here it is important to remember, however, that Clara’s purity was the most valuable thing that she had to offer. Without it, Pleyel considered her to be of no consequence. Despite his having recently heard his own sister’s voice though she was not there, Pleyel refuses to believe that it may not have been Clara that he heard.

            In our society today it is generally accepted that mutual respect is an important part of all relationships, whether they are romantic or not. While Pleyel may have respected Clara in some ways, it seems to have been vanquished as soon as he believed her to become unchaste. This means that when Carwin deceives Pleyel into believing that Clara is unfaithful to him, it is the worst thing that he could have done to their relationship. Though it was Carwin that set this trap in motion, it was Pleyel who I found fault with afterward. Had he been more understanding of Clara or at least open to hear what she had to say, Pleyel would have been a better man. It is not hard to imagine that if he had heard something disagreeable about Wieland instead of Clara that night, he would have been less likely to jump to the worst possible scenario. Due to the fact that Clara was a woman, Pleyel could not find it in himself to forgive her until years later, after Clara’s uncle and Carwin himself had vouched for her side of the story. Clara’s sex and other’s attitude towards it plays a large role in how the story unfolds, particularly once Pleyel has used it to no longer trust her.