As I began reading "The Balcony," I immediately began making connections to Chopin's The Awakening. Both Chopin and King employ the same sort of summery, languid, evocative writing that seems to privilege the feminine psyche and experience. I noted also the sort of dreamy quality of the imagery, with the loose white garments and visuals like "quiet eyes look across the dim forms on the balcony to the star-spangled or the moon-brightened heavens beyond."
Most of all, I really enjoy that King, like Chopin, privileges the female experience with expressions like "men are not balcony sitters" and "as only women know how." As a woman, I admire this feminine appraisal, even if within the domestic sphere. King writes as though women and children and God share some magical clandestine connection with another, and that men don't know about it. This thinking is proliferate in art and literature, but King finds a way to make it new, and yet somehow so warmly familiar.
I just wanted to say that I absolutely adore your comment, "King writes as though women and children and God share some magical clandestine connection with another, and that men don't know about it." I think I remember you talking about this in class, and it is truly an interesting and beautiful perspective from which to view "The Balcony." I myself was not as quick to think about the addition of God into the conversation while I was reading King's work, so thank you for expanding my thought process!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I am glad you enjoyed the expression!
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