Poor Things and Women’s Pursuit of Education
The Winter of Girlhood
Major spoilers for Poor Things ahead.
Poor Things, a maximalist mirage of adventure and self discovery, is the latest film from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. Adapted from Scottish author Alasdair Gray’s novel of the same name, Poor Things arrived in UK cinemas on 12th of January. Having read the book prior to watching it, I was very excited to see how Lanthimos would bring Gray’s eccentric tale to life.
Poor Things is a gender-bend of Frankenstein but it’s so much more than that. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) resurrects a young woman (Emma Stone) through equally unorthodox means. With the help of his student, Max McCandless (Ramy Youssef), he and Max observe Bella as an experiment, but they grow to love her as a daughter and partner, respectively. As Bella grows, so does her desire for independence and she runs away to Europe with skeevy lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) where she gains an interesting education.
The film is a maximalist triumph, the production design is absolutely glorious. Emma Stone is fascinating as Bella Baxter, she captures her growth across Europe wonderfully. Willem Dafoe portrayed Godwin Baxter’s eccentricity perfectly. Ramy Youssef is so sweet as Max (whoever changed his name from Archibald, thank you and you were right) and Mark Ruffalo is hilarious as a 19th century fuck boy. The film brings the book to life so delightfully and it reinforced my love for the novel.
After watching the film, I began to reflect on Bella’s education throughout the film. I’d had these thoughts towards the end of reading the novel but seeing a visual accompaniment amplified them even more. In Victorian society, women were treated as second-class citizens, only defined by their male relations. They were expected to get married, have children and tend to the home. Therefore, it was considered unnecessary to provide them with the same well-rounded education that men were. This was especially true for working class women, as the dangerous factory work they had to take on along with their duties as mothers didn’t require rigorous schooling. For upper class women, they were offered slightly more in terms of an education. However the focus was on attracting a husband and house maintenance. Taught at home by a governess, upper class women learnt how to sew, cook, sing, play an instrument and ‘fashionable’ languages such as French and Italian. These skills were to ensure that their homes were well kept, though of course most domestic duties in wealthy homes would have been deferred to the servants they hired, and to engage their husbands in some way.
Women’s education fell short even more when it came to sex. Childbirth was all Victorian women were meant for but most women were given a rushed conversation before their wedding night, if that at all. Women were expected to be virgins, while it was encouraged for men to ‘sow their oats’. Most of the knowledge acquired about sex would have been through gossip with friends. The common view in conservative Victorian society demonised married couples, especially women, finding pleasure from sex. Masturbation was considered a sin equal to premarital sex among many and women who did it were considered to be ‘deranged’.
In spite of those limitations placed on upper class women, they still had access to rich sources of knowledge, mainly in the form of their home libraries. There were few texts available on sex as well. We see it in fiction and in history, one day a woman would be told that it was enough with the books and it was time to focus on something more important, like finding a husband. The average Victorian woman only touched the surface of pleasures derived from learning and sex.
Bella Baxter is not the average Victorian woman. She is navigating the old body of Victorian society with a new mind, her child’s. Bella is an experiment and she is observed as much. As an experiment, she is given much more freedom and more resources as a scientist’s daughter to learn unencumbered in comparison to other young women of her mind’s age. Curiosity of the mind is highly encouraged for Bella. Curiosity of the flesh is not. Those lessons are encouraged by Wedderburn, who’s interest about Bella is piqued after reading the marriage contract that Godwin had written up for her and Max. Wedderburn offers to take Bella to the Continent with him and Bella agrees, much to the disapproval of her adopted father and fiancé.
In Lisbon, Bella explores the city and her physical desires with Wedderburn. Just Bella’s presence in Lisbon is an education that most Victorian women wouldn’t be allowed to dream of; exploring a new country with the acquaintance of a man she is not expected to marry without a chaperone. Bella often leaves Wedderburn behind to lounge at their hotel for her expeditions around the city. In her freedom, Bella decries polite society conventions of continuing to consume food when she no longer likes it and innuendos. She observes culture through dance and participates in her vibrant Bella way. She is invited to dance in the city with a couple but Wedderburn attacks the husband. Wedderburn is slowly learning that Bella is a woman of learning, which takes her attention away from him. In an attempt to gain control, he takes her on a boat.
Though trapped on a boat, Bella gains even more freedom on the steady waves of the sea. She meets two new people, Martha Von Kurtzroc (Hanna Schygulla) and Harry Astely (Jerrod Carmichael). They introduce her to philosophy, which Bella finds fascinating and she spends a lot of her time reading, much to the chagrin of Duncan. Her body cannot wander the streets of a city, so her mind wanders through the pages of a book. In her discussions of philosophy with Harry, he shows Bella the large scale of suffering in Alexandria; famine, disease and death. Bella’s heart and eyes cry to help them but Harry tells her there is nothing she can do. Bella is nothing if not determined. She gathers Wedderburn’s gambling winnings to give to the people of Alexandria. Unable to depart from the boat, she gives it to the boat staff in hopes they will follow through with her request, hopes that are fruitless. With no funds, the captain dumps Bella and Wedderburn in Paris.
Bella’s time in Paris is my favourite part of her journey. She takes charge in the face of their destitution, seeking employment in a brothel. It is difficult to view sex work as empowering as the industry, as old as humanity itself, utilises the worst of the patriachy’s view on women: objects to be discarded. But Bella is able to find the best of a bad situation, gaining some funds and knowledge with her first client. Wedderburn is furious and abandons her to return to London. Bella continues to work at the brothel, earning a steady wage as any woman working in prostitution can and also partaking in a formal education in anatomy. The classes, attended with her colleague and friend, Toniette (Suzy Bemba), fascinate Bella and diminish her homesickness. Bella is thriving as a working student in Paris. The most important lesson she learns about anatomy is when Toniette remarks on her pregnancy scars, scars she believed to be normal. Bella is called back home to London with a message from Max about Godwin’s failing health and burning questions.
On her return, Bella and Godwin have the most sincere conversation they’ve ever had as father and daughter. She gets the answers behind her past and tells Godwin “I shall be a doctor.” Her desire is said with such resolve that it makes me smile and she is offered her father’s surgery with none of that ‘next male relative’ bullshit. Bella’s past has involved an unorthodox yet fascinating education and it now supports a future that is hers alone.
Bella’s education has focused so much on her choice, choice that other Victorian women wouldn’t have had. All they were offered was a limited education to marry some mediocre man. In Bella’s case, she took on the world, learned from it and made her own choice. And her choice is Max McCandless. She proposes to him. Marriage is often a prison for women, even in modern times and earlier in the film it was. But with Bella Baxter, we know that her marriage is just the beginning of an even more vibrant life.
One incredibly important lesson for Bella comes in the form of her past haunting her. Her Colonel Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott), Bella Baxter’s husband when she lived as Victoria Blessington, objects at her wedding to Max, flanked by Wedderburn. Ever curious, Bella goes with Alfie to learn more about her past life. It’s a sobering truth and once again she wishes to turn away from it. Alfie is determined not to fail again in subduing his wife, locking her in the house and calling for a surgery to quell her carnal desires. Bella manages to escape and she subdues her husband, severing her connection to Victoria Blessington once and for all.
Being free of her past means that Bella Baxter is free of past expectations she had to follow as a woman. Bella’s path is finally, blessedly hers. At the end of Poor Things, she is sitting with a book in one hand, a drink in the other, surrounded by friends, old, new and the Colonel, who is peacefully grazing on grass. It’s power, knowledge and independence most Victorian women would never have seen. But for modern women witnessing this spectacle on screen, a Bella Baxter-style romp across Europe full of excitement, exploration and education is a little more within our reach. You may not need to bother switching your controlling ex’s brain with a goat’s on your arrival back home though. There may not be a difference.
A well-written account of this film and book- Thank you. I am intrigued enough to follow up on this one.
finally caught up and it’s amazing. loved the comparisons and focus on bella’s perspective. never stop writing, you’re more than good.