"The Walking Woman"

Charles So

English 48b

March 18, 2011

Journal for Austin

Author Quote:

"To work and to love and to bear children. That sounds easy enough. But the way we live establishes so many things of much more importance." (892)

Internet Quote:

 "Acknowledged during her lifetime as an important American nature-writer in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau, as a leading feminist theorist, and as an expert on Native American cultures, but largely forgotten after her death in 1934, Mary Austin has received renewed interest over the past few decades due to a unique literary blending of feminism, environmental ethics, social critique, and interpretations and adaptations of Native American, Hispanic-American, and Euro-American mythological traditions." (Literary Encyclopedia : Mary Austin by Mark T. Hoyer U.C. Davis)

Summary:
Mary Hunter Austin with one of her last paragraphs generalizes and defines the three things in which life is worth living for, which are explained by the Walking Woman. After elaborating on her journey to make her way to meet the Walking Woman, Austin finally meets the Walking Woman and she is treated with a delightful story that explained the Walking Woman's ideas, "three things which if you had known you could cut out all the rest, and they were good any way you got them, but best if, as in her case, they were related to and grew each one out of the others" (890). With Austin's quote she gives a sincere remark to the philosophy of the Walking Woman at the same time infers to the lifestyle of the Walking Woman as not being agreeable to her own.

Personal Opinion:
The meaning of this story is very confusing as i feel that Austin wants the reader to respect and idealize the Walking Woman and her lifestyle as it went against all preconceived notions of the nature of a woman. The Walking Woman to me is a representation of the confused feminist not really knowing what to do with her dominant free spirit, which refuses the lifestyle given at the time for women. Austin with her writing shows her understanding and appreciation for the Walking Women and conveys the message of the Walking Woman through the text. The remarks at the end i feel is very important because Austin disagrees with the road in which the Walking Woman chose to live her free spirited life. Austin is trying to explain that a women choosing to live life for herself and no one else is okay but the way the Walking Woman is doing it is not quite right.

Beyond the story, Austin through her tale of the Walking Woman gives an image of California as a  free spirited, untamed, but beautiful land. I really enjoyed how the Warm Springs (silicon valley) sounds and feels so rough and swampy back in those days.