The Act of Femininity within The Emperor’s Babe
Bernardine Evaristo’s novel, The Emperor’s Babe, contains many female
voices and perspectives that highlight female life within Londinium society in
211 A.D, posing it in a modern and relatable format. Many can view this as a
way of centralizing the female voice around a stereotypical “It girl” front
like Kirkus Reviews describes it as, “Lots of fun… like an episode of Sex and the City written by Ovid”
(Evaristo). The act of utilizing female voices in a modern way provides a risk
of misinterpretation and exploitation of these female voices. This demeans the
role ancient woman played within their society and it matters because it demonstrates
how woman are still being perceived and are not taken seriously in modern
society. The point of displaying woman in this ancient time is supposed to show
limitations and lack of agency imposed on women by male law within this
society.
Zuleika is a daughter to her poor
merchant father and a sister to her prized brother. Within her family she does
not fit in anywhere, but within the streets of Londinium with her best friend
Alba she finds herself. As she attempts to live her life by her rules she is handed
off to a rich man to marry. Her father took it upon his duty as head of
household to find the best prospect to marry off his daughter to. Felix, a rich
man chose Zuleika as his bride and as he was the richer of the two men, her
father gladly gave his daughters hand in marriage, “Si, Mr Felix. Zuleika very
obediens girl, sir. No problemata, she make very optima wife, sir” (Evaristo,
14). While this was a part of a female’s life, there was the added pressure for
women to marry in accordance to their father’s wishes to benefit their family’s
position, as is made clear by Felix’s discourse with Zuleika’s father, “Do not
worry about her dowry, it is of no conseqentia to me, of course you will
benefit greatly from this negotium. I think we can safely say that your
business is due to expand considerable” (Evaristo, 17). Zuleika’s marriage to
Felix benefited her family’s life as Felix’s patronage aided her father’s
business and allowed for her brother to gain education and attend military
school, “He too had benefited from my husband’s patronage… this ingeniosus boy
has been accepta at top public school for patricians in Roma… such is the power
of nepotism, my brother the demi-god can barely string a sentence together for
all his education” (Evaristo, 78-82). All the while the ones benefiting from
the arrangement are the husband who gains his own desire and the girl’s male
family members who elevate their status through connection. The girl on the
other hand is binding the contract and is left with no choice in the matter,
eliminating her voice all together regarding her future. “I knew I had to
accept my fate. I could throw
countless tantrums, I was an expert,
but it would go ahead, regardless” (Evaristo, 19). This demonstrates Zulieka’s
own opinion about the unwanted marriage, realizing that resisting is childish, her
fate as a woman was to begin.
While Zulieka moved from one household
to another her role as a female member changed, from daughter and sister, to becoming
a wife. As her position as a wife and madam of the house, her freedom had
become even more restricted as she was expected to act as a lady since her
position in society was elevated. Zulieka was limited from leaving her house
unless accompanied by a guard or guardian, “Go out into the town, enjoy, I’ll
assign a bodyguard but, for goodness sake, don’t show me up and walk, take a
train of slaves and a sedan (Evaristo, 34). This displays the lack of agency
imposed on Zuleika, as she became the woman of her own household she was
limited from moving outside in society. Zuleika lacked the ability to leave her
home, but worse, she was limited to staying home and was not allowed to hold
parties within her own home without her husband there, “It was my official
decree that only my family could be trusted to dine with me when His Highness
was away. I dreamt of the day I could hold my own parties” (Evaristo, 78-9). A
woman of her standings was restricted within her own household because her
husband’s mistrust or fear in what she might do and how her parties might
affect his public image. Zuleika a woman bound to her home, as a daughter and
wife, never experienced the world beyond her own borders of Londinium, “Like
you, Felix is somewhat peripatetic, though he never takes me with. He wants this to be my
world—little birdie in a gilded cage, waiting for her master to come home—and
sing for him. I have always been somewhat decorative’” (Evaristo, 155). While a
woman has no say and control over her life she has nothing to do, but to become
a stationary object in her husband’s life.
A woman of proper standing within
society must know how to be in control of her own sexual desires unlike the
freedom men have with theirs. Zuleika knows that somewhere she possesses a sexual
being within herself, but fears she was introduced to sex too early and would
never find her sexual awakening. As a woman she knows and wants to explore that
sexual side of herself as she expresses her feelings, “’Yes, but sex has always
been an ordeal for me, Alba. I’m used to it now, but I can’t say I really dig
it. I think I’ve got a libido, deep down’” (Evaristo, 100). Zulieka fears sex
due to her experiences, but wants to find that feeling of desire that her
friend Alba has. Alba is a care free woman who leads her life through her
sexual desire, despite being married making her an interesting character. She
makes for a fascinating female figure by the fact that women were not allowed
to have sexual freedom, but Alba acts on her sexuality at an equal capacity of
a man’s. “’Cato doesn’t like it. He
turns a blind eye. So long as I fulfill my marital duties in every department he lets it go,
otherwise he knows full well, I will go’” (Evaristo, 102). This line tells of
her knowledge of her position as a woman within her household, but also tells
of her husband’s view of her position in the family. Oddly demonstrating a
cavalier relationship between a man and woman who respect each other’s intimacy
and needs, while still fulfilling societal duties as husband and wife. Unfairly,
within Zuleika’s marriage there are extreme restrictions, based on her risen
class status and her husband, who expects her to “behave” as to not stain his
name, “I have been looking for a nice, simplex, quiet, fidelis, girl, a girl
who will not betray me with affairs… unlike my pater’s subsequent three wives… ever
boastful of their sexual shenanigans, humiliating the dear gentle man in public”
(Evaristo, 16). Her husband rarely spends any time at home and is known of
having a lover away from home, where he has made a more complete life with his
mistress, where he has children and has a more stationary life, “Once it became
clear Felix would never speak of her, or his children, I gave up all hope of
ever knowing my husband. She was the shadow that trailed him. He wanted my
everything but only offered bits of himself, the Londinium portion, where he
spends but three months a year” (Evaristo, 156). The injustice that Zulieka’s
relationship exhibits is the fact that she is expected, as a woman, to accept
her husband’s indiscretion. At the same time, she cannot have a lover and fears
being promiscuous, “He doesn’t seem to care, he’s got her and all their blonde
sproglets… No! Felix isn’t Cato, he’d never allow it.” (Evaristo, 101). The
only way that Zuleika might be “forgiven” for her indiscretion is because her
lover was the Emperor, who could take up any women he wanted as a lover, but
due to his death, Zulieka made the realization that, “I had not cared about
discovery/ and in the torpor of my grief I had not thought/ that my lover’s
protection would go with his life” (Evaristo, 241). This shows the lack of
sexual equality men and women have as men are allowed to have the wife and
lover, while women take a lover and must die, as Zuleika dies for her affair.
While Zuleika is at the forefront
of the novel, as the main character, there are many other female characters
that are interesting expressions of different types of women of different positions
within Londinium society. One character would be Zuleika’s mother, a Nubian
woman who is the epitome of a restricted women. Her mother a caregiver, wife,
and mother of two children, who dotes on her only son and leaves her daughters
raising to her father, “Gazing at her one and only, tears streaming down her
cheeks. ‘My boy,’ she said softly, wiping her nose with her right sleeve from
cuff to shoulder” (Evaristo, 83). Her mother restricts herself to acting only
upon limited movements, her dress is all black only having her face and hands
visible, she sits on the floor of her daughter’s home, and never speaks.
Zuleika expresses her frustration of her mother, “I glanced over at the Virgin
Mary. She just sat there, her robes about her like a black puddle” (Evaristo, 82).
Her mother represents a sort of ideal women of a lower class that has no
position or say within family matters, her voice is literally obsolete within
the household. On the other hand, her best friend Alba is the complete opposite,
embracing a different position as a female figure. Alba’s character is a
complete withdraw from “ideal” women within this time, as she is an outspoken
and promiscuous woman who is not afraid of her sexuality and does not fear to
speak her mind, “I pointed at the blossoming flower on her neck. ‘Oh he’s away
for five days and it’ll be gone by the time he comes waltzing in here with his
purse jangling with non-declarable coins donated to Cato &Co. by terrified
victims who’ve been caught fiddling accounts” (Evaristo, 95). Her character was
very modern and in some sense, was a depiction of a lower status within
society, where there were still certain restrictions, but could experience
certain freedoms outside. Another character that was introduced briefly, but
left an impact was Felix’s sister, Antistia. She was an extremely mean and
crude character who did not like Zuleika, due to her family, class, and lack of
education, “Cute, yes. Young, even better. Stupid, no doubt” (Evaristo, 52). What
is known of Antistia is that she is a high-class woman who has been married and
widowed twice with a great fortune and is a popular dinner guest, who favors
Roman parentage over anything else, “You will never be one of us… A real Roman
is born and bred, I don’t care what anyone says, and that goes for the emperor
too” (Evaristo, 51). Her character was fascinating because she represents that
high class freed woman who has limitations based on her gender, but still has
the agency and ability to be her own person and run her own house as her
fortune was left to her without a husband to take care of it.
The character of Venus was a
refreshing representation of sexual relationships within this Roman society.
Venus is a transgender prostitute who was kicked out of her home and arrived in
Londinium, heckled by citizens for her appearance and sexual choices. She later
becomes a great friend of Alba’s and Zuleika’s who shares sage advice to the
girls leading them through life, “We didn’t understand much of it then, but
whatever Venus said was memorable and over the years her words sailed back into
mind and made sense” (Evaristo, 49). The thing that is interesting about Venus’
character is that since she is legally a man she is the only son to her
father’s estate, so despite disagreements with her family and despite her
sexual and gender preference, would still be the rightful heir to her father’s
property. In this case this benefits her, through her biologically male sex,
“It’s time for the real me to come out of the trunk. I’ve a skeleton under the
bed, girlfriends. Daddy was a leading senator in Rome, he owns a massive estate
in Camulodunum. He also heads an important consortium of loaded east-coast
landowners… give the old bat and old bag heart seizure, then the only son will
inherit” (Evaristo, 213). This means that even though Venus identifies as
female, her sex at birth determines her future, finances, and freedoms. Venus
is interesting because she falls into a low-class community where she becomes a
different type of sexual being as a prostitute and she experiences hardships of
being a transgender woman, “She used to be followed by hordes, pelted with
stones” (Evaristo, 46). Yet, despite these hardships of class, sex, and
occupation she can rectify these societal restrictions by being the only son of
her father’s inheritance; inheriting status and sole financial stability, all
the while she is able to freely express sexual desire as a male, “I’d love to
turn their home-on-the-range into an upmarket farm… for the RQN, Retired
Queen’s Network, darlings… These days I dream about running through fields, the
wind blowing through my wig, and a buck naked Big P panting after me and
flinging me down on a bed of buttercups” (Evaristo, 214). Venus is a confusing female
representation, as she is representing the transgender woman, working within
this veiled sexual ambiance facing obstacles, but by the end they seem to be
remedied by her biological circumstances representing someone that beat the
system through a male facade.
The female voices and positions
focus purely around their male figures lives and are used to bind and represent
the male population. The female is a disposable object that can be bought,
punished, and thrown away without any consequences to men within the law of
male society. Bernardine Evaristo’s vision of a modern woman living in an ancient
world is a serious response to how woman’s roles in the 21st
century, while have improved echo the past of restrictions. The idea that
Evaristo puts to the reader with Oscar Wilde quote, “The one duty we owe to
history is to rewrite it” evokes that sense that talking about history and the
implications of what history has on the present urges the need for change and the
need to talk about how things from the past continue to plague our present.
Works Cited
Evaristo,
Bernardine, The Emperor’s Babes. New
York: Penguin Books, 2001. Print.
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