How fascinating is the solitary, free beauty of a flower. It has found its exclusiveness in self-actualization, even if it is all alone on a mountain top, it knows it is a breath on life journey that it has to join with its colour riot. Its guide is the sounds inside, making it unique. It experiences the joy of the moment in its being, comrades of the birds singing freely. It can stand side by side with another flower as well but never loses the rhythm of its heartbeat in the fullness of its being one and only.
Being a free person, as a woman, destroying the castles of thousands of years declaring one’s independence, with a scream full of the wild, healing power and dream talent inside. “Ruth” echoes in the roots of our being with a scream like that. Lou Andreas-Salomé’s magical novel demolishes the walls of the castle besieging our souls that seems indestructible in such a way, by encouraging us with her life. Salomé, a Russian writer and psychoanalyst, lived from 1861 to 1937. She was Nietzsche’s painful love, the woman who was also allegedly in love with Rilke and Freud. She had Theology and Philosophy lessons and she studied Theology and Art History at University of Zurich. Salomé refuses all the roles of women imposed by society. She enlightens today with her realistic style. She displays her talent as a writer very well, she not only has powerful descriptions, but also exposes the psychological states of the characters deeply. “Ruth” was published in 1895, it makes us experience a fluent reading pleasure and reveals the analysis of states of being women, men, the people enslaved by society. We scrutinize ourselves as readers as well, as we proceed with the novel.
How fascinating is the solitary, free beauty of a flower. It has found its exclusiveness in self-actualization, even if it is all alone on a mountain top, it knows it is a breath on life journey that it has to join with its colour riot. Its guide is the sounds inside, making it unique. It experiences the joy of the moment in its being, comrades of the birds singing freely. It can stand side by side with another flower as well but never loses the rhythm of its heartbeat in the fullness of its being one and only.
Ruth lost her parents when she was a little child and she stays with her rich uncle, after having stayed with various relatives. She has not experienced a probable pressure of parents because of this painful situation and this has given her some kind of freedom. Her teacher Erik is pretty influenced by her writings and her behaviour he has observed in the schoolyard. Maybe he can realise his ideals that are at the back of his mind by training this girl. Life that he dreamed of changing completely has let him be a teacher only. He fell in love madly when he was young and got married. Then Klara-Bel, his unbelievably beautiful wife, had an accident and was disabled. So happiness has got a bitter taste. Klara-Bel has got a “womanly” world of her own. She was a quiet propeller around the man who was struggling with his busy work, lessons, with her needle-work she loved so much, a caring mother. Ruth is impressed by him as well, she accepts carrying out a private study programme and staying at their house, she even asks for it. This girl who has an unbelievable imagination needs love and care so much. She is not really interested in the roles the society forces on her as a woman. Erik is very much impressed by this aspect of her character as much as imagination. Ruth is very clever as well, it is difficult to handle her. Everybody in her class is fascinated by a girl who is engaged , this is the dream of all the girls, getting married, “serving”. Ruth thinks it is not so important, there are absolutely different things in her world of imagination. Ruth is like “Tristana” of Benito Pérez Galdós. Tristana wanted to be a free person who could support herself and she thought marriage was unnecessary. What she wanted from life was not to be bound to a man, she wanted to be herself with a free consciousness. As Ingeborg Bachmann says in “Malina”: “Nobody can be everything for a person.” What makes Klara-Bel unhappy most is that she cannot serve. But Ruth thinks that being served is more beautiful, she wants the privilege of men, their “natural right”. Although Erik seems like defending the equality of women, their development, he believes that the total dominance always belongs to men. He cannot tolerate Klara-Bel’s least counter opinion, who is a symbol of obedience. “Woman is man’s country that he domains”, in his opinion. What he expects from Ruth is also an absolute obedience.
Erik’s friend Bernhard Römer, who he shared his ideals with in his youth, takes our attention with the relationship with his wife. She has her own work to do, when Klara-Bel tells him what a good husband he is because he lets her do these things, we understand the ineptitude of the word “let”. He expresses that he is not in a state to let his wife do things, because he admires her independence and she realises their youth dreams of making life and people perfect in a way. He also adds that women’s hands are really brave and men are novice compared to women. It is the respect for women’s healing life energy that is empowered by right from the nature’s heart and men’s and earth’s being enlivened. As stated in “Women Who Run With The Wolves”, we face serious problems because the society we live in ignore this energy of women and want to make obedient slaves. But marriage is “two flowers standing side by side”, it consists of strong people being nourished by their own roots, side by side in their own beauty. In D.H.Lawrence’s “Aaron’s Rod”, the importance of the married couples’ independence is emphasised. “And what we do on our own little islands matters to us alone… It [The heart] beats alone in its own silence.” Ruth stays at Erik’s friend’s house with Erik’s wish and this house really has positive effects on her.
“Thinking” is a vital activity for Ruth. As Mrs. Röhmer states it is as if she has a secret life of her own behind everything that is visible, maybe she is not aware of it, but the source of all her significative emotions and thoughts is here. She cannot get rid of this activity, either, she cannot help it. “Temperature is good for me. Then you get rid of diving in the world of dreams and thinking.” When she says so, we see how she lives in her own world and it even makes her sick as it is always on her mind. However, there is no breath if there is no power of imagination, there is no progress, either, but consummation, never-ending benumbing habits that seem like life. She wants to “cross the wall”, she says this to the girls as well, because “there is life behind the wall.” Reaching life beyond traditions, impositions of thousands of years. Life beyond needle-work that Klara-Bel adores but drives Erik crazy in the belief that it dulls the mind. Beyond weaving that enslaves The Lady of Shalott, the poem Alfred Tennyson wrote inspired by the legends of King Arthur. The woman can only look at the outer world from a mirror inside the castle, when she looks out of the window, the mirror cracks. The woman who wants to live her womanhood, tries to circumvent the ban, cross the wall, prepares her own end according to traditions. As in Balzac’s “Two New Brides”, misfortune waits for her if she tries to experience even love, she poisons around her,too. But the woman who listens to her family, especially her father obediently, oh, what a numbed, cosy peace is she in and if she is a mother in the end, Forough Farrokhzad’s “The Wind-Up Doll”:
“One can be like a wind-up doll
and look at the world with eyes of glass,
one can lie for years in lace and tinsel
a body stuffed with straw
inside a felt-lined box,
at every lustful touch
for no reason at all
one can give out a cry,
Ah, so happy am I!”