Souhami, Daina. Gertrude and Alice. London: Pheonix Press, 1991.
Gertrude Stein met Alice B Toklas in 1907 and they were together till Stein's death in 1946. This book is about their love story, and their personalities. But what is most striking is the relationship between the two. Stein played the husband and Toklas was always the wife. She was completely overshadowed by Stein. Toklas felt her own capacity as an intellectual was limited. With Stein, she felt she was in the presence of genius. She dedicated her life to Stein's ambition and became "Your Darling" to Stein's "Darling, Darling." Even in her Memoirs she speaks about her life with a genius and projects Stein's point of view. She is buried with Stein, but the inscription is also a shadow of Stein's inscription.
This is not quite a remarkable achievement for a woman, who is taught to obiterate herself and not have any direct ambition. It is strange that the same patriarchal models of power reflect even in lesbian relationships.
Gertrude Stein met Alice B Toklas in 1907 and they were together till Stein's death in 1946. This book is about their love story, and their personalities. But what is most striking is the relationship between the two. Stein played the husband and Toklas was always the wife. She was completely overshadowed by Stein. Toklas felt her own capacity as an intellectual was limited. With Stein, she felt she was in the presence of genius. She dedicated her life to Stein's ambition and became "Your Darling" to Stein's "Darling, Darling." Even in her Memoirs she speaks about her life with a genius and projects Stein's point of view. She is buried with Stein, but the inscription is also a shadow of Stein's inscription.
This is not quite a remarkable achievement for a woman, who is taught to obiterate herself and not have any direct ambition. It is strange that the same patriarchal models of power reflect even in lesbian relationships.
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