Marisa Paris Dr. Paku ENGL 413: Epistolary 29 September 2015 Old Maid Gossip, otherwise known as idle talk or rumor, is usually about the secret private details of a person’s life. It can tear a life apart but at the same time it can bring lives together; a sort of “social bonding.” In Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s, The Turkish Embassy Letters, more specifically the letters addressed to her sister, Lady Mar, Montagu unmasks the literary style of gossip by trapping the reader in the bombastically multifaceted world of the familiar letter. Conscious of her reader’s craving, Montagu limits the details of her subject, cautiously aiming to not reveal too much. Although these details may have sufficed for Lady Mar, we as readers in the twentieth-century …show more content…
This is exactly what we have in Montagu’s letter to her sister: the dirty details on the Countess of Cosel. By Montagu blabbering about the intimate details of another woman’s life, it feels as if we, as readers, are eves dropping, prying, or sticking our nose someplace it shouldn’t be-almost like we’re intruders. Drunk off the enjoyment of reading spiteful, malevolent gossip, we’re left with a hangover of guilt, shame, and anxiety. However, at the same time, Brophy points …show more content…
She critiques other women, by denying, rejecting, and disowning, their actions or lifestyle. The anxiety that the reader feels from “intruding” is somewhat reminiscent of the anxiety Montagu feels due to her own position. She tries to distant herself from the other aging aristocrat women that have been unsuccessful but subconsciously knows that their lifestyle could potentially be hers in the future. The sub consciousness of Montagu’s anxiety about her old age and femininity ironically gives more power to it, heightening her insecurity through the admiration of other women. In letter XXXIV, Montagu recounts to her sister her experience visiting the Kabya’s lady house where she gawks and gazes at the “fair Fatima” (89) searching to find an imperfection but in the end fails. “That surprising harmony of features! That charming result of the whole! That exact proportion of body! That lovely bloom of complexion, unsullied by art! The unutterable enchantment of her smile! But her eyes! Large and black, with all the soft languishment of the blue! Every turn of her face discovering some new charm!”