This week’s excerpt on Undine reminded me of the tale of Melusine from last week’s class. In both stories, the husbands are in charge of either accepting the women’s secret/ otherness or not. On the one hand we have Melusine, whose secret is only revealed through her husband not giving her her space which leads to her flying away from the castle, and on the other hand we have Undine, who openly shares her origin of being a water princess that was only given a soul by marrying Huldbrand. Undine in the end transforms into a body of water surrounding the grave of her husband. Both Undine and Melusine are described as being beautiful. But the biggest difference I saw is the following: Melusine was able to flee and live her life, whereas Undine had to vanish into the sea which leads me to the following:
Undine has given her husband the choice of accepting her origin or not: “Such as we are, however, can only obtain a soul by the closest union of affection with one of your human race. I am now possessed of a soul, and my soul thanks you, my inexpressibly beloved one, and it will ever thank you, if you do not make my whole life miserable. For what is to become of me, if you avoid and reject me? Still I would not retain you by deceit. And if you mean to reject me, do so now, and return alone to the shore” (p.105). While reading that I thought that I must be reading a tragedy. Undine seems to be highly dependent on her husband. I thought that her being dependent on her husband might be an aspect worth a discussion. Even though Undine is a half-human-half-water being, she is almost craving to become a human that has a soul. Why would she want to do that? Does that mean, that all water beings are inferior to humans? In the last weeks we often learned that half water beings have the power to allure men by their sinful creature. Where does that shift now come from, that it is a WOMAN that is dependent of a man? Why does she even have to vanish if her husband does not stay by her side? I would be glad if we can discuss that in class!
Hi Lina, I was also reminded of Melusine while reading Undine and how they were both keeping a secret from their husbands. It definitely shows the difference in autonomy between the two characters–one willingly revealed herself, while the other’s secret was stolen from her. I do see what you mean by her being dependent on her husband, but I also wonder why she chose to reveal her secret. Why not be like Melsuine, and keep it to herself? She did not have the fear of being walked in on on Saturdays. Although she says that she does not want to keep him by lying, then why not be honest before their marriage occurred? Also I think she only wanted to become a human with a soul because her father wanted it for her, she herself didn’t have much interest in it (last paragraph in p 105)
Wanted to add this on the autonomy aspect–one was a ‘love’ marriage whereas the other was more knowingly transactional. While Undine’s is slightly transactional in the sense that she is getting a soul (and the argument that every marriage is transactional to some extent ‘ill love you if you love me because i love you’), Melusine’s is more explicitly transactional. Perhaps the lack of explicit transaction in Undine’s marriage made it so she felt more guilty for not being honest about who she is
Hi Lina,
I reacted similarly in how I was reminded of Melusine while reading Undine, there is many questions regarding their relationship between human and non human. I too hope we can discuss more in depth the want to be with a human from the female perspective.
Great post and comments on it! Glad to see you all working through the text together, even *before* we get together in class!