“I entered a cave” “full of women in” “black clothes, long-skirted,”
“their heads covered” “They surrounded” “a woman” “in a light
shapeless shift—“ “who stood weeping” “’What has happened?’” “I
asked one of them” “in a whisper” “’She is a widow,’ was the answer,”

“’Her husband has just died:” “watch & see” “what happens now’”
“Slowly, the woman” “sank to the floor,” “as if sorrowfully” “dancing”
“As if the air were” “a weight which” “pressed” “her body down”
“First she sat” “with her knees up” “& as she sat, her skin” “began to

turn gray” “gray & grainy” “It turned” “into rock,” “though her eyes”
“were still moist” “Then she—“ “again, slowly—“ “lay down on her side,”
“her back curved,” “her legs drawn up,” “her knees close to” “her breasts”
“She laid one arm” “on the floor” “encircling her head—“ “the other

made a” “semicircle” “in front of” “her breasts” “All curves”
“& hills, she” “became” “herself cavelike” “She froze” “into a model of”
“caves like the caves” “we stood in” “Her facial features disappeared”
“Her garment turned to rock” “She was caves” “she was caves” “I was

now afraid I stood” “exactly” “inside of” “women’s bodies:” “Was”
“the human psyche” “made of women” “turned to stone?…”
from Alice Notley's The Descent of Alette
 

The images from this passage are symbolic of what women in this society do everyday. In this passage the woman has lost her husband and the women around her are mourning. Are the women mourning the husband’s death and for the wife’s loss, or are the women mourning the death and loss of another “sister”?

In the ritual, the woman loses her facial features, her figure of curves and hills turns barren, “cavelike,” and she turns to stone. I believe the woman’s facial features “disappeared” because she had no one to tell her she was beautiful or attractive. Her facial features vanished because she could not see the beauty she possessed within and without. The person who had defined her facial features for her had passed on and with him went her features and who she was.

Besides the loss of her features, her clothes turned to “rock” and she died slowly as “’She became caves.’” Her body turned into stone and she became hollowed out by the experience of her husband’s death. It could be seen that the woman, because of her husband’s death, realized she had been empty or “cavelike” from the beginning of her life and was operating under the illusion of being satisfied and complete in her life because of having a husband.

If this woman turned to “rock” because the death of her husband left her with the feeling of emptiness and nothingness, then wouldn’t the women who participated in the ritual, suffer her same fate? If the women chose to be with her, then does that mean that they also share the same beliefs that the “cavelike” woman shared? Should I assume that since they were dancing with her that they have given into the beliefs that women should be defined by who they marry? From the passage, one of the onlookers says to Alette, “’watch and see,’” and it is made clear that the women know what is going to happen to the woman. The women are following through with the ritual because it must have been something that had been going on for centuries. If these women chose to participate in the ritual, then they believed in what the “stone” woman believed as well. What this passage suggests is that women, in the culture viewed in this passage, only live as long as their husbands because after a husband dies the wife will also die. She will die because all of the meaning of her life has died with the husband. She will follow him in death and the women who participate in the mourning ritual accept this and believe that this is the only way.

Alette realizes the emptiness of the women in the cave and wonders if she is standing “’inside of’ ’women’s bodies,’” a cave of centuries of women who have gone through the ritual of becoming “’stone.’” To go deeper into this thought, are women denying themselves the right to realize who they are because it is more comfortable or more acceptable to become someone for someone else? Are we in this society doing the same thing?

This passage is a symbol of what I see women do everyday: live for someone and become what they want until the day that person leaves them. The women then feel as though they have no one to live for and instead of finding who they are, or want to become, they turn inward and “die” or look for the next person to define them. They never really live because their definitions of themselves come from the person (male mostly) they have attached themselves to, the person who had defined them as a woman.
 

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