Letter XXXIX to Anne Thistlethwayte

Lady Montagu had many interesting letters to choose from for this particular assignment, which made my selection feel rather arbitrary. As I flipped through the correspondence I noticed one with a lot of highlighting and notes in the margin. Apparently I found a lot of things very interesting in this particular letter, so it seems logical to discuss it.

One of the first things I noticed about this particular letter was the grateful tone of Lady Montagu's opening. It definitely leaves the reader with the impression that she was perhaps a bit desperate for news of home. Considering the length of time she has been away from England, this makes perfect sense, as does her consternation with her other correspondents for not thinking she would appreciate a little dated gossip.

If these letters were constructed after the fact, this is one of the elements that makes them so engaging. Her tone conveys a frustration I find very real and very believable.

As the letter progresses she indulges in a bit of cultural gossip herself. Considering she admits she's pregnant, the content of her letter flows naturally. It is in this passage where she discusses marriage and children that she perhaps shows her first true distaste for something within the Turkish culture. This sentence may explain her viewpoint on the matter: "You won't know what to make of this speech, but in this country it is more despicable to be married and not fruitful than it is with us to be fruitful before marriage." (p. 107).

Then you read this line: "..they do not content themselves with using the natural means, but fly to all sort of quackeries to avoid the scandal of being past child bearing and often kill themselves by them." (p. 107) Is that actually censure I hear? It certainly sounds like it. If remember correctly she bring up this bizarre gender-based cultural expectation more than once and more than in one letter.

What makes this letter interesting to me isn't just the fact that she finally shows the less than ideal state of Turkish women, but that she realizes it and tries to redeem the culture and perhaps the perception of her reader by adding a last paragraph about things she does like, like the punishment of convicted liars whom she refers to as "triumphant criminals in our country, God knows." (p. 108)

I think this goes back to Ryan's earlier statement about her desire to create an idealized society for herself where she can pick and choose different laws and customs from her experiences. I also believe the later letters in this series supports that argument even further.