Hi would someone mine quickly assessing my work. Be brutally honest
Statement of Intention
This piece is written in the consensus viewpoint of a prestigious women’s news agency of Iceland that has been following the case of the murders and arson of Illugastadir. I intend the audience to mainly be the female demographic of the Icelandic community who would in some degree or the other have been touched and affected by the patriarchal feudalism of 19th century Iceland. It would prove effective to use consistently formal language that better showcases the prestige, effectiveness and authenticity of the newspaper. I will seek to evoke the readerships thoughtful discussion by using sophisticated language, building a relationship of womanly maturity and intellect between the ‘editor’ and the reader.
I intend to use a sophisticated yet impassioned voice of a learned Icelandic woman, seeking to find and expose the link between the patriarchal practices of law and order of the land and the way it harshly condemns women, Agnes merely being one of its victims. I will build tension and indignation in the voice of the author will will be caught on and reflected in the reader. I will attempt to expose the connection between Sigga’s social conforming femininity, and her consequential pardoning from the King and Blondal’s own excuse of her reminding him of his own wife. Revealing the vulnerability of women in the hands of fickle and manipulative men and the slander of Agnes being jealous and malicious, harming her not only when the beheading is carried out, but her reputation thereafter.
I will use the voice of a women and weaponize her femininity to defend a women condemned for her own lack of femininity, social non-conformity and intelligence. This will expose the reader to the social and legal failings of patriarchal and protestant doctrine heavy Iceland.
(actual creative piece)
Raven Women
Editorial: Agnes Magnusdottir; fiendish witch or victim?
In the silent stillness of a winter night, a trio of a man and women shook the social fabric of our society, the magnitude of their deed so great that it sought to almost change the geographic of this land. Never had a crime ever polarized and fractured the community to the extent that the murders of Illugastadir have. Under the darkness of the night, Agnes Magnusdottir aged 33, Fridrik Sigurdsson aged 17, and Sigridur Gudmundsdottir were all accessories to a heinous double homicide and arson attack on Natan Ketilsson and Petur Jonsson. Fridrik and Agnes were sentenced to a beheading and Sigridur winning an appeal.
Yet, it is only Agnes Magnusdottir that had been memorialized as the notorious mastermind of these crimes.
Since the murders we have received an expansive amount of letters from our readers, varying in perspective. A great amount are of the opinion that Agnes especially was deserving of a harsher punishment for robbing our community of a talented medicine man. The young temperamental Fridrik and the sweet young Sigridur merely caught up in the scheming web of an older, more experienced and bitter woman. After all, a woman spurned was the only type of woman capable of murder, is this not true? A pauper and a bastard who felt entitled to more than what was her worth, jealous of the affections of a younger more beautiful girl, she was most assuredly guilty!
Yet, a small yet substantial amount of our readers offered an insightful angle to this issue, one we found more favorable and in line with our news agencies ideological affiliation. In the patriarchal, male sexuality dominated viewpoint of our society, the great ambitions and intellect of Agnes was most unquestionably unsightly and vulgar. She deviated from our social gender conformity for woman, the ‘gentler sex’. She sought too much from life, molded herself too much after the ideal picture of a man. She was disposable before she took the knife to Natan’s throat and we would do well to remember that. She strayed from her path of an obedient woman, discreet illegitimate daughter and compliant landless servant girl; it was for that which she must pay for with her life.
Make no mistake, it is exactly this masculinity projected into our laws and into the affair of the State that Sigridur was ever granted an appeal and a reduction in her sentence. Sigridur was given the sympathy denied to Agnes because she appealed to male sexuality. Young, striking and fertile; a good prospective object for any man to possess. She never threatened or countered the archaic gender roles of our society. She never jeopardized and called into question the character of any man. Agnes did both, this is why she was never considered for an appeal. No, Sigridur reminded our beloved District Commissioner Blondal of his own wife and he revealed that it was Natan himself who delivered her from death’s embrace, indebting Blondal to this man. Should we not call into question the objectivity of the criminals’ sentences? The incapability of our District Commissioner to be impartial for the sake of Justice leaves us disconcerted.
Agnes is condemned as a witch, not by the court of order but from our society. We feared miscreant behavior and deceit from the woman learned in the arts of healing, capable of easing our ailments long before she committed any sin. It is this ignorance that Fridrik Sigurdsson felt comfortable in his assertion that while he may be hanged for his crime, it is Agnes who will face the brunt of the punishments and be condemned to a witch’s burning.
It is of the view of the men of our community including Blondal that our women born with high intelligent aptitude, honed by experience and the wisdom that comes with age; are practiced in deception. It is the chauvinistic prejudice and blind hatred of intelligent women that has Blondal interpret Agnes’ silence in the face of injustice, evidence of her guilt. She was silenced before she opened her mouth to defend herself.
We shield ourselves of the complexity of Agnes and the ambiguity of the crime. And she says it best…
“To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things”
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Topic: Creative Writing - Advice from a Cambridge Uni Student (Read 32392 times)