Mildred Bevel - Putting her in her place

Trust was an interesting novel because it allowed us to explore the characters from different points of view. To me, the most interesting character in this book was Mildred Bevel. 

The narrative of Mildred’s character from My Life by Andrew Bevel portrays Mildred as the perfect wife and woman. She was focused on philanthropy and music and was filled with warmth and kindness. This autobiography by Bevel gave a superficial insight into Mildred’s life. It harped on the fact that she was an average sickly woman - “In her husband’s condescending characterization Mildred was an endearing dilettante who enjoyed music as other women enjoy crocheting or collecting brooches.” (Diaz, 297) 

In Bond by Harold Vanner, Helen was depicted as a gifted woman with a penchant for languages, music, and books. She was similar to Mildred in that they had little social interaction except with musicians and artists. However, Helen's life had a drastic ending compared to Mildred’s.

After reading the extracts from Mildred’s journal, it is obvious that these two portrayals of her were not accurate and it leads to the question of why these men chose to portray her this way, especially Bevel. This question is answered by Ida when she says, “But reading these pages, it seems that more than vindicating Mildred he wanted to turn her into a completely unremarkable, safe character - just like the wives in the autobiographies of the Great Men I read …. Put her in her place.” (Diaz, 300) 

I agree with this statement because, throughout this book, Bevel came across as someone who could not share the spotlight. I think this stemmed in part from his upbringing. After his father died, his mother was solely focused on him. Even when his mother died, because of his reputable name, he was still looked up to and respected by many. Because of this, Bevel could not imagine the attention and respect being shifted to someone else, especially not a woman. We see this in the contempt he had for women getting in on the market. (Diaz, 182) This was ironic seeing as his successful business decisions were decided by Mildred.  

In Vanner’s Bond, Helen’s mind breaking and her death was his attempt to also put her in her place. Her madness started because “she was unable to stop thinking about her thoughts” (Diaz, 85) and to me this made it seem like Vanner was trying to say that she was too smart for her own good. Also, this whole situation started because she had decided to punish herself for her husband’s actions. This was interesting to me because Benjamin was not punishing himself for what he did. 

These two accounts and the way they treated the versions of Mildred portrayed how men thought in those times. We further see this in Ida’s relationship with her father and the type of roles he expects her to play in their household. From this book, we see that men expected women to be at home and have hobbies but not participate in activities affecting the economy. A clear example of this is when Mildred wrote “He felt unmanned, he once said” (Diaz, 386)  in reference to Bevel talking about taking her advice on the stock market. Almost a century later, this sentiment towards women has changed and women are now working all kinds of jobs. However, there is still much improvement to be made in regard to how women are viewed in society.