Kai’s essay was talking about the story Lean Lisa, before reading the essay I read the story to be able to follow along where Kai will be talking about. In the story Lean Lisa had a pretty stable plan of making more money and exponential growth in their wealth by using a calf and growing and caring for the calf to make big bucks. But her husband, Long Laurence did not agree with this idea and instead of talking to her rationally about what has happened he jumps onto her grabbing her by the arms saying ‘”Wife,” said the man, “be quiet, or I will give thee a blow on thy mouth!”’ and then shaking her till she passed out. Firstly that it is messed up and secondly that it takes a lot to do that, but back to Kai’s point. His point throughout his essay is that ‘how young girls are made fearful of speaking up’ which with how the story is formatted I 100% percent agree with Kai’s point of view. He first brings up one of his sources that the story’s main point and life lesson is being ‘teaching the lesson that too much work can be as bad for a person as too little work.’ I don’t know whether whomever wrote that line to relate to Lean Lisa ever read Lean Lisa, but that is not what happened. This fully shows Kai’s point of view how when someone else reads this story they blatantly ignore what happened and just say in basics ‘Lean Lisa is doing too much.’
Another point I agree with is where in the story Long Laurence only addresses Lean Lisa and ‘wife’ never by her name only mentioning her as her ‘role’ in his life, and also using that language while he threatens her and in his eyes ‘putting her in her place’ never in the story both of these characters state each other in any other way beside their ‘roles’ As well to add to this that after Long Laurence shook her till she passed out, once the next morning came the end of the story points and makes fun of her in a way to put down how she was acting. ‘Whether she continued to wrangle when she awoke next morning, or whether she went out to look for the florin which she wanted to find, that I know not.’ Only pointing out if she continued to argue with her husband or went on with her plan never pointing out how she was abused by this man.
Kai points out more that this story most likely is formatted this way because of the time period this story was written in, coming from the 19th century and women were not treated the best and by that I mean treated horribly. Having the story also written by men as well this leans further into the point that Kai makes of how these actions are seen as normal and how this lesson fits more into the time it was made than with current times. During those time the wife is suppose to be more submissive and follow everything her husband say without batting an eye to it and not speak out against her husband in any form, which is the opposite of what Lean Lisa did in the story while husbands are more assertive and have to be the main leader of the house, which Long Laurence felt was threatened in said story.
The final point that Kai made in his essay is that the formatting of the story is not like how other fairytale ends, while in other fairytale stories have more fun and entertainment into it while in Lean Lisa it ends in a depressing note, after Lean Lisa gets abused from her husband it just ends with the narrator being confused of how Lean Lisa’s life will be from that point forward. There is no happily ever after in the end, just sadness and pain. Kai points out how the ending describes the violent attack on her describing her skinny body and calling her body withered. Along with describing Long Laurence grabbing Lean Lisa arms with one hand showing how much Long Laurence has over the situation and having the story end with no further explanation to what happened just left a chill down my spine.
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