The Wives Of Bath Maturity Quotes

In The Wives of Bath by Susan Swan, the concept of maturity has everything to do with the recognition of un-education, where in the novel, one can discover a young woman coming of age; Mouse Bradford, who, like all girls her age, just wants to be accepted and respected. She is a young girl who reaches maturity while touching upon the aspects of innocence, identity and sexual maturity. Maturity within the bounds of self-respect is the capacity to reflect, express and act your feelings. “The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations” and this is exactly what we see in Mouse.

In the development of personality, in order to find yourself, you must think of yourself. At the very beginning of the novel

Mouse talks about how people view and feel about her; she makes an interesting reference to Quasimodo the fictional character in the novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo. This character as Mouse describes is “a double-humped, one-eyed creature with legs that
touch at the knees, like sickles,” she refers to this character because children saw him as a monster, which reflects on how she appears monster-like to them. Mouse projects that
she does not “look like Quasimodo, but when children notice” her appearance that is who they see before them. (p.17) What is really interesting in this passage is that Mouse excludes herself from the label ‘children’, as if she is not a child herself. Therefore, she continues, “never mind how nice Quasimodo was in his heart. Children don’t think of that.” One can see that for a child it is very infrequent that they will comment and depicted on such things; it reflects on the acceptance and recognition of identity. In the social wilderness of human existence, there is no feeling of growing without a sense of identity. Further on in the novel, Mouse talks more about her feelings on the way she views reality; Mouse declares that she feels like her “head and body could belong to anybody,” she continues by explaining that she feels other people’s feelings so much, that she cannot tell her emotions from their own. “In terms of an identity, an identity reflects individuality and if there is a quality present, it is recognizable and it can be named. If you cannot name it, it means you don't recognize it.” In this passage Mouse recognizes
that she is “inside a great pile of old stones, and a whole lot of girls are floating around” in there with her. In both these passages one can see that Mouse’s character is growing and also is expressing a great sense of maturity.
Furthermore, sexual maturity is one of the most important aspects of maturity; there is a passage half way through the novel where Mouse says that she feels envy for something “more grand than a penis.” She wanted what her hero, “President Kenny, had: courage, individual style, a life of action, and an intellect.”(p.116) In this passage one can see that Mouse experience adulthood; she’s looking for something deeper then sexual activities.

Clearly, the reader can comprehend that not only Mouse is growing up but she also shows signs of cleverness and understandings into the ways of the world and one can also understand that in every child there remains the adult that will be. Mouse is not mature because of her age, but for her understanding, behaviours and how she

reacts.

Becoming a woman and taking an insight into the ways of the world is also a path leading to growing and maturing.

In the two following examples one can see how Mouse started off not wanting to grow up and at the end of the novel she slowly moved up the latter of becoming a woman. Maturity is a unpleasant disappointment, tolerance is the only method to make you greater, this is demonstrated when Mouse goes to the nurse and discusses her kyphosis with the nurse; Mouse says that kyphosis affects her development, and may lead to her never having her period. She heard “down the corridor,” which is a symbolism of growing up, “silly girls whispering like idiots.” (p.46) Mouse was mostly frustrated by their actions, but as a mature child she still accepted her underdevelopment, maybe she could not develop physically as fast as the others but mentally Mouse is very understanding and acceptant. At the end of The Wives of Bath Mouse is even more acceptant of herself, she showed major signs of growth and movement, she says that she is “mostly grown-up now” and that being “a girl is the most difficult thing on God’s green earth, it is not half bad once you get the hang of it.”(p.236) The Novel concludes with Mouse saying that they inspired her to be Mouse Bradford and that is how she intends to live, as herself and nobody else. Therefore, this portrays how far Mouse came from and how she grew up physically and because stronger

mentally.
To conclude, the reader now recognizes that Mouse Bradford is a young female who wants to be accepted and respected in society. She is a young girl who reaches maturity through the face of innocence, this was seen through the acceptance of her individuality, sexual maturity and becoming a woman; maturity is the capacity to tolerate uncertainty, which Mouse undoubtedly showed through out this novel.

Work Cited

Swan, Susan. The Wives of Bath, New York: Knopf, 1993. Print.
"Famous Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2014.

"Synonyms and Antonyms of Words." Www.thesaurus.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2014.