Soeur Louise de la Misericorde

• Soeur Louise is written from the perspective of Louise who is one of Louis XIVs mistresses until she gave up her life to be a nun, strict catholic movement as she became a Carmelite nun
• "I have desired, and I have been desired" past tense and immediately establishes a longing tone
• "Now dust and dying embers mock my fire" remnants of past relationship mock her current one with God
• "Hire for which my life was hired" life feels like it has no purpose as her attraction has dwindled
• "memory a bottomless gulf of mire" when she was in the relationship her desire was endless but impossible to fill but she regrets not having children
• "Rose of life gone all to prickles" life is hurting her and people around her
• "Garden plot to barren mire" her desire stopped her from reaching her full potential and now her life is empty as it once was colourful
• "Oh vanity of vanities, desire" desire is vain and self-centred, lack of progression in life shows she is dissatisfied
• What themes does Soeur Louise link to?

  Outsiders
• The female experience is desirable if young and beautiful, link to Nora treated similarly as something Helmer can negotiate with as settlement for her father's discrepancies
• The value of women by her fertility in comparison to value of man, ties women to home and their children shown in Soeur Louise
• A05: Naomi Wolf's beauty myth "As women released themselves from the feminine mystique of domesticity, the beauty myth took over its lost ground"
• A05: Naomi Wolf's beauty myth "As women released themselves from the feminine mystique of domesticity, the beauty myth took over its lost ground"
• A03: Rosetti's mental health presented her as an outsider as she suffered from depression