Novel and Poem

Maria Dahvana Headley's 2018 The Mere Wife is a furious exploration of Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder, race, motherhood, femininity, and consumerism in modern America, framed as a response to the Old English poem Beowulf. Like Simon Armitage's poem, quoted above and discussed further below, it insists on being read in different ways at the same time, with characters and incidents echoing the poem, exploring contemporary issues, having a vibrant life of their own within the social world and fast-moving plot of the novel. In the following discussion, I will argue that Headley presents artistic works and individual selves as profoundly individualized composite constructs. Further, this vision of multiple simultaneity highlights Beowulf's own constructions of individual and collective meaning. Making these suggestions requires a swift sketching out of some theoretical positions I find useful in addressing the complexity of the novel and its characters before more detailed consideration of its key voices and how they oppose one another. At the same time as presenting the interests of The Mere Wife, I will seek to propose interactions with Beowulf. That is, I want – in a perhaps over-ambitious imitation of Headley's achievement – to attempt to think of the novel, the poem, and the theoretical background both on their own and all at once. First, however, I will briefly introduce the novel and some of its resonances with the poem.

In the simplest analysis of The Mere Wife, Dana Mills – a wounded ex-soldier hiding in the mountains with her son Gren – is cast against Willa Herot, a wealthy housewife in the gated community of Herot, and mother to Dylan. I will propose that the contrast between them is Headley's prime vehicle for presenting her argument, and that this opposition is rooted in the two women's differing conceptions of their identities. The Mere Wife offers a revisionist presentation of Beowulf, with Dana most obviously echoing the figure of Grendel's Mother and Willa that of Wealhtheow, queen of Heorot and wife to Hrothgar, king of the Danes.