Preston Spivey

11/3/18

Viking Sagas

Blog Post Three: Essie Tregowan, a warning to not stray from gender norms?

In Neil Gaiman’s American Gods a passage is presented about a beautiful and superstitious woman named Essie Tregowan who goes through her early life conforming to the gender roles of 18th to 19th American/British culture. Essie tumbles through her life having some tough breaks yet she always keeps in mind the piskies and hopes that her devotion will give her favor. Eventually Essie is made a widow on a farm and has to step up and run the farm on her own for her family and does very well. Essie strays from the gender norm of this time by being independent and doing the masculine duties of tending the crops and also making sure they are sold at a fair price. Is the story of Essie Tregowan a story of caution to not stray from the gender norms of the time?

Essie’s early life is happy until she strays from the norms of her time and commits adultery. In her early life Ellie is presented as a very superstitious and not particularly driven young woman, when a young squire approaches her she quickly falls for him becoming pregnant and marrying him. Any reflection on Essie herself in the story seems to reference her belief in the “piskies” that she assumes play a pivotal role in her fate. It as a hinted that Essie comes from a family of trouble makers because her father is a “wrecker”, a man who puts out a light for ships by rocks so that he can collect the cargo when they crash. Essie quickly finds trouble when she starts an affair with a man from a neighboring town out of spite for husbands family and is caught with him. Adultery at this time is a crime that can be taken to court and Essie is punished by being forced into transportation and made to go to America and work.

Essie’s independence that she shows by running her deceased husbands farm by farming and negotiating leads to her strange death by the old gods. The second time Essie strays from norms is after she is forced into transportation for a second time, this time a lifetime sentence and is widowed by her master and late husband. Upon her husbands death she takes up the farm work and leads the farm very well, “The farm prospered” (89). Essie is able to overcome the obstacles that are put in front of her as far as the punishment she faces and raises her children on this farm to the best of her ability and leads a very successful farm. Essie seems to be doing well for herself finally and to close out the story she meets her end at the hands of the creature that she has so devoutly served throughout her life. Is Essie’s success independently on the farm tied to the cause of her downfall?

Essie meets her fate after working on her farm by herself for a decade and through mysterious means. A man who’s description is very much like a leprechaun approaches her and is identified as a pisky, she takes his hand and is killed. After all of her devotion towards making sure there was creamy milk out for the piskies why would she be killed by one? Perhaps it is because throughout her life she was given the chance to be a normal housewife but instead chose to steal and commit adultery and be independent straying from the norms of the time period.