Do They Succeed?

In both A Woman Killed with Kindness and Bynum’s Holy Feast Holy Fast excerpt, we can see how the line between excessive goods and self-denial can be made to appear to be “godly” or good. For instance, in AWKK, John Frankford has everything he needs to care for his wife, the servants, his estate, and still maintain another: Wendoll. The goods he maintains reflect what is “good,” for Heywood depicts him as the “best” man in the play, in so far as he doesn’t gamble, he’s rich, caring, and honorable. However, Anne’s position brings up the question of whether or not the goods are the means by which we become good or if our goodness is what leads to the means. By this I mean to say that if Bynum depicts women who try to denounce their families using their bodies (and use their eating habits to do so), and Barthelemy Batt depicts women who don’t eat to be “proper,” then how do we deem women as a whole? When they are fasting, are they trying to control their circumstance in life, or are they simply trying to be a dutiful daughter/wife, according to Batt’s prescriptions of a good woman? I think Heywood is trying to say that it is both. Anne fasts in order to redeem herself by her actions. Girls sought spiritual enlightenment and growth through anorexic behaviors; they all sought to control their position in society. Anne wanted to be forgiven and accepted back into her household; she was. Margery Kempe and other Saint like women (or the saints themselves) fasted to have a spiritual experience; I believe some of them did. Others fasted to get out of marriage, at least for at time; they were successful. As such, Heywood is simply using the fasting scene to provoke the same ideas and emotions as women have used for ages: to become good in their actions and to take control of their lives.