The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

The Red Tent gives Dinah, who is mentioned only briefly in the Old Testament, a chance to tell her own story. Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob, born of his first wife Leah, was abducted by a Canaanite prince, and as a result her brothers took revenge by… well, I’m not going to tell you everything, just in case you, like me, don’t actually know what happens next. I’ll just say that in this version, Dinah is not abducted or raped: she marries the prince voluntarily, and her family’s actions cause her great grief. I very much appreciate the fact that Anita Diamant was able to do this without erasing the reality of sexual violence and abuse from the story: it's still there, in the lives of other characters.

Even though Dinah is the narrator, the story begins long before her birth. Based on the stories she was told by her mother and aunts in the Red Tent, she tells us about Jacob’s arrival to the lands of her grandfather and about how he came to marry each of his four wives. And what is the Red Tent, you ask? It’s the place women would retreat to during menstruation or childbirth; a place where men were not allowed.

I couldn’t help it: while reading The Red Tent I kept comparing it to Lavinia in my head. Both take women who are mentioned only briefly in their original stories and give them a voice. Both portray societies that were extremely patriarchal and often violent, and yet manage to explore their cracks, their little contradictions, their place of freedom and relief. I think Lavinia does all of this a little better, but then again, there is only one Ursula Le Guin.

Anita Diamant doesn’t dance around the fact that this is a world in which women were considered apt only to cook, clean, and make babies—as many babies as possible, preferably. Childbirth is central to this story, with Dinah, and Rachel before her, becoming midwives. There were many, many scenes that made me extremely grateful for modern medicine and for today’s relatively risk-free pregnancies. But modern medicine is not exactly available in every corner of the world, and women are still often seen as walking wombs. It’s always good to remember how often, and for how for long, childbearing cost women their lives.

There was one aspect of the story I wish had been explored further: I associate women being isolated while they’re menstruating with misogyny, social ostracism, and shame. However, in the first half of the book at least, the women look forward to their days in the Red Tent. There seems to be no shame associated with this isolation, and they see it as an opportunity to rest from their lives of constant work. Later on, though, there’s a shift – we are told that the men are beginning to eye the Red Tent suspiciously, and it’s implied that the path is being opened for menstruation (and women in general) to be demonized. I really wish this process had been more central to the story, as it’s something that really interests me.

I shied away from The Red Tent for years, and I’m not even sure why. Perhaps I assumed that I wouldn’t enjoy it because I’m not familiar with the Old Testament, but that didn’t turn out to be the case at all. While I didn’t love it, and to be honest lost some interest by the third section of the book, I did enjoy it quite a bit, and I’m glad to have read it. Seeing an old story retold from the perspective of those who were originally in the margins is something I’m always interested in.

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Books on the Brain
The Written Word
Book Nut
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everything distils into reading
Naked Without Books!
Regular Ruminations
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