Anyone else sometimes feel totally helpless, totally powerless nowadays? Like you’ve lost any semblance of agency? For any or no reason in particular?
Merriam-Webster describes “agency” as the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power. I often have agency on my mind, more in terms of writing than anything else, much in part as a result of an increase in righteous demand for greater agency for women characters in literature, theatre, film, and other storytelling mediums, and a shift there has been.
An example of this shift might be found in my favorite Arthurian tragedess: Queen Guinevere in Tennyson’s telling is a pawn first given to Arthur for his role in the formation of Camelot and a pawn in the end forgiven by Arthur for her role in the destruction of Camelot (in which, still, she does not actively take part), then in White’s telling is a woman consenting and acting of her own accord, in pursuit of her own dreams, wishes, hopes, and desires. As Guenever gains agency, however, so Lancelot seems to lose it. Tennyson’s Lancelot goes about making choices key to the stories, exerting his power as best suits him and supporting causes ultimately his own; White’s Lancelot commits himself to others’ causes: first Arthur’s, then Guenever’s, and finally God’s (but then also again sort of Guenever’s, and back to God’s, back to Guenever’s, Arthur’s for a blink of an eye near the end, and finally to God’s—there wouldn’t be a story, otherwise).
White’s “ill-made knight” does something no one else’s Lancelot has ever really done: he discovers his love for God and God’s love for him, really and truly. And he seems to lose his agency in the process: he does what God wants, not what he wants. But “not my will but Yours be done”, right?
I joke with my housemates that oftentimes I feel I’ve lost all agency in my life, if ever I had it. I never chose my family; being devastatingly shy, I can’t say I’ve chosen my friends so much as they’ve chosen me; and until very recently, I never really chose where I went to school, which is where I’ve spent a great deal of the last 23 years. I was sent to St. Joseph School for grades K thru 8; then I was sent to Loyola High School; and most recently, I ended up at the University of Notre Dame. Sure, I did the homework myself and sat in the classrooms, but the greater story of the last 23 years happened—and I believe this with all of my heart—because I gave up much of my own agency to and put my faith and trust in both God and, by extension, people I love. I would do everything the exact same way again if it meant I end up right where I am.
Agency is a tricky topic (so, naturally, I just had to choose to write about it), especially for Catholics (Alexa, google “the paradox of free will”). I love when people joke “I don’t have opinions, I’m Catholic” because we don’t have opinions, we have teachings and tradition and prayer and a magisterium and hope and the Gospels and faith in God and [fill-in-the-blank]. In this increasingly individual-centric world, it feels like we seek more and more agency in our own lives (did someone say free will?), yet ultimately, we are called to give it all up to God’s will. I think about the Church’s teaching on predestination and how it’s basically “God predestines all for Heaven but gives us free will so we can have the agency to not do that”. Like, zoinks, Scoob. But is it not agency to choose to give it up to God’s will?
I’m not going to argue that actually, Tennyson’s Guinevere does have agency—she doesn’t, and neither does Arthur because both are unrelatable hyperbole golems of Victorian gender norms and no amount of beautiful poetry changes or challenges that. I want to look at another character famously (supposedly) lacking agency: Disney’s Cinderella. Bear with me.
All know the story: evil step-mother oppresses her into servitude, fairy godmother helps her best the odds for an evening, her mouse friends liberate her from the tower, and the shoe fits. You might be wondering, so, when does Cinderella display agency? Does Cinderella exert power ever? It would appear at first glance that she never, really, does. Rather, she remains quiet in the face of adversity; utterly unmoving amidst the throes of cruelty. “But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer…. But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.” (Matt. 27:12 & 14). I read once, somewhere, that Cinderella fits neither the Innocent or the Lover archetype but embodies a new one: that of the Saint. I am inclined to agree, for what more is she (and what more is a saint?) than a child who finds and clings to the famous peace Christ in the Gospels promises us.
Cinderella exerts no more power than having faith in truth and hope in love.
What more is necessary?
