The Radcliffe Girl

One of the exciting things about going to Harvard or Radcliffe is that people are always writing about us. The most recent contribution to this steady flow of analysis is Nora Sayre's dated glance at "The Radcliffe Girl" in Holiday magazine.

The author's career at Radcliffe was indeed a trying period--she still seems tense over it. Unfortunately, she assumes that her life here was typical, and that is doubtful indeed. Most 'Cliffies are not morally bullied by dead Puritan ghosts. Few girls I know make "turgid references" to the "totality of experience," nor do many sing themselves "to near collapse" over Bach. Radcliffe is not a four-year trauma for everybody, nor, as Miss Sayres claims, do "even the gentlest girls have turbulent private lives."

Although her own life revolved around the stage and music, Miss Sayre found time to associate with a somewhat bizarre though terribly shoe group. One of her close friends "went to Dylan Thomas' funeral in tight black silk, veiled, and jet earringed, weeping because she never met him." Another grew trees in her room. (A Harvard acquaintance built a fine rampant peacock out of tinker toys as a woman-substitute.) She and her friends "detested" normal girls who wore cardigan sweaters and could discuss sex calmly.

She does mention the problems Radcliffe girls face in maintaining their femininity, especially in the academic world, the sometimes absurd search for imagery and symbolism in many literature courses, and the misery of living in a women's dorm (she is probably accurate here). However, nowhere is the clash of values between upper middle class and upper class girl discussed. Not one sentence is devoted to the determined and self-conscious political activists. And the effect of stiffening academic requirements on Radcliffe's activities is ignored.

Today, extra-curricular activities are not the main interest of the Radcliffe Girl, contrary to Miss Sayre's article. Dating and studies consume most of her time. Most girls also take a serious approach to examinations, an attitude that would have been distasteful to Miss Sayre's set. (One wishes Miss Sayre had spent less effort on acting and more time in her English classes; it might have helped her writing.)

The article is sprinkled with many highly interesting observations which, though largely true, are hardly unique to Radcliffe. Miss Sayre seems to think true love is a Harvard-Radcliffe monopoly--as does most of the bad recent Harvard fiction. But such things as exams, crying, multiple marriage proposals and exposure to intelligence are certainly not peculiar to the 'Cliffe. Even traumas, after all, happen to other people.

In fact, the one thing the article does capture quite clearly is the snobbish sense of superiority and absorption with self which permeates the Harvard-Radcliffe community. The feeling that Harvard is better than any other university goes with a belief that only the feelings of Harvard and Radcliffe people really matter. This is a belief which even the readers of Holiday may not share.