The Bostonians is almost like an allegory of the battle of the sexes. Olive the feminist and Basil the male supremicist engage in a battle of ideology, the battleground being Verena’s heart and mind. Despite Verena’s long indoctrination into feminism by Olive, Verena abandons her feminist commitments to surrender to Basil, a man she knows to be an unabashed anti-feminist. By the end of the novel, it appears that Basil has been right to think that an instinct to exist for nothing but a man’s love would prove to be the most natural and powerful force in Verena’s feminine nature, despite the superficial overlay of feminist ideology. continue reading »