"As a university professor, the lessons he imparts involve encouraging his students to remove themselves from the politics of the city and the tools of human construction to pursue the purity of nature. In doing so, Man muses, they might invoke an innate ability to engage in simply being outside arbitrary institutions of knowledge, such as the university. Man is a good person, or so we hear."
"But the fact was that war had been declared against me [by] a faction of women. They were hysterical and maybe evil, words I could only bring myself to whisper for I knew the politics behind their deployment. Despite his inducements to kindness, fun and joy, Man is let go from work: his views are no longer compatible with the university's. Later still, Wife, his spouse and also a professor at the university, leaves him."
Man embraces neo‑transcendentalism as a university professor who urges students to leave urban politics and human constructions in favor of nature's purity. He promotes being outside arbitrary institutions of knowledge and presents himself as observant and kind, professing a love for women. A faction of women turns against him, his views become incompatible with the university, and he loses his job. Wife, once his student and now a professor, leaves amid tensions over power dynamics, his casual talk of violence, and changing beauty ideals. Depleted and purposeless, Man longs for a return to Nature and is drawn to Helen's self‑sufficient countryside life.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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