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NIKOLA TUTEK
Descriptions of women in "Ihe Albanian Virgin" follow the usual patterns
set in descriptions of patriarchal societies. Women are described as absolutely
subservient to men, separated from them physically and practically. Albanian
women in Munro’s descriptions are simply servants, important for the
functioning of society, but deprived even of the right to decide their own
marriage choices. It is interesting that Munro seemingly makes no comment
on the position of women in traditional Albanian society but a comment is
rather achieved by contrasting the life of Lottar and the liberal lifestyle of the
narrator. However, after reading the story, I was under the impression that
the women from traditional Albanian society found more happiness in life
than the narrator.
Names in “The Albanian Virgin” are extremely important for the analysis
of cultural re-interpretation. First of all, if we accept the idea that Charlotte
and Lottar are one and the same person, then we have to assume that the name
Lottar is, as noted in the story, how the locals heard and interpreted the name
Charlotte. There are two possible problems with this. Firstly, the name Charlotte
exists in the Albanian language, and there it is used as Sharlota or possibly an
Italianised version Karlota (Carlota). There is no reason why the villagers in
Albania, especially in a Catholic village, would have any problem adopting
the name Charlotte. It is possible that, because of the English pronunciation,
the villagers heard only the ending of the name (as it often happens in
communication), which sounded like ‘lot’, and then it became Lottar. There
is a problem with that, too. In the Albanian language, the sound /l/ is written
with double ll (even at the beginning of words), while one / connotes the soft
/K/ sound (palatal lateral approximant; which is not really present English).
Hence, the spelling of the name should be Llottar. Of course, it is possible
that Lottar is short for the already Albanized form of Sharlota. However, the
ending with -r still remains a bit odd as most of the Albanian given female
names follow the (predominant phonetic Indo-European languages’) pattern
of -a/-e/-é endings. If it was Munro’s intention to name her character Lottar
(with the soft /A/ sound in the beginning), there is a possible semantic parallel
to the Albanian word with the root lot- (lot, pl. lotét), meaning teardrop or the
word luftétar meaning fighter. This surely is a bold observation but, I believe,
an interesting one, taking into consideration Munros inclination to literary
characterization through the use of given names.
Similar to Lottar, both Tima and Gjurdhi seem to be invented names not
attested to in the Albanian language. In that respect, the name Gjurdhi is very
interesting because it contains two typically Albanian graphemes gj and dh.
The Albanian word gjunjézuar (from gju(r)-) depicts the adjective kneeling,
and that could be brought into direct connection with Gjurdhi’s previous
life of Franciscan priest. Furthermore, the word dhi depicts a goat. In that
sense, the name Gjurdhi could easily be explained as ‘the kneeling goat.’ This
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