Not A Lighter Burden But Broader Shoulders

'16 Scenes of You and Your Dad in Cars' - Jordan Bolton

I put copy in quotation marks because the two artworks are very different. Van Gogh made 21 copies after Millet’s works from the asylum in Saint-Remy, and he called them « translations ».

The original title of the painting posted by op is actually First steps, after Millet.

Here’s the drawing that inspired him :

There's a popular fanfic trope that Eowyn struggles in Gondor at time, and is expected perform femininity in a more ladylike way, but if we look at Eowyn in Rohan, she already is ladylike. She's graceful and gracious and silent and knows all the greetings and ceremonies. She's been raised to be mistress and hostess of the hall and it shows.

She doesn't like it. She's clearly choking on it. It's an expectation that keeps her silent and seething, stuck on the front door steps while the men exchange banter and vows of friendship, but like everything else about Eowyn's role in Rohan, she's good at it. She hates it, but she's good at it. Just like Faramir doesn't naturally care for being a soldier, but is good at it because he can't afford not to be.

Then Eowyn gets to Ithilien. Ithilien is in the middle of being rebuilt, Emyn Arnen itself is probably being rebuilt. There hasn't been a Lady of Ithilien for centuries. Eowyn's got no precise model, no fixed role to live up to. She's got wriggle room, and she arrange for a lot of the domestic work to be done by stewards and chatelaines, overseen by her, maybe, but from a distance. Eowyn's going to be a healer, that takes, and it will be nice to get home after a long day's work to sit by a fire, eat a dinner and sleep in a bed she had very little to do with getting ready.

But the Gondorian nobles, visiting Aragorn's court, that's when it hits her she's got leeway. First, she isn't the hostess of Aragorn's court, she isn't first lady of the city. That's Arwen. Arwen can deal with all that. Second, Minas Tirith has elves in Arwen's train and dwarfs helping Gimli rebuild the city. It's a diverse city, with a mix of cultures and manners. Again, a little more wriggle room.

But also, people expect Eowyn to be wild. The Gondorians don't really know anything about Roha, but from Eowyn we know that she will be seen as the "wild shieldmaiden of the North" that Faramir "tamed". They don't know about how for years Eowyn was the "perfect lady", suffering in silence, nurturing, domestic, utterly without any will of her own but the one she was told to have. All they know is that Eowyn, wild Shieldmaiden that she is, rode into battle in disguise and killed the Witch King himself.

And you know what, when you pull of a feat like that, you get leeway. Maybe some of them say scornfully "well, she's only Rohirrim, we must be generous, we can't expect too much" while others will be like "she slew the Witch King and saved the city, she has some right to be a little wild" and everyone else will be everything in between.

And Eowyn realises this and it's like "hang on, I can set a new 'standard' for what behaviour people expect of me". She can be a bit louder, a bit unruly. She can talk plain, maybe a curse a little. Eomer did, but when Eomer cursed like a fish wife it didn't matter so much, because Eomer rode at the head of an eored and that's how people knew he was a lord and a son of kings. Eowyn only had her manners, her grace, her elegance to show the world her lineage. Now she's the Witch King Slayer, the Lady of the Shield Arm. She doesn't have to be stern and stoic, she doesn't have to be elegant and feminine, she can make a bit of noise and go to the pub and drink beer when the other ladies are drinking wine. It's already expected of her anyway, so why the hell not?

And I think her riding to war in 3019, and her subsequent experiences, represents a permanent break from that. She breaks out of her mold, her cage, it is shattered and through her experiences she expands in such a way that she cannot press herself back into the shape that she was before. She will never be the same sort of Lady of Ithilien the way that she was a Lady of Rohan; because this time, she will be herself. She thrives in some of that leeway that is afforded to her by her reputation as a wild northwoman and a wraithslayer, but I also think she just cares less now. She is now loved for who she is, by her husband, and I think also by her friends like Merry; and also, by those that have finally seen who she really is and have chosen to accept and respect her for it (in my headcanon, I place Elfhelm here, and eventually Éomer also, and probably Lothíriel). I think originally, back in Rohan, her excellence at pressing herself into the shape that was expected of her-- the shape of a beautiful and gracious lady-- was in large part driven by her desire for acceptance and love from a family and culture that didn't quite understand her. She tried the ladylike role, but it never fit, and it never got her the respect and power she wanted. So she tried the masculine route (1), the route of renown and glory, to take back control of her destiny and to, at least as a final act, get the recognition she's been craving. But that doesn't exactly pan out the way she expects, either.

She slays the Witch King, yes, but she does not die, and she comes to rest in the Houses of Healing, where she finally gets the thing she's been craving for most of her life: recognition, love, and acceptance of who she genuinely is. That, I think, is a large part of her healing; and in turn, I think that acceptance drives her confidence to be herself in the next age, along with everything else OP said above. She doesn't go back to the way she was before, because she doesn't need to. And thus, I think she spends the rest of her life blossoming into her full self; a self that is beautiful and gracious in some ways, but also wild and roudy and restless and ungentle in many others.

I think OP is spot on that she will arrange for much of the logistics that go into running a household to be done by others; I think she spends her days doing healer things, wandering the hills of Emyn Arnen, and accompanying Faramir on various errands and adventures. I think Faramir understands who his wife is and never expects her to press herself back into that mold, either.

If you marry a good-time girl

A joyful woman known to her town,

If she is wayward,

and revels in the moment,

do not reject her, but instead let her enjoy;